Page 151 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

“I am in crisis. My standards are unstable.”

“Apparently your crisis has excellent dialogue.”

I lower my forehead toward hers slowly, giving her time to turn away. She does not. Her free hand rises to my chest, settling over armor that suddenly feels too heavy for the chamber, too much like a life built to protect a faith that no longer protects me. Her touch is light, but I feel it everywhere.

“If everything began by accident,” I say, “then perhaps accident is not the same as false.”

“No,” she whispers. “It isn’t.”

“If the Precursors made meaning to keep civilizations alive, perhaps the making does not automatically corrupt the meaning.”

“Exactly.”

“But they lied.”

“Yes.”

“And their lies harmed people too.”

“Yes.”

I close my eyes as her breath brushes my mouth. “Then there is no clean answer.”

“No. There is only us deciding what we do next without pretending the answer is clean.”

The old part of me, the soldier, wants commandments. It wants rules that hold under pressure. It wants a banner above the battlefield and a voice saying this is right, this is wrong, advance, retreat, endure. The ruined part of me wants nothing because nothing cannot betray you.

But Anita stands before me, neither commandment nor void.

Choice.

Not grand, not easy, not carved into reality before time. Choice made with shaking hands in a chamber full of broken certainty.

I touch her face. My claws remain carefully angled away from her skin. “I have no idea how to rebuild from this.”

“Then don’t rebuild the whole thing today.”

“I am Vakutan. We dislike unfinished structures.”

“I am human. We invented procrastination and called it stress management.”

“That explains much about your species.”

She smiles, and the sight hurts in a way I want to keep. “Start small.”

“With what?”

“With what you actually know.”

I consider the question seriously. The chamber remains cold. The archive waits beyond the corridor. Rolaev still lives. The Choir still hunts. The galaxy still stands on myths that may shatter if handled carelessly. I no longer know whether honor descends from the sacred.

But I know Anita’s hand in mine.

I know Sira’s compassion matters.

I know Brakk’s frightened loyalty has value even when wrapped in profanity.

I know Teren’s death was wrong, not because a cosmic law declared it wrong before time, but because a life capable of laughter, fear, friendship, and choice was taken.