Page 28 of Alien Warrior Chef… With Benefits
She looks at me full-on now, and her eyes—though damp—don’t flinch. “Reapers. Badlands. No survivors.”
I feel the world lurch beneath my feet. The room shifts. Everything tilts.
“I never met him,” she adds quietly. “Not once. He was just a name. An obligation I wore like shackles. But now…”
Now she’s free.
The silence between us is electric.
It crackles in the air, vibrating between our skin like static. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. I should move. Should reach for her. Shouldsay something. But my legs betray me. My lungs rebel.
She’s looking at me like I’m the last star on a dying night. Her eyes glow with a desperate hope I am too much a coward to meet.
“I thought I’d feel something,” she says. “Grief. Guilt. Maybe a weight lifted. And I guess… I do. But mostly?” She steps closer. “I feel like I can finallychoose.”
My breath hitches.
She’s close enough now I can see the rise and fall of her chest, the way her pulse flutters in the hollow of her throat. The tips of her fingers twitch by her sides, like she’s waiting for me to reach for them. Toclaimher.
But instead, my fear swallows me whole.
I take a step back.
Her face falters.
“Rekkgar?” Her voice cracks.
“I—” I bow my head. “Forgive me.”
Her brows knit. “For what now?”
“I cannot stay.”
“What? Why?”
I shake my head. “Because I’m not ready. I’m not… I can’tbewhat you deserve. Not yet. Maybe not ever.”
Her eyes go wide. Her hands curl into fists. “You think I give a damn aboutdeserve? You think I’ve been waiting all these years for some perfect warrior who checks every box on the Trident’s Guide to Mating Etiquette?”
I flinch.
She glares. “I wantyou, you stupid, stubborn, gorgeous scaledman. Not the polished version. Not the one who recites oaths and runs away the second things get real.You.The one who killed for me. The one who held me like I was breakable and still kissed me like I wasn’t.”
I can’t breathe.
But I can’t stay, either.
So I mutter one word—“Honor”—and turn.
I don’t look back.
Not until the door closes behind me and I’m swallowed by violet dusk, with her voice echoing in my ears like a heartbeat I’ll never get out of my chest.
CHAPTER 7
RUBY
Idon’t cry when he leaves.
