Page 12 of Alien Warrior Chef… With Benefits
My lip throbs again, and I lean my head back against the door. My neck’s stiff. My shoulder’s sore where I hit the wall. But I don’t care. All I can see is the way his gaze snapped to me when it was over. The horror. The guilt. Like he thought I’d recoil.
I didn’t.
I won’t.
I wipe at my cheek with the back of my hand, sniffling hard enough to clear my sinuses. The tiles under me are still cool, but I don’t shiver. I burn. Inside out.
Rekkgar.
He came the second I screamed. He heard me. Found me.
And then he vanished like a ghost with a conscience.
Why did he leave? Why didn’t he stay? Say something? Anything?
My fingers curl into the fabric of my jeans. I want to scream. I want to find him. Drag him back here and make him look me in the eyes andseewhat I felt when he destroyed those monsters. I want to tell him I’m not afraid. I want to tell him that maybe—just maybe—I want him even more now.
But instead, I sit there in the dark, blood drying at the corner of my mouth, adrenaline still surging like a second heartbeat in my chest.
I let my head tip sideways against the wall and exhale through my nose.
Lyrie’s going to freak.
Vonn’s going to threaten someone.
But all I want is Rekkgar.
Not the careful, quiet version he brings into the shop every day.
I want the version who broke bone for me.
And I think—no, Iknow—I don’t want him to hide that side of himself from me ever again.
CHAPTER 4
REKKGAR
Ido not sleep.
I do not even lie down. The thought of closing my eyes and surrendering to the dark makes my skin crawl. So I train. I bleed. I burn.
The air in my studio is thick with heat, the tang of my sweat curdling into something rank against the clean metal walls. Every movement I make is sharp, deliberate, and without mercy. My foot slams into the reinforced training post, again, and again, and again, until the stone composite groans beneath the pressure. I pivot, switch stances, slam an elbow strike into the padded wall until my arm shakes. Pain blossoms in small, controlled blooms across my muscles, but I welcome it.
It’s not enough.
I roar. Slam both fists into the post and hear the satisfying, sickeningcrackof bone giving slightly—not mine. Not yet.
I want to shatter. Ideserveto shatter.
Because I lost control.
And worse—I didn’t hate it.
Her scream had sliced through the night like a blade across old scar tissue. I didn’t think. I didn’t reason. Ireacted.By the time I reached her, the monster inside me—the one I lockedaway after the war, the one I swore never to release again—was already clawing its way out.
And it did not hesitate.
It punished.
