Page 53 of Alien Warrior Chef… With Benefits
“I am proud,” he says. The words hitch slightly, like they cost him something. “Proud to serve at your side.”
It’s not a declaration. It’s not some grand confession with fireworks and orchestral backing. But it’s more. It’s a vow.
And my heart—traitorous, hopeful, maddeningly optimistic—leaps toward it like it’s been waiting ten years just for this.
I want to say something profound. Something that’ll etch this moment into both of our bones. But all I manage is a half-choked, “That means more than I can say.”
His gaze lingers, his cybernetic eye whirring faintly as if scanning the words I didn’t speak. And then, just as the backstage lights dim and the production techs start moving us toward the waiting area, he nods once.
No more needs saying.
I walk forward. He follows. Not behind me. Not beside. But with me.
And for the first time since I arrived on this star-lit, ever-turning, multilingual chaos of a planet... I start to believe we’re building something that might actually last.
CHAPTER 12
REKKGAR
Ifeel it the moment we step off the prep dome floor, like something inside me’s been tilted—shifted a degree off its axis—and now the whole of me must relearn how to move with it. Ruby doesn’t speak much as we weave through the back corridors, but she doesn’t need to. Her stride is longer. Shoulders squared. Chin lifted like a warrior surveying a battlefield and daring the stars to challenge her.
She doesn’t just carry herself differently.
She shines.
And stars above, she’s never looked more dangerous to me.
Not because she might hurt me. But because I’ve never wanted something more in my life than I want to deserve the way she looks at me now. Like I’m no longer a specter haunting her bakery windows or a wall of flesh between her and the world’s cruelty. No, the look she gives me now…
It’s knowing. Grounded. Sure.
She sees me. All of me.
I glance away, pretending to inspect the storage crates stacked along the maintenance tunnel. But I feel her gaze linger, and something about the weight of it presses under my ribs, unsettling and warm all at once.
The term slides through my mind unbidden.
Jalshagar.
It’s old Vakutan, from before the Great Divide, from the oral blood-histories passed down by the clan-wives who kept fire in the ice years. A word spoken in reverence, never lightly. Not even whispered until it’s earned.
Soulmate.
I don’t let myself say it out loud. Not even in the silence of my own thoughts. Because once it’s said, once it’s named… it becomes real. It becomes fate.
But I feel it. Gods help me, I feel it.
Every time she throws her head back and laughs so hard she snorts. Every time her hands reach for mine in the kitchen without thinking. Every time her eyes flick to me not in fear or awe—but in understanding. Like she’s peering into the red-lit marrow of me and seeing something that makes sense.
It shakes me.
I’ve worn the armor of a warrior so long I don’t know how to take it off. Even now, in civvie clothes with flour crusted into the seams and a glittery apron tied too tight across my back, I still hold myself like a soldier on high alert.
But she… she softens me.
Not weakens.
Softens.
