Page 35 of Alien Prince's Fated Mate

Niam’s breath warmed my neck, her heartbeat a rapid flutter. Halfway down, her grip tightened. “Still okay?”

“Trust me,” I breathed.

The climb up the other side proved trickier, the rock face steeper and more unstable. But the beast reveled in the challenge, in the opportunity to prove its worth to our mate. I pushed that thought aside. She wasn’t ours. Couldn’t be ours.

Finally, I pulled us over the edge onto solid ground. Niam’s arms stayed locked around my neck for several heartbeats before she slowly released her grip.

“Thank you.” She smoothed her clothes, trying to hide how her hands shook. “That was... impressive.”

I shrugged, missing her warmth already. “The beast has its uses.”

She retrieved the device, which pulsed stronger now. The blue light seemed to bend strangely, like it struggled to illuminate the passage ahead.

My weapons began to hum, their metal surfaces vibrating on my body. Something pulled at them, an invisible force that grew stronger with each step forward. The air pressed heavier against my lungs, charged with energy I didn't understand.

“Tharon.” Niam’s voice held wonder and fear in equal measure. “Look.”

The passage opened abruptly into a vast chamber, its ceiling lost in darkness above us. But it wasn’t the size that caught my attention - it was the wrongness of it all. The walls bore rippling patterns I’d never seen in natural stone, like waves frozen in mid-motion. Debris littered the floor, some of it clearly not from any rockfall.

And the air... the air shimmered like heat waves, but in impossible patterns. Shadows fell where no shadows shouldexist. Light bent around empty space as if something massive occupied the chamber’s center, something my eyes couldn’t quite grasp.

“What is this place?”

Niam moved forward, the device’s pulse now a steady rhythm that matched the strange energies in the air. “It’s here. Whatever we’re looking for, it’s right here.” She turned slowly, studying the device’s readouts. “We just have to figure out how to see it.”

I followed, fighting the urge to pull her back to safety. My weapons pulled harder now, straining against their sheaths toward the chamber’s center. Even the metal buckles on my clothes responded to the invisible force.

“The device is changing.” Niam held it up, showing me how new symbols appeared across its surface. “I recognize these patterns from the Temple systems, but they’re different somehow. Clearer.”

She took another step forward, then stumbled as the device jerked in her grip. My hand found her arm, steadying her. “Careful.”

“It’s trying to tell us something.” Her fingers danced across the symbols. “If I could just...”

A high-pitched whine filled the air. The device’s light flared brilliant blue-white, then projected a complex grid of lines across the chamber. Where the lines intersected, the air rippled like water.

“There!” Niam pointed to where the patterns converged most densely. “That’s where we need to be.”

We moved together toward the spot she indicated. Each step made my skin crawl, every instinct screaming that this place wasn’t natural. The beast pressed against my control, unhappy with forces it couldn’t fight.

Niam positioned herself carefully, adjusting her stance until the device’s projected lines aligned perfectly. “Now we just need...”

The words died as a low hum built beneath our feet. The light pulsed faster, brighter, until I had to shield my eyes. The air itself seemed to vibrate, reality bending around us like cloth in the wind.

Then the impossible happened.

NIAM

The air shimmered like water, colors bending impossibly as the device’s energy spread outward in rippling waves. I held my breath as reality itself warped around us, the cave’s darkness giving way to something else entirely.

There, emerging from nothingness, stood an Emergency Command Pod. Its surface bore impact damage and scoring from its crash landing, but the sleek design remained unmistakable. I’d seen its schematics countless times in the Temple’s databanks, though the priests had sworn all auxiliary systems were destroyed.

“What is it?” Tharon asked, moving to my side despite my warning. His arm wrapped around my waist, steadying.

“A piece of the ship that brought my people here.” I stepped forward, drawn by the pod’s familiar angles. “The Temple was built from its wreckage, but this... this survived intact.”

Tharon circled the pod slowly, wonder plain on his face as he studied it. “Your ancestors truly sailed among the stars?”

I stepped closer, drawn by the familiar yet alien shape materializing before us. Despite obvious crash damage along one side, the smooth lines of the emergency pod remainedelegant, almost beautiful. A piece of the past, preserved in this hidden cave for centuries.

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