Page 40 of The Alien Minotaur's Bride

I thought about Keth.

Keth, who asked before he touched me. Every single time.

Keth, who had crouched on the floor of my containment space on the first night, watching me sleep. Not with hunger. Not with calculation. With relief. Like he'd been searching for something precious and finally found it.

Keth, who had snapped the legs off a chair without being asked, because he'd seen me struggling to reach things in his world and decided to change his world to fit me.

Keth, who had raged against three officials in the assessment chamber, who had thrown aside his entire future, because they were trying to take me from him.

That wasn't management. That wasn't efficiency.

That was love. Terrifying, consuming, devotion-so-complete-it's-almost-frightening love.

And Vorreth didn't understand the difference. Couldn't understand it. To him, I was a commodity with legs. A production unit to be optimised.

I looked at him – at his satisfied tail, his calculating eyes, his posture of absolute confidence – and a certainty settled in my chest.

I wasn't going with him.

Not because I had a plan. Not because I knew how to stop it. But because the decision itself was real and final, written into my bones.

I was Keth's. I had chosen that. And I would find a way to make it stick.

The moment the decision settled, something in me let go.

I felt it happen – a knot I'd been holding for days, finally untying. For two days my body had been clenched around all of it: the fear of being taken, the indecision, the wrongness of being parted from him. My production had stalled and my scent had gone thin and miserable along with it. Now the fear had an answer. The choice was made, and my body, no longer braced against itself, simply released. The painful pressure in my breasts eased, warmth flooding through the tissue. When I glanced down, I could see wetness spreading through the thin fabric of my shift.

My milk was flowing. Properly, fully, for the first time since they'd brought me here.

Vorreth went still, scenting the air.

His tail stopped moving.

"Your scent…” He stepped closer, inhaling, and his expression changed. Confusion first. Then something sharper. "That is not possible. The bond read weak. The assessment confirmed–"

"The assessment was rigged," I said. "Whatever you put in that chamber, it stayed in that chamber. It was never in me." I held his gaze. "This is what I actually smell like. This is what the panel would have read, if you'd let them."

"The compound only needed to hold for the–" His tail cut the air, agitated.

He stopped. Realised what he'd just admitted.

I smiled.

"Thank you for visiting," I said. "I think we're done here."

He stared at me. His scent had shifted – I could read it now, the way I'd learned to read Keth's. Anger underneath the smooth exterior. Calculation turning frantic.

He turned and left without another word.

The door closed behind him.

I sat on the pallet, my shift soaked through with milk, my body finally settling into what felt like peace.

The decision was made. I'd felt my body answer it – not because choosing him was some magic that could thicken my blood, but because for the first time in days I wasn't at war with myself. The bond had been there all along. The chamber had lied about it. I'd only stopped letting the fear drown it out.

I was Keth's.

Not because he'd taken me. Not because the serum demanded it. Because I'd looked at the alternative and known, down to my bones, that I wanted him. His hands on my body. His scent around me. His voice asking may I touch every single time.