Page 70 of Claimed By the Alien Assassin
Then the doors swing wide again.
She walks in—Josie McClintock with that mechanic’s vest still on, sleeves rolled, grease in her hairline, grin wide enough to crack steel. She strides toward me across the polished floor, the subtle echo of her boots announcing her presence. I nearly don’t recognize her—she looks tired but alive, the kind of alive that makes you ache for it. The whole hangar seems to dim and sharpen at the same time.
I feel like a ghost stepping into daylight.
She reaches me and punches me in the shoulder—hard, playful, feral. My spine needs that. “Took you long enough,” she says, voice low enough that only I hear it. Sweat, oil, and determination cling to her words.
I wrap an arm around her, pulling her close. The armor hisses, joints flexing. “It’s called paperwork,” I say in mock apology.
She rolls her eyes and smacks my arm again. “Oh, sure—papers. I’m just glad I can call youcomradenow.” She glances at the armored ranks, her eyes alighting on the exosuits. “You’re fitting in.”
I flatten my cupped hand, tapping the datapad. “Hellfighters,” I correct. “Wearethe fit.”
She nudges my chest. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever makes you happy. Just... try not to blow up too many things without asking.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Noted. But not guaranteed.”
She laughs—sharp, beautiful, alive. A grenade of warmth in the sterile hangar.
A sergeant strides up, crisp voice cracking between them. “Corporal Vapor, your team assembles in prep bay three. Intel drop in ten. Command directive—synchronize with local forces, evaluate planetary control nodes. Estimate forty-eight hour initial ops.”
I slip the datapad into my vest, nod once at the sergeant. Then I turn back to her. “Ready to do this?”
She leans in close, voice hushed just for me. “You know it. But don’t make me stand by while you get all heroic and forget all our plans.”
I laugh, the sound rusty from disuse. “Never.”
She twists off, heading toward a group of mechanics prepping drones. She waves, then pauses and looks back. “Hey, Vapor?”
I swivel in the armor, facing her. “Yeah?”
She grins, a spark of affection and challenge. “Don’t stay gone too long again.”
My heart stutters. “Never.”
Then I turn and follow the sergeant down the corridor. The hangar doors hiss closed behind me. The black suits stand as silent sentinels. Their reflections ripple across the polished floor. My shoulders settle, the armor aligning around me like second skin. I feel the weight of expectations—but heavier still is the pull back to her, to Snowblossom, to the man I am beside her.
I lick my dry lips. Forty-eight hours to prove we’re not just tools of the Alliance. Forty-eight hours to find a reason whyIbelong here. Not as a tool. As a partner. As Dayn.
And I step forward—into mission, into myth, into life beyond the cage.
Because she’s here. And I’m not just surviving. I’m rebuilding. And this time—it’s on our terms.
Rain beats a low rhythm against the hangar roof, steady and primal. Thunder murmurs in the distance like a reluctant retreat, and the scent of wet tarmac and blooming green seeps into everything. It’s the smell of endings. Or beginnings.
Josie stands before me, haloed in the faded orange glow of an emergency lantern. Her coveralls are half-unzipped, clinging damp to her curves from the jungle humidity, my old mechanic’s vest slung over one shoulder like a second skin. Her braid is half undone, fraying at the edges—like us.
Her eyes—brown, steady, burning—pin me in place.
“You gonna just look,” she says, voice low, “or finally give me that gravity-fed affection you’ve been hoarding?”
My heart kicks hard against my ribs. She always says things like that—casual, disarming—but her voice trembles just enough to betray the weight under it.
“I’ve never stopped wanting you,” I say. “I just didn’t know how tostop fearing it.”
“Then don’t,” she whispers. “Not tonight.”
I move forward. She doesn’t flinch. I raise one clawed hand to her jaw, and she leans into it—soft, deliberate, brave. My thumb grazes her bottom lip, and she parts them for me without being asked.
