Page 28 of Alien Warlord's Fury

"I never assumed it was."

Claire closed her eyes, her breathing gradually slowing. Her markings pulsed in a steady rhythm that almost matched the beat of my own lifelines.

I watched her rest, the bond between us quiet but present. The kiss remained unresolved between us, as did the larger question of what this connection meant. For now, the task took precedence.

The younglings needed rescue. Hammond needed stopping. But after...

I pushed the thought away. There was no after, not for us. Claire belonged to her people, I to mine.

The resonance between us was a temporary alignment, nothing more.

I repeated this to myself as I watched her sleep, her markings casting silver light on her peaceful face.

Nothing more.

Our bond hummed, calling me a liar.

CLAIRE

The grounding exercise Nirako had led me through left my markings humming with a steady, quiet energy I hadn't felt since before Hammond. The silver lines beneath my skin no longer sparked with chaotic pain but pulsed with a controlled rhythm that mirrored the golden lifelines tracing Nirako's arms. He'd stepped back after the training, his expression unreadable, but the bond between us thrummed with the lingering intimacy of his touch.

"Better?" he'd asked, his voice carefully neutral.

"Much," I'd replied, rolling my shoulders. "My head feels clearer. Like someone turned down the volume on a thousand screaming voices."

Now, we moved westward again, away from the ridge where we'd first spotted Hammond's compound. This area felt different from the western ruins where Hammond had held me before—less sterile technology, more ancient stone integrated with corrupted energy. Nirako had confirmed my sense of active patrols, and our approach needed more care than simply waiting for darkness.

He led the way through the increasingly corrupted landscape, his movements silent and sure, his tail held low,barely disturbing the air as he moved like a shadow. I focused on sensing energy patterns, guiding us around fissures spitting noxious steam and patches of ground that felt dangerously unstable.

The terrain grew rougher, jagged rock formations rising around us. Nirako paused, holding up a hand. He pointed to faint symbols carved into the stone near a narrow passage between two towering formations—Hammond's markers.

"This passage is monitored," he murmured.

"Can we go around?" I whispered back.

"Not without losing hours we don't have." He studied the passage, then looked at me, his eyes intense. "We need to move through quickly, without triggering whatever watchfulness is in place."

He hesitated. "We use the bond between us to mask our energy signatures."

My breath caught. "The resonance? You think it can hide us?"

"It's a useful path," he said, his voice carefully neutral, though the bond carried a flicker of something else—awareness, perhaps reluctance. "If we synchronize our energies, we can create a camouflage effect. The watchers will read us as part of the natural energy flow."

He held out his hand, palm up. "It requires physical contact. Sustained. You'll need to trust me."

My heart hammered. After days of careful distance, he was suggesting deliberate, extended contact. "Will this... change things?"

"It already has," he said quietly. "We're just acknowledging what's already there."

His honesty settled my nerves. I placed my hand in his. Silver light flared instantly, meeting the responding gold from his lifelines.

Energy flowed between us, warm and startlingly intimate.

"Focus on the connection," he instructed. "Let your energy flow into mine, and mine into yours."

I closed my eyes, concentrating on the point where our hands joined. My silver energy met his gold, merging into a pearlescent shimmer that spread up our arms, enveloping us both in a subtle, shifting aura.

"Now we move," he said, his voice closer. "Stay close. Don't break contact."

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