Chapter 1: Gettin' Stuck and Fucking in the Vines
The simulation chamber hissed, the sterile metal walls dissolving into a thousand points of light before coalescing into the deep, wet green of a rainforest. The air grew thick, carrying the scent of petrichor and decaying leaves. A steady, warm drizzle beaded on Lace’s flight suit.
She hadn’t expected company.
“Program: Galra patrol evasion. Dense terrain. Level six,” she called out, her voice echoing slightly in the digital canopy. The towering trees groaned, their branches weaving together into a tighter lattice overhead. Perfect.
“An interesting choice for a solo session,” a smooth voice remarked from behind her.
Lace stiffened, turning to see Lotor leaning against a now-mossy console, his arms crossed. He was already in his training gear, white hair stark against the emerald gloom. “The paladins are asleep. I logged extra hours. This is my time.”
“And I require a partner for advanced tactical drills. Your program suits my needs.” He pushed off the console, his boots sinking slightly into the soft, synthetic earth. “Unless you fear being outperformed.”
She bristled. “I don’t fear you. I just don’t trust you. Son of Zarkon, waltzing in here, playing ally.”
A faint, unreadable smile touched his lips. “Then consider this reconnaissance. You can study my techniques up close. Look for flaws in my story.”
It was a challenge, and Lace never backed down. She jerked her head toward the mist-shrouded path. “Fine. But you follow my lead. And try to keep up.”
The simulation began in earnest. Red markers flickered on her visor—approaching drone sentries. They moved, a tense, silent partnership. Lace was agile, using the low branches and slippery rocks to her advantage. Lotor was different—a study in efficient, powerful motion. He didn’t just evade; he redirected, using the environment as a weapon, snapping vines to trip drones, using the mud to slide beneath laser fire.
It was infuriatingly impressive.
“Incoming from the west ridge,” Lotor stated calmly, not even breathless.
“I see them!” Lace scaled a rocky incline, the simulated rain making the stone treacherous. She reached the top, pivoted to fire a simulated rifle blast at the hovering drone—
A boot slid on mud.
It wasn’t hers.
Lotor, coming up behind her, lost his footing. His balance shifted, his body colliding with hers. The impact knocked the air from her lungs. They tumbled backward, not off the rock, but into a thick curtain of ropy, gnarled vines that hung like a net from a colossal tree. The fall was a short, jarring chaos of limbs and grunts before the vines caught them, snapping taut like rubber bands.
They swung, then stilled, trapped in a tangled web.
“Get off,” Lace gritted out, her face pressed against the damp fabric of his chest. The vines were wrapped tightly around them both, pinning his torso against hers, their legs entangled.
“I am endeavoring to,” Lotor replied, his voice strained. He tried to shift, but the movement only made the vines creak and tighten. The more he struggled, the more the digital plants seemed to constrict, holding them fast in a reluctant embrace. The drizzle soaked through their suits.
“Stop moving! You’re making it worse.” Lace wriggled an arm free, pushing against his shoulder. “We need to find a loose point. Work together. On three, push against the vine at your lower back. One, two—”
They pushed. The bundle gave a little, then settled. Lace let out a frustrated sigh. The position was absurdly intimate. She could feel the solid plane of his chest, the beat of his heart—or was that hers? The humid air seemed to get hotter.
“Again,” she commanded. “And move your hips to the left when I push.”
She initiated the motion, a grinding, twisting effort to create friction and slack. She rocked against him, focused solely on the mechanics of escape. Push, twist, slide. The coarse vines scraped against her back.
After a few seconds, Lotor went completely still.
“Why’d you stop? Push, damn it!”
He was silent. She felt his breath hitch. Then, she felt it.
A firm, insistent pressure against the junction of her thighs, unmistakable even through the layers of their gear. Heat flooded her face, then pooled low in her stomach. Her own breath caught.
“I… apologize,” Lotor said, his voice a low rasp, stripped of its usual cool control.
The apology, the vulnerability in his tone, did something to her. The initial shock melted into a sharp, unwelcome thrill. She was supposed to be repulsed. She was supposed to yell.
