Page 50 of Fated for the Alien Fighter

Before she could stop the yearning, desperate emotion from reaching her heart, she felt it.

Taryn had sensed her.

He was coming to save her.

The Zavorian tilted his head to the side, a razor grin cutting at his lips. “We’ll have to finish this another time, it seems. My brother always finds a way to spoil my fun.”

The Zavorian’s and Flint’s holograms instantly vanished, leaving Leah with a hollow feeling.

“Leah?” Taryn called from the front of the shop, his voice fierce.

She couldn’t breathe.

She couldn’t move.

She couldn't think.

Brother?

Taryn yanked the fabric to the side. The shadows crowding his wild eyes instantly vanished when he saw her.

He smiled, taking a step toward her.

Leah took a shaky step back.

It couldn’t be true. But it was.

All that talk about relatives.

How he didn’t share where he came from.

Taryn looked so much like the Zavorian. The golden shade of his skin, the curve of his horns, even the way the symbols on his brow ridge furrowed in confusion.

Leah took a shaky breath that did nothing to calm her. Instead, her world spun again, this time more frightening. “You’re Zavorian.”

18

TARYN

“I’m half-Zavorian,” Taryn grit out once they left the shop and were safely inside the ship, blasting over Kustume.

He’d talked to the younglings, given them enough resources to buy food and clothing for a whole year–and shelter, should they choose to remain in Kustume–and had gathered enough reluctant information out of them to locate their new dwelling and how they were living right now.

Once he got to his estate, he would call Zandyr back. The Ambassador had tried to reach Taryn, but he’d been too focused on Leah.

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. It didn’t escape Taryn’s notice that she stood farther apart from him now than before. Like she didn’t even want to breathe the same air as him.

He didn’t feel any disgust in her energy, but what if he wasn’t reading their connection right? His was erratic and mangled.

Out of all the things Taryn had never wanted Leah to find out from anyone but himself, being half-Zavorian was the absolute worst of it.

No, come to think of it. Theworstwas finding out who his father really was.

Taryn didn’t know if that would be the information that could take her away from him forever. It was something he had to risk, though.

Not for himself, only misery awaited on that road for him.

But Leah deserved the truth. This would be his gift to her. It might be the only, it might only be the first.

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