Page 1 of Alien Warrior Chef… With Benefits
CHAPTER 1
RUBY
The Novarian sunrise always looks like something painted by a deity with a fondness for overripe citrus and gauzy veils. Mist curls in peach and blood-orange tendrils over the cobbled walkways of the Interstellar Commons District, lazily draping itself over terraformed flora and shimmering storefronts like a lover reluctant to leave the bed. I breathe it in—warm, faintly metallic, and undercut with the scent of marine air pumped in from the coastal filters to keep our lungs Earth-happy. It’s like waking up inside a dream where everything is softly backlit and drenched in hope.
I unlock the bakery door with a tap of my compad against the maglock and it chirps back cheerfully, the little digital chime echoing inside the hollow shop. Earth Bites yawns open before me, dark and empty and perfect. The gleaming steel of the ovens reflects the morning light, stainless counters catching the pink glow like polished marble. It’s quiet—too quiet, maybe—but it’s the kind of silence I can fill with good things. Cinnamon. Chocolate. Real cream.
“Time to work, sweetheart,” I murmur, brushing my fingers over the countertop like I’m smoothing down a lover’s bedhead. Then I hum. I always hum in the mornings. Not becauseI’m especially chipper—although people seem to think so—but because if I don’t, the memories have too much room to creep in.
The kitchen lights auto-adjust as I step inside. My apron hangs on its hook, white cotton with a stitched Earth Bites logo that’s been washed so many times the thread has started to fray. I loop it over my neck, tie it behind me, and stretch. My back pops. My wrists crackle. I rub a palm down my side absently—just a habit, grounding myself.
“Ruby.” Lyrie’s voice is syrupy and amused, already coming from the back hallway, a ghost in the mist of flour I haven’t even started to throw yet. “You’re humming again. What’s today’s disaster?”
“Hope and poor impulse control,” I reply without missing a beat. “Also, pecan caramel clusters.”
She steps into the kitchen with a grin that shows off her smooth pink scales, glinting like sugared rose quartz under the overheads. She’s wearing a top that could generously be called a band and bottoms that are technically a skirt only if you’re being polite. Her horns are lacquered gold today. She’s ready for war—or at least war with someone’s libido.
“I licked the bowl yesterday,” she says, tossing a wink as she sashays over to the prep sink. “I regret nothing.”
“I know you don’t.” I’m already turning toward the proofing cabinet, opening the warm humid door to a blast of bready heat and rising yeast. “But one of these days, someone’s going to sue me for emotional damage when you flirt with them too hard.”
“They’ll thank me with tips,” she says primly, then smirks. “Besides, you know the real reason I behave around Rekkgar.”
I pause, fingers lightly resting on a tray of ready-to-bake croissants. My heart does that traitorous little flutter in my chest, the kind I usually ignore the way you ignore a drip from a leaky ceiling you can’t afford to fix.
“Because you value your life?” I ask, keeping my tone light.
“Nope.” She flicks a towel off the counter, slapping it into place. “Because he only growls at me when you’re watching. He watches you like he wants to devour you whole.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
She shrugs. “I’m just calling it like I see it.”
Before I can retort, the front bell dings with that crisp digital chime that sounds far too cheerful for this early, and here comes the stampede I call Vonn.
Vonn doesn’t walk so much as march. She’s barely over four feet tall, covered in soft, snow-white fur that sticks up in irate cowlicks no matter what she does to tame it. Her eyes, too sharp for her years, squint at me over her spectacles as she tugs her apron on like she’s getting ready for combat. Fratvoyans don’t do ‘gentle,’ and Vonn’s voice is basically a bark soaked in vinegar and rolled in salt.
“Already burned the morning loaves?” she asks by way of greeting.
“Not yet,” I say, smiling as I hold up the untouched baking tray like a shield.
“Hmph. There’s still time.”
She takes up her position at the register like a general surveying her battlefield, muttering to herself about ingredient inventory and feckless delivery boys and ‘idiots who think a cronut is a pastry instead of a war crime.’
We get to work.
There’s rhythm to mornings like this. The thump of dough on marble, the hiss of the espresso machine warming up, the sharp clink of metal bowls, the low hum of the oven kicking to life. The scents build slowly—yeast, sugar, cinnamon, chocolate, caramelizing butter—and I lose myself in it. For a little while, I let the motion and the smells and the sound of my girls bickering carry me through.
And yet.
Even while I knead, even while I roll and cut and fold, there’s a part of me—the smallest sliver—that stays curled around a different ache. The one I don’t show. Not to Lyrie, not to Vonn, not to Rekkgar.
Especially not to Rekkgar.
My smile doesn’t crack when I think of my parents anymore. Not unless I let it. But the weight behind it doesn’t go away. I was five when the Centuries War took them—too young to understand, too old to forget. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The whole war was the wrong time.
Uncle Joren and Aunt Tayla took me in, gave me everything they could. Love, safety, support. And an arranged marriage.
