Page 35 of Legacy for the Alien Warrior

He nodded and headed for the cockpit. She knelt between the two children, studying the alien girl more carefully now that they were safe.

She was painfully thin, her lavender skin dull except for the translucent ears that continued to shift colors. Her large black eyes, lacking visible pupils, were wary but curious. The dirty shift she wore hung off her small frame, revealing bruises on her arms and legs.

“My name is Kara,” she said, pointing to herself. “This is Rory.” She pointed to her son, who had already begun arranging small objects from his pocket in a line on the floor.

The girl watched, then pointed to herself and made a series of musical sounds.

“I don’t understand,” she said apologetically. “But we’ll figure it out.”

The ship hummed to life beneath them, and she felt the subtle shift as they lifted off. The girl’s ears darkened momentarily, then lightened again when she realized Kara wasn’t alarmed.

Rory pushed one of his treasures—a small, polished stone—toward the lavender child. She picked it up, examined it, then carefully placed it back in line with the others.

Rory hummed approvingly.

“You two are going to be friends, I think,” she said softly.

The ship accelerated, pushing them into hyperspace with a brief sensation of pressure. Moments later, Thraxar returned from the cockpit.

“We’re clear,” he said, his voice tight. “For now.”

She nodded, then gave him a worried look. “What do we do with her? We can’t just drop her at a Patrol station.”

He crouched down, studying the lavender child. “No. The Patrol would place her in a processing center. Those places are a little better than where we found her.”

“Then what?”

“We find her people.” Dark eyes met hers. “Just as I promised to help you find yours.”

The simple statement sent an unexpected wave of emotion through her. She hadn’t thought much about what would happen after they reached the Patrol station. About leaving Thraxar and his ship. About returning to… what, exactly? She had no home, no family beyond Rory.

“Her people might be difficult to locate,” she said, watching as the girl cautiously arranged a few of Rory’s treasures. “She doesn’t even speak our language.”

“I have translation software on the ship’s computer,” he said. “It might recognize her language.”

“That’s a start.” She reached out and gently touched the girl’s shoulder. “In the meantime, she needs food, clean clothes, and medical attention.”

The girl looked up at Kara’s touch, her ears shifting to that pearlescent pink-white again. She made a soft musical sound.

“I think she likes you,” Thraxar said, his voice softening.

“I like her too,” she admitted. She looked from the lavender child to Rory, who was contentedly arranging and rearranging his treasures, to Thraxar, whose expression held a complexity she couldn’t quite decipher.

Four strangers from different worlds, thrown together by circumstance. Yet somehow, in this moment, they felt like something else. Something that she hadn’t experienced in a very long time.

They felt like the beginning of a family.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Thraxar guided the ship carefully into hyperspace, his body on autopilot while his mind remained back in the market with the lavender child and the cage. The memory of Rory sitting cross-legged in front of the bars, rolling that bolt back and forth with such gentle persistence, made something in his chest tighten uncomfortably.

He set the course, then checked the readings one final time before rising from the pilot’s seat. Behind him, he could hear the soft voices of Kara and the children in the main cabin. The sound wrapped around him like a warm current, filling spaces in his ship that had been silent for too long.

It felt right. Dangerously right.

He paused with his hand on the doorframe. What was he doing? In the span of days, he’d gone from solitary trader to… what? Rescuer of a human woman and her son? And now a second child?

Don’t get attached, he warned himself. This is temporary. They will leave. They always leave.

---