Page 41 of Tempted By the Alien Warrior

“Will you tell me what happened, and let me decide for myself?” There’s no judgement in her voice. No fear. Just a simple request.

The words hang between us, and for a heartbeat, I’m tempted to say nothing. I could change the subject, bury it like I’ve buried everything else. But something shifts in me then. Something in the way she’s looking at me makes the weight of my silence unbearable. I don’t want to carry these secrets anymore. The weight of who I’ve become.

She deserves the truth. Even if it destroys whatever fragile connection has begun to grow between us. Even if it means watching her face twist with disgust. Even if it breaks me.

I lean forward and meet her gaze. The words rise from somewhere deep, scraping their way out, raw and jagged.

“I’m a traitor.”

13

Emily

Vrok’s wordshang in the air between us.

The silence stretches, thick and suffocating, broken only by the occasional drip of water from outside. Each drop lands like a drumbeat in my ears, ratcheting up the tension that’s settled in the pit of my stomach like a ball of acid.

I can’t look away from him.

He sits with his shoulders slumped, as if the weight of his confession has physically broken something in him. A strong, fearless warrior brought low not by a wound, but by the shame that’s been festering inside him.

I should probably be wary of him—it’s not liketraitoris a light word or anything—but I’m not. Not even a little. Instead, all I feel is the overwhelming urge to reach out and take that crushing weight from his shoulders. To tell him he’s not alone in it.

“Tell me what happened,” I say softly. My voice is steady despite the storm of emotions brewing inside me. “Please.”

Vrok’s eyes flick up to mine, only for a heartbeat, before dropping again. His jaw tenses, the muscles twitching like he’s fighting himself.

But then he exhales, long and low, and it’s almost like something inside him shifts.

“I followed him,” Vrok begins. “One night, I saw him leave the village after everyone else had gone to sleep. He’d done it before, but this time, I don’t know why, I just had to know where he was going. So, I followed my father into the jungle.”

As he speaks, his eyes lose focus, like he’s not here with me in this cave, but back in the jungle on that dark night, trailing the person he trusted most in the world. I hold my breath, afraid that if I move, if I say the wrong thing, he’ll retreat back into silence.

“He met with the Pugj.”

A cold chill races down my spine.

“I watched him talk to them. Laugh with them like they were old friends. Like they weren’t the ones who had captured our males, tortured them…atethem.”

His hands clench into fists where they rest on his thighs, the knuckles turning almost white. “After they left, I confronted him and demanded answers, and do you know what he said?”

I shake my head, my throat too tight to speak. Every word sounds like it’s being scraped from somewhere deep inside him, where it’s festered too long.

“He said I didn’t understand. That it was for the good of our people. That it was my duty to protect his secret.” His voice turns bitter and hard. “He told me Iowedhim my silence. And I—” He breaks off and shakes his head. “I obeyed. Like a trained eponir.”

Guilt and self-loathing are etched into every harsh line of his face. His gaze drops, as if he's too ashamed to meet my eyes. Pain radiates off him, thick and heavy, and I can feel it pressing intomy chest like I’m suffocating under it. I want to do something, anything, but I don’t know how to ease what’s tearing him apart.

“I didn’t tell anyone. I let it happen. I letallof it happen. The suffering, the Tussoll. The ambush on Sorrin’s team when they went to search for the other humans. That was all my fault. I knew he was sharing information with our enemies, and I didn’t stop it. Because I’m a traitor.”

The silence that follows is thick enough to choke on. I can hear the faint buzz of insects from outside the cave, like the world doesn’t care I’m still reeling from his words. I stare at him, stunned, as his words sink into me.

He truly believes he’s a traitor. That what he did is no different from his father’s betrayal. My chest aches with the weight of that, with how deeply he believes it. That this is all his fault. That he’s the villain in this story.

Vrok sits there refusing to look at me and quietly glaring at his clenched fist like they’ve personally offended him. His jaw is locked so tight I half-expect to hear something crack. He looks like a man waiting for a verdict he’s already convinced himself he deserves.

After everything I’ve seen—his loyalty and the way he shields me like it’s instinct, not duty—I can’t reconcile that male with the one he’s describing. Not even close. Sure, he’s got the whole grumpy, stone-faced warrior thing down to an art, but a traitor? No. That’s not Vrok.

“You think that makes you a traitor?” My voice comes out sharp and thick with disbelief.

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