Page 14 of Claimed By the Alien Assassin
I brace?—
The impact never comes.
Again.
Arms close around me, hard and fast, a cage of steel and muscle that halts my momentum like a tractor lock. My breath punches out in a gasp, more surprise than pain, as the world tilts and rights itself in a blur of stale air and flickering neon.
I’m not touching the floor. I’m not sprawled in blood or bruises.
I’m in a lap.
Hislap.
Same chair. Same stupid, impossible bar.
My hands curl instinctively into his coat, rough-textured and smelling like smoke and something sharp beneath—metal and something older, something not-quite-human. His chest rises and falls against my back, slow and steady like the galaxy doesn’t get a vote in how fast his heart beats.
His arms don’t move. He holds me like I’m precious. Like I’m breakable.
Like I’m his.
Around us, the bar goes quiet. Real quiet. Not even a glass clinks. The laughter dies in throats like it’s been poisoned. All I hear is the buzz of flickering signage, the breath wheezing out of Krigg’s lungs, and the drumbeat of my own pulse behind my ears.
My face is burning. Again. But it’s not shame this time. Not entirely.
There’s something else.
I tilt my head back, trying not to look too obvious about it, but it doesn’t matter. His eyes are already locked on mine. They glow faintly—just a shimmer beneath the image inducer, like a crack in reality. Like there’s something ancient looking out through a borrowed face.
Dayn.
I should say something clever. Or grateful. Or at least angry that I keep getting launched like a dodgeball.
But all that comes out is a whisper.
“Help me.”
His gaze doesn’t shift. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t soften. But something in itchanges.A depth opens up I hadn’t seen before, and I feel it like a drop in cabin pressure—this jolt in my gut, like the universe just clicked into place.
“I’m serious,” I murmur, because I have to keep talking or I’ll drown in the silence. “Everyone else is too scared or too busy ortoo… small. But you—” I swallow, “—you caught metwice.That has to mean something, right?”
He still doesn’t say anything.
I lean forward, still half-cradled in his lap like a story I haven’t finished telling. I whisper close to his ear, hoping no one else hears what comes next. “Snowblossom was my fresh start. My only shot to build something that mattered. They can’t just take it.”
He inhales through his nose. Just once.
It’s not dramatic. It’s not even loud.
But it’s final.
He sets me gently on my feet—again—and stands beside me. His hand grazes my lower back as he does, a barely-there touch, but I feel it like a brand. He turns to Krigg, who’s wisely decided to backpedal toward the nearest exit like he’s being pulled on strings.
Dayn doesn’t follow.
He just looks at me.
Not the way most mercs do. Not like I’m a distraction or a weakness or a notch in a nonexistent belt. He looks at me like I’m… gravity. Like the stars might shift if I said the right word.
