Page 29 of Alien Warrior Chef… With Benefits
I don’t yell. I don’t crumble to the floor in some dramatic, weepy heap like the heroines in holodramas do when their alien warrior love interests run for the proverbial hills.
I just… stare at the door.
It clicks shut behind him with that soft, polite chime that’s always reminded me of windchimes on old Earth porches. Dainty. Fragile. In this moment, mocking.
I stand there for what feels like hours, my fingers still tingling where they touched his scales. My cheek’s still warm from the press of his callused palm. And my mouth—gods, my mouth—it remembers the shape of his kiss like a scar remembers fire. It throbs. It aches. And not from want.
From loss.
Again.
The sting creeps in slow, a sickly crawl of heat that starts at my temples and slides behind my eyes. I grip the edge of the counter to anchor myself, knuckles white, and count backwards from ten in every language I know.
English. Vakutan. Basic Trade. Even that weird little bit of Yivaltese I picked up from Vonn once when she was three shots into spiced liquor and reciting war poetry.
It doesn’t help.
Behind me, the oven ticks. Cooling. Forgotten.
I finally move—no, Ifunction—toward the back of the shop, where the kitchen smells like burnt sugar and too-sweet icing, the air thick with flour dust and heat. I hear the door swing open and click shut again behind me, the faintest jingle of the bell. Footsteps. Small and fast.
“Ruby?” Lyrie’s voice, for once, holds no flirtation. Just concern. And confusion. “Is he gone?”
I nod.
“You okay?”
“No.”
A pause. Then the distinct rustle of scales against linen as she wraps her arms around me. Her embrace is light—Lyrie never hugs tight unless she's drunk—but it’s warm and real. I breathe her in, the crisp scent of citrus polish she uses on her skin tickling my nose. It doesn’t help either.
She pulls back a little, her pink eyes scanning my face. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
I shake my head.
“Do you wanna murder-bake?”
That gets a breath out of me. Not a laugh, not really, but close enough that her face brightens a little.
“Yeah,” I croak. “Yeah, I wanna murder-bake.”
We get to work.
Chocolate ganache. Double batches. I pour the cream and butter into the saucepan with vengeance, the wooden spoon in my hand feeling more like a weapon than a tool. I don’t even wait for it to boil properly before dumping in the chocolate.My movements are sharp, graceless, a flurry of purpose with no direction.
Caramel swirl next. Sugar on the stove until it hisses like an insult. I stand over it with narrowed eyes, watching it melt and bubble and darken like it’s the universe’s vendetta incarnate. The heat kisses my arms, sticky and cloying, and Iwelcomeit.
Lyrie tries to keep up, but eventually backs off and lets me lose myself in the rhythm.
It’s not until Vonn shuffles in, sniffs the air, and mutters something in Fratvoyan about “grief baking like a broken-hearted war bride,” that I finally pause.
She eyes the spread—fudge, tarts, ganache in glass bowls, rows of cinnamon-nutmeg muffins that weren’t even on the day’s menu—and clicks her tongue. “Did he break your heart or kill your dog?”
I wipe the sweat off my brow with the back of my hand. “Is there a difference?”
Vonn snorts, then begins packaging the desserts without another word. For her, this is compassion.
For me, it’s everything.