Instead, she found the loose point in the vines. A little more wriggling and they’d be free. But now, hyper-aware of every point of contact, the act of freeing herself became something else entirely. Every shift of her hips to gain leverage rubbed her core against that hard ridge. A soft, involuntary sound escaped her lips.
His hands, which had been braced against the vines, slid down to grip her hips. Not to stop her. To guide her. The intention was a lightning bolt.
She looked up, meeting his eyes. The calculated calm was gone, replaced by a raw, hungry intensity that mirrored the fire in her own veins. Any protest died. She moved again, a deliberate, slow roll this time, and watched his eyes darken.
The vines finally slackened. With a final, forceful twist, they spilled onto the soaked forest floor, a tangle of limbs and released tension.
Lotor moved first. In a blur, he reversed their positions, pinning her beneath him on the damp moss. No words. Only the drumming of the rain and the sound of their ragged breathing. His mouth crashed down on hers. It wasn’t gentle; it was a claim, all teeth and desperate hunger, and she answered with equal ferocity, her hands fisting in his hair.
Her flight suit zipper hissed down under his hands. He pushed the material off her shoulders, baring her to the warm, artificial rain. Her own fingers clawed at the fastenings of his gear, shoving fabric aside until skin met skin. The heat of him was a shock against the cool air.
He kissed a burning trail down her throat, over her collarbone, lower. When his mouth closed over her breast, tongue circling her nipple, she arched off the ground with a gasp. Every thought, every suspicion, was drowned out by sensation.
He moved lower, his hands hooking under her knees. The first touch of his tongue to her core made her cry out. He was merciless, skilled, mapping her with an intimacy that felt like a violation and a revelation all at once. She writhed, her fingers tangling in his white hair, pressure coiling tight and desperate inside her.
“Lotor—” His name was a plea.
He understood. He rose over her, his frame blocking the fake sky. For a moment, he paused, his gaze holding hers. The vulnerability was back, laid bare. Then he positioned himself, the broad head of his cock pressing against her entrance.
He sank into her with one deep, relentless thrust.
The fullness stole her breath. A sharp, perfect stretch that melted into a wave of blinding pleasure. He groaned, a raw, unfiltered sound against her neck.
Then he began to move. It was a punishing, rhythmic pace on the hard, unyielding ground. Each slam drove her into the moss, each withdrawal left her aching. She met him thrust for thrust, her nails scoring down his back. The world narrowed to this: the slap of skin, the slick friction, the choked sounds torn from both of them. The simulation around them—the rain, the forest, the war—it all faded into a meaningless haze.
It was anger, and distrust, and a blinding, inconvenient attraction, and it all combusted into this single, driving need. Faster, harder, deeper. She felt the coil within her snap, a silent, shattering release that clenched around him. His rhythm faltered, and with a final, deep grind, he followed her over, his body shuddering as he spilled inside her.ki
His rhythm faltered, and with a final, deep grind, he followed her over, his body shuddering as he spilled inside her.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of the rain and their ragged, mingled breaths. The heat between them was a living thing. Then, driven by a hunger that felt bottomless, she moved. He let her roll him, his hands sliding to her hips as she straddled him, the vines long forgotten. The new angle was deeper, more consuming. She set a frantic pace, riding him with a fierce abandon that burned away every coherent thought. Her head fell back, her body a perfect arc of sensation.
She watched his face—the parted lips, the flutter of his pale eyelashes, the utter loss of control. It was the most real thing she’d ever seen from him. Her own climax began to crest, a brilliant wave gathering force.
“Lace—” His voice was a broken thing.
His hands clamped on her hips, holding her down as he thrust up one final, searing time. He peaked with a sharp, guttural cry, his release triggering her own. A shattered moan tore from her throat, pleasure blinding her as the world dissolved into white light.
“Simulation complete. Session duration exceeded. Deactivating in ten… nine…”
The robotic, female voice sliced through the haze like a blade.
The warm rain vanished. The scent of moss and earth disappeared, replaced by the sterile, metallic tang of recycled air. The forest floor became cold, unyielding metal. The sudden, harsh light of the simulation deck’s overhead panels stabbed at their eyes.
They froze.
Lace looked down. Lotor looked up. The raw intimacy in his gaze vanished, shuttered behind a wall of cold, swift calculation. It was like watching a fortress slam its gates.
