Page 70 of The Alien Warrior's Heart

Zar wished he could do more for her. He sensed Si-Moon’s chaos and upheaval. He could do nothing but hold her, center her, until she could find her footing.

“I shot him in the leg,” she said quietly. “I didn’t have the courage to shoot him in the heart. It was what I planned. What I’d trained myself for. I spent hours at the arcade, playing that one gunfight game, practicing. I was supposed to kill him. But I didn’t. I didn’t have the guts.”

He soothed her back. “My heras, you only protected yourself.”

“No.” There was so much anger in her voice that his spine dagger itched to unleash, triggered by his mate’s agony. “No, it wasn’t about protection. I wanted him to bleed. I wantedmyhand to be the one that ended him.”

She pulled back. Light bounced over her dark brown skin and in her beautiful eyes. Those eyes were the bottomless abyss in which Zar drowned.

“I understand that rage, Zar. And I see it amplified in you. That’s what scares me. Because shooting my father that day didn’t solve anything. He stopped hitting me, but I was always angry and afraid. I was so empty.” She touched his chest. “And the anger inside you, it crowds me. It reminds me of that pain.”

“The Heronas,” his jaw clenched, “they killed my father.”

“I know. And I’m sorry.”

“They tortured him before…” Zar glanced aside, trying not to think about his father’s body lying in the grass. “They deceived us.”

“Did you find the Heronas who did it?”

He dipped his chin once. “I hunted each of them down and made them pay.”

The methods were cruel and malicious. If Si-Moon knew about the lengths he’d gone for revenge, she would probably balk.

He had uncovered a vulnerable side of her today and, though she acted big, brave and untouchable, she was just as fragile on the inside as her body was on the outside.

“Zar,” she rubbed his knuckles, “I can’t love someone with so much anger. Your rage…” She gestured to her temple. “It’s going to consume you. It builds and builds until it destroys everything. Whenever I see that anger in you, I’m dragged back to that time in my life where everything around me was scary and painful. And it frightens me that one day, you might take that anger out on me.”

Zar frowned. “Never.”

He would die before he put his hands on a female—any female—but especially his mate. She was his highest priority. The most valuable thing in the world to him.

“More than that,” Si-Moon turned, “you deserve to be free. The Heronas who killed your father are dead and you’re still on the rampage. You’re still on the mission. Even those who don’t deserve your anger, like Chozo—”

“He is Heronas.”

“He is akid,” she stressed. “One who was mistreated and abused just like me. One who had a stand-in parent who didn’t love them. Can’t you see that he’s different? Can’t you… be at peace.”

“I will be at peace when all Heronas are dead.”

“They are. They’re dying out.” She tilted her chin up as she said, “And when they’re all gone, what will you have left?”

The question echoed in his mind.

When they’re all gone, what will you have left?

Nothing.

He would have nothing.

Zar gritted his teeth as fear wound its way around his throat. Without revenge, who would he be? What would he do?

Si-Moon raised her body and pressed a soft, gentle kiss to his lips. “I don’t want my past to have so much control over me. I don’t want to be held captive by what damaged and broke me. I want a future.” She pulled her lips back and nervously admitted, “I want a future with you, Zar. That rage, that fury, it’s going to consume you and it’ll take me with it. Please. Let’s fight that darkness together.”

Choose me.It was what his mate cried out from the depths of her heras. It rang in her brown eyes that glistened like marbles. In her lips that she chewed between her blunt white teeth. In the fingers that rolled over his muscular shoulders and down to his abs.

Choose me.

Zar captured Si-Moon’s lips. She smelled like something familiar and yet so special and new. His mouth grazed her jaw and up to her ear. He tasted the salt that the leaking liquid had left on her cheeks.

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