Page 19 of Chosen By the Alien
I taste him, earth and ozone and something wild I can’t name, and it fills every nerve. It’s not just lust. Not just heat. It'shim.
I don’t know how long we stay like that, tangled together while the rest of the world sleeps off their booze. But eventually, he pulls back, eyes glowing faintly, lips flushed.
“I need to get you home,” he says.
I nod because I can’t speak. My throat's dry, my body still throbbing from what we just did. I feel like I’ve stepped outside of my own skin. Like I’ll never fit back in it again.
Tahl leads me by the hand down the gravel path. The dawn's not up yet, but there's a lightness in the sky, that pre-sun glow. He unlocks something that looks like a matte-black muscle car from a sci-fi movie. Sleek, alien, sexy as hell.
“Wait,thisis your ride?” I blink at the thing. “You drove this to a kegger?”
“Itlookslike a car,” he says, grinning as he opens the passenger door for me, “but it is not.”
I lower myself into the seat, which hums slightly under me.
“It’s a ship,” I say, trying not to freak out. “Youlandedit?”
“Parked it,” he corrects. “Cloaking matrix. Cloaks the engine core and diffuses the mass signature. Your satellites think it is a Camaro.”
I stare at him. “You’re serious.”
“I amalwaysserious about tech.”
The dash lights up, unfamiliar glyphs dancing across the surface like water. It feels alive under my palm, and I’m suddenly aware of how far out of my depth I am.
“Can it fly?” I ask, half-joking.
He throws me a side-eye as the windshield shifts into something more transparent, showing the stars above. “Yes.”
We’re silent for a few moments as he guides the not-Camaro down quiet back roads. The sky grows paler, the town still asleep. It feels… unreal. Like I’m caught in someone else’s dream.
Then he speaks. “You have changed.”
I glance over at him. “You noticed that too?”
“I did more than notice.” He taps the side of his neck where his mouth left that mark on me earlier. “You let me in.”
I touch mine instinctively. It still tingles, low and warm.
“It doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing.”
“I do not need you to know.” He glances at me, his expression softer now. “I just need you tofeel.”
God, I do.
That’s the part that’s terrifying. Ifeeleverything.
When we pull up outside my apartment, I almost ask him to stay. But I don’t. Instead, I let the silence stretch.
He reaches into the center console and pulls out a small object, a necklace, a shard of something iridescent, suspended on a simple leather cord. It pulses faintly, like it remembers being part of a star.
“This is for you.” He hands it to me, wrapping my fingers around it. “If you need me. If you want to… reach out. This will call me.”
I look down at it, heart thudding. “Like a space pager?”
He laughs, low and full of affection. “Something like that.”
“Will I know how to use it?”