Without a word, she scrambled off him, the physical separation feeling like a tearing. He stood in one fluid motion, turning his back. The silence was deafening, broken only by the rustle of fabric and the frantic hiss of zippers. She fumbled with her flight suit, her fingers clumsy and numb. He was dressed before she even got her arms through the sleeves.
He didn’t look at her. He simply strode to the door, his posture rigid, and was gone.
Lace finished dressing, her heart hammering a sick, frantic rhythm against her ribs. She all but ran to her room, the castle’s corridors a blur. The door hissed shut behind her, and she slumped against it, sliding to the floor.
Reality crashed in, cold and ugly.
Oh, god. Oh, no.
She had just fucked Lotor.
The son of Zarkon. The enemy. The man with the smile that never reached his eyes, who spoke in riddles and watched everyone like they were pieces on a board.
The man Allura looked at with a fragile, hopeful trust that made Lace’s stomach twist with a new, shameful jealousy.
“What did I do?” she whispered to the empty room. Her skin still felt alive where he’d touched her, a traitorous memory. She could still smell him on her. She shoved herself up and stumbled to the shower, turning the water as hot as it would go, scrubbing until her skin was raw. It didn’t help. The feeling was under her skin. In her bones.
Across the castle, in the guest quarters that were his gilded cage, Lotor stood perfectly still before the observation window, staring at the stars.
His face was a mask of cold fury.
Idiot. Sentimental, primitive fool.
The mission parameters had been clear. Infiltrate. Gain trust. Allura’s trust. She was the key. The princess, the heart of the coalition, the one with the access codes and the strategic influence. His father’s orders were not subtle: seduce the princess, compromise her loyalties, extract the location of the quintessence rift.
He had been executing it with precision. The shared glances. The thoughtful conversations on Altean history. The carefully displayed flashes of noble pain.
And now he had ruined it. For what? For a few minutes of mindless friction with a hot-headed, suspicious Blue Paladin who hated him? He, a master strategist, an imperial prince, had been undone by his own base physiology. By a girl with fierce eyes and a sharper tongue, who moved with a battlefield’s grace.
He had not just compromised the mission. He had introduced a catastrophic variable. Lace was not a calculated risk; she was a live wire. She didn’t trust him. Now, she had a secret. And secrets were leverage. They were weakness.
He slammed a fist against the reinforced glass, the impact shuddering up his arm. The stars outside did not care.
He had given her a piece of him. The one part he kept locked away—the raw, unfiltered want. And in doing so, he had handed her a weapon. All she had to do was decide to use it.
The mission was still active. Allura was still the target. But the path was now littered with the debris of his own failure. He took a deep, steadying breath, the soldier’s discipline forcibly reasserting itself. He would continue. He would adapt.But as he turned from the window, the ghost of Lace’s cry of pleasure echoed in the silent room, a haunting reminder that some breaches could not be so easily sealed
He would adapt. But as he turned from the window, the ghost of Lace’s cry of pleasure echoed in the silent room, a haunting reminder that some breaches could not be so easily sealed.
The next day, they acted like it never happened.
In the training deck, Lace was all aggressive precision, firing at drones with a little too much focus. Lotor was a statue of calm analysis, discussing shield modulation algorithms with Pidge. Their paths crossed near the armor bay.
“Paladin,” he said, with a neutral nod, the very picture of detached civility.
“Lotor,” she returned, her voice flat, not breaking stride as she grabbed her helmet. No eye contact. Just two professionals in a shared space.
It was a performance, and they were both committed to the run.
However, even as the week went on, Lotor was still seeing Lace in his dreams and in multiple fantasies he had of her. It was an infestation. During a tactical briefing on Galra supply routes, he’d watch her tap a stylus against her lower lip and suddenly, violently, his mind would conjure the memory of how that lip had felt under his teeth. The scent of her sweat, synthetic rain and something uniquely her, would flood his senses in the middle of a sterile corridor. Some nights he would wake in a cold sweat, heart hammering, body tense and completely hard. He’d pace the length of his quarters, reciting Galra battle theorems or the chemical composition of quintessence, forcing the heat from his blood. He thought it was a weakness, a bizarre glitch in his usually impeccable control. He thought he was the only one being affected.
