Page 5 of Alien Warrior Chef… With Benefits
But the whole time, I feel like my skin doesn’t fit quite right.
Because the truth is, I can make a hundred customers happy before lunch and it won’t matter.
One glance. One word. One lingering moment of silence from Rekkgar has more sway over my heart than all the smiles I give away like party favors.
He softens when he’s here. I see it in the way his shoulders lower half an inch, in the way he watches my hands move like I’m performing some sacred rite. He doesn't touch much—doesn’t speak unless necessary—but when he does, I feel like I’ve been chosen. Like the universe cracked open just long enough to slip me a secret.
And every time he walks out, I remember that I’m not allowed to keep it.
CHAPTER 2
REKKGAR
The dojo breathes with me.
Each inhale echoes off the walls—stone and steel and tempered memory—each exhale grounded in earth and shadow. My bare feet whisper across the training mats, friction singing a soft tune beneath the low grunt of my breath. The air is heavy with the scent of oiled wood, old sweat, and the citrus cleanser Vonn insists I use even though it makes my nose twitch. A pale sliver of pre-dawn light slices through the high-set window, painting the space in a blade of dull silver.
I move through the motions, slow and precise. My muscles burn, but it is a familiar burn. Desired. Each movement in the sequence—Gorh’Tai, the Morning Invocation—is deliberate: a step forward, a sharp pivot, a sweep of the arm that would break a spine if an opponent stood before me. No opponent today. Just ghosts. They never leave. Not really.
My scales are slick with sweat, black gleaming like lacquer beneath the sheen. The red stripes down my shoulders and ribs pulse with the motion, flickering with every shift of muscle like living ink. Scars interrupt their flow—pale ridges, silvery with age—earned from a thousand places I do not name aloud.
I stop moving. The silence rushes in.
My cybernetic eye glows faintly, infrared running a lazy sweep across the dojo’s empty floor before I blink the HUD away. Just habit. No threats. Nothing but the scent of my own exertion and the faint, sugary ghost of her pastries leaking through the shared wall.
Ruby.
I close my eye—my one real eye—and let her name settle behind my ribs like a brand. I tell myself this is foolish. I tell myself to let it go, to let her go. But the problem is, I’ve never really held her. Not the way I want. Not the way that haunts me in the hours before dawn when my discipline slips and my hands ache to touch.
I drop into a crouch and rest my forearms on my knees, sweat trailing along the seam of my spine and down into the waistband of my pants. My breathing slows. The hum of the building’s systems fills the space around me: low, regulated, impersonal. Nothing like her voice. Her voice is warm butter sliding over hot bread. It’s laughter buried under grief, light stretched over darkness so expertly that you almost forget the weight beneath it.
But I don’t forget.
She wears pain like perfume—undetectable unless you know the scent. And I do. I’ve known it since the first time she handed me that ridiculous muffin top and asked me, without flinching, how I wanted my espresso. Everyone else flinched. She didn’t.
And now she’s part of my ritual.
I glance at the chrono on the wall. Almost time.
Each morning, I tell myself I’ll do it. I’ll say something. Anything. I’ll find a word that carries the weight of what sits behind my ribs like a dormant warhead, a word that won’t explode her carefully cultivated peace but will still sayI see you.I want you.
But then she smiles.
And it guts me.
Because she’s promised to someone else. Because her life was parceled out like a business arrangement by people who meant well, and I won’t dishonor that with want. Not mine. Not hers.
She deserves more than a scarred-up ex-soldier with blood on his hands and a body rebuilt in too many places to count. She deserves a future that doesn’t start in shadow.
And still, I go.
I stand and wipe my face with the rough towel hanging near the weapons rack. The scent of my sweat mixes with metal and soap, a cocktail of contradiction. I run one hand over my chest, tracing the deep cleave of the scar above my heart. A Reaper blade did that. Nearly stopped it. Didn’t. Unfortunately.
I pull on my loose training tunic, the black fabric stretching over the swell of my shoulders, still damp from exertion. The front seals with magnetic clasps, designed to look traditional but smart enough for modern life. I don’t bother with armor. Not today.
I cross the dojo in long strides, each one punctuated by the slight hitch in my left knee. Shrapnel damage. Refused regen treatments. Pain is a friend with whom I have made peace. Like silence. Like solitude.
The outer door hisses open, flooding the small antechamber with filtered daylight. The mist hasn’t burned off yet—it never does this early. The Interstellar Commons District is a mosaic of smells and movement at this hour: ground-level street vendors frying up something spiced and greasy, the tang of ion-cleaned air cycling through vents overhead, the unmistakable sweetness of Earth Bites punching through it all like a siren’s call.
