Page 14 of Alien Warrior Chef… With Benefits
What if she saw that monster inside me and didn’t flinch because she’s known it was there all along? What if she doesn’t want mein spiteof it… butbecauseof it?
What kind of man does that make me?
What kind of creature does that make her?
My breathing slows, but it’s shallow now. A vacuum just behind my sternum. I look down at my hands—hands that once held hers with all the tenderness I could summon. Hands that tore a jaw off a sentient being tonight like it was paper.
I rub my thumb along my knuckles, tracing the dried blood that still lives in the creases. It feels tacky. Real. More real than anything else in this room.
I can’t go back to her. Not yet. Not like this.
And yet, the urge toseeher, toknowthat she’s okay—that she didn’t curl into bed sobbing, that she didn’t fear the sound of her own door creaking open—gnaws at me until it feels like I might claw my own skin off.
I should never have gotten close.
I thought I could manage it. Just her voice. Just her smile. Just the coffee. A safe distance. A friendship that bled into ritual.
I was wrong.
I was selfish.
And tonight, that selfishness exploded into something brutal and bloody.
I press my forehead against the floor, inhale the sterile tang of industrial cleaner and steel, and let the ache pulse in my temples like punishment.
She looked at me like she understood.
And I don’t know how to live with that.
Or worse—what I’ll do if she looks at me like that again.
I don’t go back.
Not that day. Not the next. Not even the one after. I stop walking the familiar path, stop letting the smell of roasted beans and warm sugar pull me in like gravity. The routine fractures, and with it, something inside me begins to splinter.
I train harder. Longer. Until my joints scream and my cybernetic lens starts glitching mid-swing. I ignore it. Ignore thewhispered murmurs from my students—young warriors fresh out of novice ranks, eager, observant, annoyingly perceptive.
“Master, are you... unwell?” Vekkor asks after our third round of bladework drills.
“Form is suffering,” Synn notes sharply, never one to soften the blow.
I don’t answer. I just grunt and rotate my shoulder, feel the pop-pop of stress knots unwinding with effort and rage.
They don’t understand. They can’t. To them, I’m the mountain. The anchor. Unshakable. But mountains can crumble, and anchors rust from the inside out.
Every morning, the scent drifts under the training hall doors—yeast and cinnamon and roasted grounds—and something inside me twists. Tight. Aching. But I stay where I am, grounded in discipline and fear. Mostly fear.
I stare at the door to the street more than I should. Aware that if I cross it, I might lose the last thread of control I have left.
On the fourth day, Lyrie walks by outside.
She’s all hips and sway and deliberate provocation as usual, pink scales glinting like polished quartz beneath a shredded mesh coverlet. Normally, I wouldn’t spare her more than a nod.
But this time, she slows. Sees me through the window. Our eyes meet—mine, a cold flicker; hers, molten disapproval.
She curls her lip and flips me off. Two fingers, sharp and gleaming, before she tosses her head and struts past like I’m the dirt under her boots.
I almost chuckle. Almost.
