Page 54 of Tempted By the Alien Warrior

Emily exhales sharply, and her fingers begin to move again, tracing over the scar. Her touch is gentler and slower now.

“He rubbed dirt into it after. He said it would harden me. I spent two days with a fever when it got infected. But I learned, didn’t I?” I try to keep the bitterness out of my voice, and I mostly succeed.

I can feel Emily shaking her head where it rests on my shoulder. “You were a kid. He was supposed to protect you, not hurt you.”

“He didn’t see it that way,” I say. “To him, softness was a weakness. Pain was a tool. And I was supposed to become something sharp enough to survive anything.”

There’s a pause, long and thick with silence. Then she reaches up and gently cups my jaw, turning my face down until I’m forced to meet her gaze.

“You’re not weak. You were a child who deserved to be treated with love, not cruelty.”

Her eyes shimmer with unshed tears. Tears forme.For the kitling I used to be.

It’s a strange thing, being seen like this. Not as a warrior or a danger or a disgrace to the tribe, but just a male. Just me. A wounded young kitling who bled and remembered.

Her words echo in my head, and there’s a small part of me that’s starting to wonder if she’s right. I’ve spent so long blaming myself. I wasn’t fast enough, smart enough, strong enough. But maybe I did deserve better. Maybe my father wasn’t making me strong. Maybe he was breaking something in me I’ve spent so long trying to hold together.

I want to say something light to chase the heaviness away. I wish I had Sorrin’s charm or Draggar’s gentleness, but I don’t. All I can do is pull her closer, bury my face in the curve of her neck, and breathe her in like she’s something sacred.

Because to me, she is.

After a while, she whispers against my ear, “You’re not your father, Vrok.”

A knot rises in my throat. I swallow hard, but it stays there, thick and burning. “I know, but some days, I still hear his voice louder than my own.”

“Then I’ll help you drown it out. One word at a time,” she says.

I pull back just enough to see her face again. Her eyes are soft gray like the dawn of a new day, and they lock onto mine with a strength that steadies me. My hand finds her cheek and my thumb brushes over the curve of her jaw. She leans into the touch, and in the quiet stillness between us something shifts.

Our lips meet in a kiss that’s soft. There’s no heat, no urgency. Just a quiet promise between us. It’s slow and reverent, like we’re both afraid to break the moment. Her breath hitches. My hand stays at her cheek, holding her there like she might vanish if I let go.

When we part, she rests her forehead against mine. We stay like that for a long moment, staring into each other’s eyes in the faint light, our breaths mingling together.

Then, reality crashes back in with the angry squawk of a lisek somewhere in the branches overhead.

Emily lets out a quiet huff of a laugh and pulls back. “Guess that’s our cue.”

My lips twitch. “Sounds like it,” I murmur, reluctantly letting her go.

I watch as she combs her fingers through the tangled strands of her hair, smoothing it back from her face and quickly braiding into one long plait that reaches down just past her shoulder. Even in the gray world of a new day, her golden tresses seem to give off their own light. One that would rival the sun itself.

I clear my throat, trying to pull myself back to the task ahead. “We should reach the nesting grounds later today.”

That gets her attention, and Emily nods, already reaching for her boots. “Then let’s go.”

We eat a quick meal of bilb berries, their sweetness bursting on my tongue, but my mind is elsewhere. My thoughts keep drifting to last night, to the feel of her arms around me and her mouth on me. And to earlier and the quiet pain in her voice. To the way she looked at me like I wasn’t damaged or weak. Like I never was.

By the time we’re ready to leave, the sky has already begun to lighten with streaks of orange and pink bleeding into the deep blue overhead. Mist curls off the surface of the lake nearby, drifting in soft tendrils through the trees. The water is still and glassy, reflecting the colors of the sky like a polished stone.

We make our way around the winding lake shore. The air is thick with humidity, clinging to my skin just as memories of the night before cling to my thoughts.

Neither one of us speaks of it. We don’t have to, but it’s there.

In the way Emily’s fingers brush against mine as we walk. In the glances she sneaks when she thinks I’m not looking, and in the way I’m always looking. The silence between us is comfortable, but it crackles with something unspoken. Something that feels fragile and new.

Emily walks beside me, her stride more certain now than ever before. She’s still the same female who unchained me back in the village, but now, she moves like someone who’s not just surviving anymore. She’s fighting. For herself and for others.

And then a distant screech splits the air.

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