Page 38 of Claimed By the Alien Assassin
“You okay with this?” he asks, voice low.
I smile tear-bright. “I’m terrified.”
He shifts to wrap me against him, my head resting beneath his chin. “Good.”
“Why?” I press, voice trembling.
“Because it means you’re human.”
I laugh, soft and trembling. “I’m not sure that’s comforting.”
He strokes my hair. “You’re more human than anyone I’ve ever met.”
Silence settles, deep and luminous, our bodies dim magnets among the ruins of the workshop. There’s no false hope left. Everything’s bare: our love, our fears, our scars. But we’re together.
I shift, hand slipping under his. “We stake our claim on this, then. Paths set in stone.”
He hums low. “Paths,” he echoes. Then softly: “Together.”
I lean up, kissing him slow, worshipfully—every star birth and cataclysm summarized in that press of lips.
When we break, he whispers: “I would burn kingdoms to keep you.”
My answer is hush: “Then let’s fan the flame.”
And in that morning glow, between myth and mission, hope sparks eternal.
CHAPTER 10
DAYN
Night air presses like a vise around my lungs—cold, biting, laced with the scent of burned resin and anticipation. The world beyond the supply hub glimmers in electric whispers from distant watch towers, their glow a reminder that we’re walking into the Vortaxians’ jugular.
The ceremonial supply tree—an aberration masked as a tribute—is taller than any sapling should be, girdled in racks and strung with crates of everything from synthesized food to weapon parts. Tonight, we’re turning it into a funeral pyre.
I stand in the shadows by the gnarled roots, listening: the rasp of breath behind me, Josie’s soft shift. She leans close; I swallow. Her perfume—cinnamon and machine oil—is a tangible vow. I nod.
She gives me the nod back. We move together.
No signal. We slip through guards like ghosts—me, sculpted by years of silent death; my people, born under a mandate of stealth. And then we reach the cache.
I kneel to plant incendiary charges along the neural conduits. They sparkle against the intricate runes—protection sigils I won’t waste on ghosts of imperial pride. My gloved fingers trace the circuits, and my pulse drums in sync with every spark.
A soft hiss. My tail—stripped from concealment—flicks, brushing the rough bark. My blood hums, electric. Purpose.
“Aligned?” I whisper.
Josie presses her palm to mine, steady. “Ready.”
I trigger the charges. They light the tree’s core in molten red veins that feed out through the silhouetted ribs overhead. Metal boards hiss and buckle. Flames cough to life around us.
The world tilts into sensory overload: the blaze roars, heat tangles with sulfur; the smell of melting plastic stings my throat. Guards scream orders in Vortaxian, crisp and raging. I draw my blade.
The world condenses to edge, breath, heartbeat. I cut. One, two, three—shields slice like paper in storm wind. I taste copper on my tongue. I growl into the dark, the sound not mine, primal.
Josie covers our flank, demolishing a crate cuffed to Vortaxian dignity with a brutal elbow. Sparks flare, and I watch her in the blaze—shadow and starlight in human shape. My chest clenches.
We vanish into night's black folds, backtracking through concealed tunnels. Ash rains like weaponized snow. Adrenaline hammers, limbs itch with finality.
