Page 9 of Chosen By the Alien
My mouth goes dry. “I… I don’t actually know where it is.”
“Then maybe you could… Help me find it?” His eyes flash with something, heat, mischief, challenge.
I should say no.
I should tell him to ask someone else.
But I don’t.
I just nod.
“Yeah. I think it’s upstairs.”
And I start walking. Not away.
Withhim.
Why?
I don’t know.
Maybe because I need to know if I imagined that spark between us.
Or maybe because Ididn’t.
Chapter 4
For some reason I’m not walking away the moment we find the guest room. We enter as if I know what is waiting inside. The door closes behind us, and suddenly, the guest room feels a hundred degrees warmer.
Tahl stands between me and the exit. He’s not doing anything threatening. He doesn’t need to. His presence alone, tall and still and watching me in that maddeningly calm way, is enough to make my skin hum. My legs want to move. My mouth wants to say something clever. But all I manage is a tight, awkward swallow.
He tilts his head. “You thought I was pretending to be an alien.”
I wet my lips. “I mean… yeah. The whole alien thing. It sounded like… like a game. Are you not?”
Tahl steps forward. Not aggressive. Just closer. “I am not pretending. I am what you call an alien. A being not from this planet.”
The light from the hallway filters in, faint and soft, and Tahl. Hechanges. His pupils glow, a sharp, unnatural gold that doesn’t belong to anything I’ve ever seen on Earth. It’s not contact lenses. It’s not a trick of the light. His eyes burn, alive, focused directly on me.
I blink.
Holy fuck.
He isn’t human.
Not quite.
I stare at him, heart pounding.
He isn’t wearing a costume. He never was.
His skin glows softly, not gold like jewelry but like candlelight warming through flesh. Iridescent shimmer slides across his collarbone, catching the shadows, fluid like water or light trapped beneath the surface.
Every inch of him is impossibly smooth, subtly patterned with faint lines, not scars, not veins, something else. Something designed. His chest is broad, sculpted like it was carved by a god with a grudge and good taste.
“This is not a costume. But your Halloween celebration seemed like the safest time to appear.”
I take a step back and sit on the edge of the bed before I collapse. My knees are liquid. My mouth, dry.
