Page 73 of Taken By the Alien Killer
The guest wing smells like linen and guilt and expensive cologne. CynJyn’s door is ajar because of course it is; music spills out—something with a bassline that would get you arrested in at least three prefectures. I push it wider and immediately regret the angle because I walk in on holo-chess projected big as sin over the bed and both players are—well, undressed is a strong word; undertressed is better. CynJyn lounges with a bishop in her hand and a smirk that needs its own license; Kaspian sits cross-legged, shirt abandoned, tie looped like a white flag around his wrist. The board hums, ghostly lightthrowing blue across his very respectable shoulders. He reaches for a rook and CynJyn tuts and taps his knuckles with the bishop.
“If you touch it, you move it, Your Grace,” she purrs, eyes hot and wicked. “House rule.”
“I rescind all prior rules,” Kaspian says through a laugh he is absolutely not trying to swallow.
“You two need a referee or a window shade?” I ask, leaning on the doorjamb so my embarrassment has something to hold on to.
CynJyn winks. “I need five minutes.”
Kaspian turns scarlet, which is satisfyingly human of him. “Lady Star,” he says, trying for dignity and getting to adorable instead. “We were, ah?—”
“Reclaiming lost childhoods,” CynJyn supplies. “And clothing is a social construct.”
“You look happy,” I tell them, and it lands like a blessing. “Please continue whatever indecencies the rules of holo-chess suggest.”
“Check in three moves,” CynJyn says, rolling onto her stomach to kick her feet in the air like a teenager. “And checkmate in four kisses.”
“I do not think that’s how it—” Kaspian starts, and she shuts him up like the genius she is. I close the door laughing, warmth in my chest that isn’t envy and isn’t relief; it’s gratitude that love found more than one target under this roof.
The day chooses mercy. No dignitaries. No speeches. No press releases. Sneed handles the calls; Mama handles the weather; Daddy handles his own feelings by taking a long walk and scaring a poor gardener with a hug. The kitchen retools itself around joy; the house exhales. By evening the dining room is a small, golden thing, just us, just food that tastes like somebody thought about me when they salted it. The table blooms withcandles that don’t try too hard; the windows drink the last violet off the vineyards. I take a seat and the chair knows me. Across the linen, Rayek sits with his huge hands careful around a glass; he listens to Daddy tell a story about goats and pretends to be surprised at the right places because he knows it makes the story better. Mama watches him watch me and decides not to tease. Sneed pretends the menu requires all his attention and still refills Rayek’s glass at exactly the right moment without implying he should drink it.
“I am not giving a toast,” Daddy announces, lifting his fork like a weapon against sentimentality. “I am giving a warning.”
Mama groans. “Martin.”
“If anyone tries to make my daughter smaller than she is,” he says, stabbing the air with a very fine piece of fish, “they will meet the business end of my very specific set of skills.”
“Which are?” I prompt, grinning.
“Embarrassment and check-writing,” he says. “Deadly combo.”
Laughter spills; it doesn’t try to be pretty; that’s how I know I’m safe. Kaspian slips in late with hair that cannot figure out how to be princely after kissing. CynJyn drifts behind him like a comet that ate a chandelier. They take seats without ceremony; Kaspian nods to Rayek like a man who knows surrender can be honorable; Rayek returns it with the smallest curve of respect. For the first time in my life, everything feels like it has weight in the right places. I eat until my stomach sends up a flag; I drink something honeyed and cold; I float on a tide only people who have been starving understand.
After dessert I catch Rayek’s eye and tilt my head—an old signal, born on battlefields that didn’t have names. He stands. No one pretends not to see us leave; that’s new and generous. We walk the stable corridor because leather and hay smell like truth; the horses snuffle in their stalls, big velvetmuzzles pushing at my palm as if they’ve been rehearsing congratulations. I scratch Spot’s nose until Rayek pretends not to smile. “He likes you,” I tell Spot in a conspiring whisper. “Good taste.”
“We should take them out,” Rayek says, and now I do smile, because the picture of him on a too-small mare while CynJyn narrates is genuinely religious.
“Tomorrow,” I promise. “Tonight is for—” I let the sentence hang, ripe as a pear over a fence.
He follows me out into the cliff path where the wind licks the salt up to my lips and paints my skin in a cool sheen. The sky is a dark bowl punctured by a million tiny lies we tell ourselves about distance. The path remembers us; the river below mutters about its own plans. We could stop here and it would be sacred. We don’t. We climb. The observatory door gives under my palm; the room greets us with dust and cold glass and all the quiet we earned.
I don’t need more words. I close the distance, hands finding the lines of him like they’re landmarks. His breath hitches; his mouth is warm and almost cautious. “We have time now,” I whisper into the place at his jaw I’ve wanted to live. “No one’s chasing us. We can go slow like the sun.”
“Then teach me morning,” he answers, and I do.
We don’t rush. We unwrap each other like gifts left in the sun—paper soft, ribbon obedient, nothing clawed open. I learn the map of his back all over again, every scar a road my fingers refuse to take for granted. He traces the line of my shoulder as if he’s writing my name there in a language that doesn’t love letters. The glass above us holds the moon exactly where I want it; white pools on the scuffed chess table like spilled milk; the telescope watches like an old aunt who finally learned how to keep a secret.
“Look at me,” I say, and when his eyes meet mine, slow as tide, I feel the floor of me drop away and rebuild sweeter. No pressure, no fear, just belonging that settles into my bones like heat after a swim. He is careful where I need it and graceless where joy demands it; I am greedy without apology. My body stops bracing for interruption; my mind stops drafting speeches we don’t need anymore. It’s not a storm; it’s a noon. It’s a window thrown open. It’s an orchard in season and me with both hands outstretched. When we crest, it’s quiet—a caught breath, a palm flattening against his shoulder, a laugh I can’t help because this is what relief sounds like when it finally finds a mouth.
We drowse on the old rug because the table is for chess and I am in the business of making new rules. The dust motes float like saints in training; the glass fogs at the corners; a bird tries out three notes and decides against a song. Rayek pulls his cloak over us and it smells like him—metal and soap and a little lemon from the hall, which feels like a treaty we didn’t have to sign. I trace the cross-hatching at the edge of his favorite scar until he catches my hand and kisses the heel of it, a little bow to a small altar.
“We should run away again,” I murmur, the lazy mischief climbing back into my voice now that my heart isn’t on fire.
“We did,” he says, thumb smoothing circles along my wrist. “Right into here.”
“Tomorrow we’ll go see your ice palace,” I say, grinning into his chest.
“Tomorrow,” he agrees. “And the cliff with the wind that eats words.”
