Page 8 of Possessed By the Dragon Alien
But she wasn’t beneath his notice. She’d felt the weight of his attention like a physical thing.
Sleep came in restless patches. When morning arrived, Nena dressed in her fresh white uniform with trembling fingers, certain this would be the cycle she paid for her transgression.The walk to the dining hall felt endless. Each step, she expected guards to appear and drag her away.
Nothing happened.
Her morning meal passed without incident. No one gave her a second glance as she made her way to the greenhouse. Even Burrl just grunted his usual greeting before handing her a datapad with her assignments.
She got to work, heading back out into the gardens to join the dozens of other workers, to begin the never-ending maintenance that was required to keep up on a garden of this magnitude. She was tense, looking over her shoulder, waiting for the other shoe to drop. But the cycle ticked by, filled with the familiar rhythm of tending plants and careful silence. No guards pounded up to seize her. No summons came.
By end of shift, her shoulders had begun to unknot. She’d kept her uniformclean, completed her tasks efficiently, and managed to stay completely unremarkable. Everything would be fine. She began to wonder if she’d been imagining the encounter with the male. Maybe he hadn’t actually seen her at all. Maybe his piercing stare had been all in her head.
Nena took her usual path back toward the prisoner barracks, past the silver-barked trees and ornamental pools. The artificial sun was dimming, casting long shadows across the perfectly manicured grounds.
A shadow fell across her path.
She froze.
Black boots appeared at the edge of her downcast vision. The tips of greenish-blue wings stretched out behind them like dark slashes against the dimming sky. The boots were polished to a mirror shine, reflecting the path’s glow stones. Her breath caught as her gaze traveled up the crisp lines of his uniform to broad shoulders and those impossibly large wings.
The male from the fountain stood before her, even more striking up close. His blue scales caught the fading light like cut sapphires. The sharp angles of his face belonged in a painting of ancient warriors—all defined cheekbones and perfect symmetry. But it was his eyes that trapped her. They were silver as starlight and just as distant. They studied her with an intensity that made her skin prickle.
Ah,fek. Yes, he’d seen her, all right. Her mouth went dry. Her heart raced and the calm that usually wrapped around her like armor evaporated, leaving her raw and exposed. Every instinct screamed at her to run. Instead, she lifted her chin and held his gaze.
“What were your duties this shift?” he asked. His voice was deep, controlled.
“Seedpod collection, sir. Seedling rotation and soil preparation.”
He tilted his head, his wings shifting behind him. “Do you prefer the greenhouse to the open gardens?”
The question caught her off guard. Why would he care about her preferences? “The greenhouse is…quieter,” she said.Safer. Less exposed to the likes of you.
His eyes moved over her face, lingering on the gold spots across her forehead. There was wariness in his expression, but also something else—a spark of curiosity that made no sense.
“What is your name?”
“93-A,” she said, the designation bitter on her tongue.
His lips opened like he wanted to argue, or ask something more, but he didn’t. Instead, he gestured to her uniform. “You have dirt on your knee.”
Nena looked down, her stomach dropping at the small smudge. “I apologize, sir. I’ll change immediately—”
“Don’t.” His voice was softer now. “The spotless uniform rule is absurd. You work with soil. Of course you’ll get dirty.” He straightened, his wings drawing close. “I won’t report it.”
She stared at him, completely lost. Words caught in her throat as she tried to process this strange exchange. A member of the Twelve had spoken to her like she was a person, not a prisoner. Even stranger, he’d defended her right to have dirt on her uniform. It was a simple kindness that cracked through her defenses like sunlight through storm clouds.
“I don’t understand,” she said softly, the words slipping out before she could stop them.
His silver eyes flickered with something that might have been amusement. “What don’t you understand?”
“Why you’re…” She gestured vaguely between them, unable to voice the strangeness of this moment.Why aren’t you cruel? Why do you see me? Why does looking at you feel like remembering something I’ve forgotten?
“Why I’m…what?” he prompted, and there was a new tension in his voice, as if he was just as unsettled by this interaction as she was.
“Speaking to me,” she finished, though that wasn’t really what she meant at all.
He studied her for a long moment, his wings shifting restlessly. Something passed through his expression—a flash of confusion, maybe, quickly masked. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, almost intimate, “Perhaps I find you…interesting.”
The word hung between them like a dangerous promise. Her heart stuttered. This wasn’t fear anymore, and that confused her deeply. Lulit’s warnings were stillveryfresh in her mind. Sheshouldbe terrified of him, of what his attention meant, but instead she felt an odd sense of familiarity. Not because he shared a species with the overseer from the settlements.This was different, like remembering a face from a dream she couldn’t quite grasp. Her mind rejected the pull she felt toward him, but her instincts whispered that she knew him somehow, as if they’d met in another life, another time.