However, meanwhile, Lace had become used to waking up at night with her cunt completely soaked from a dream she had of Lotor. It was infuriating. She’d stare at the dark ceiling of her bunk, the phantom feel of his hands on her hips a brand. She’d take cold showers. She’d run extra laps in the training ring until her muscles screamed. Nothing worked. The dreams were fragments—the rasp of his voice in her ear, the shocking warmth of his skin against hers, the look on his face in that final, shattered second before the simulation ended. She’d clench her fists, angry at her own body for its betrayal. It was just biology, she told herself. A stress response. It meant nothing.
A week after the simulation, they found themselves paired again, this time by Allura herself for a simple systems check on a remote sensor array on the castle’s lower hull. It was close, mechanical work in a quiet service corridor.
“Hold this conduit,” Lotor said, his voice all business. She held the housing, her fingers brushing his. A static jolt, or something like it, traveled up her arm. Neither acknowledged it.
The silence was thicker than the castle’s insulation.
“Your technique in the forest simulation,” he said suddenly, his eyes fixed on the wiring he was splicing. “Your lateral movement is predictable after the third evasive maneuver. You favor the left.”
Lace bristled, gripping the conduit tighter. “My left side has better shielding. It’s tactical.”
“It’s a pattern. Patterns are exploitable.” He finished the splice, his movements efficient. “A skilled opponent would anticipate it.”
“Are you offering tips, Prince Lotor?” she asked, her tone sharp. “Trying to improve the weapons of your potential enemies?”
He finally looked at her, his gaze cool and appraising. “I am offering an observation. The enemy already knows. I’ve seen the combat data from your last three engagements with Zakron’s sentries. They adapt. You do not.”
It was a legitimate critique. It stung because it was true. Her anger deflated, replaced by a prickling shame. “I’m working on it.”
“Work faster.” He turned back to the panel. “Sentiment has no place in survival. Neither does pride.”
The words hung in the cramped space. Was he talking about battle? Or about the way they were both meticulously ignoring the elephant in the room? Lace felt a fresh wave of heat, this time pure frustration.
“You know,” she said, the words coming out in a low, casual rush she didn’t fully plan, “for a guy who talks a big game about patterns and adaptation, you’re pretty one-note yourself.”
His hands stilled. “Explain.”
“The noble, misunderstood prince act. The ‘I’m here to help, just trust me’ vibe. It’s getting stale. Maybe you should adapt.”
He turned slowly. The controlled mask was there, but she saw the flicker in his eyes—danger, intrigue, maybe both. The air between them crackled, heavy with everything unsaid. The memory of his weight, his mouth, his hands, pressed in on them from all sides.
“You think it’s an act,” he stated.
“I think everything with you is an act.”
He took a single step closer. The corridor seemed to shrink. She could see the fine lines of fatigue around his eyes, the same ones she saw in her own mirror. He wasn’t sleeping either.
“Perhaps you see what you wish to see, Paladin,” he murmured, his voice dropping so only she could hear it. “A simple, clear-cut villain. It makes your world easier to navigate, does it not? No messy complications. No… distractions.”
Her breath hitched. Distractions. The word was a caress and a weapon.
Before she could fire back, the comm in her ear chirped. “Lace? You and Lotor finished up down there? We need a hand in the hangar with the pod calibrations.” It was Hunk, his voice cheerful and oblivious.
The spell shattered. Lotor took a deliberate step back, the enigmatic prince sliding seamlessly back into place.
“The array is secure,” he said, his voice normal volume again, polite and empty. He gathered his tools. “After you.”
Lace moved past him, her shoulder nearly brushing his chest. For a half-second, she paused. “For the record,” she whispered, not looking at him. “I hate predictable patterns, too.”
She walked away, leaving him alone in the corridor. Lotor didn’t move for a long moment. He stared at the now-sealed panel, his mind not on sensors or wiring, but on the defiant flash in her eyes, the unspoken challenge.
It was no longer just a memory, a phantom. It was a live wire. And she was right. He was becoming predictable. To her. To himself.
This was a problem. A catastrophic, intoxicating problem.
And for the first time, a part of him, a part he ruthlessly suppressed, wasn’t interested in finding a solution.