Page 19 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

I rise, lifting debris off my back. Pain burns along my shoulder, but my body can take worse. Vakutan flesh heals. Vakutan pride, less so.

Anita sits up slowly, dust falling from her coat. “You’re bleeding.”

“I said it is superficial.”

“And I said that is a stupid thing people say before infections get creative.”

I offer my hand before I think better of it.

She looks at it.

The chamber breathes around us, dust curling through the lamplight. Somewhere overhead, the supports groan. The inscription remains visible beyond the collapse, still whispering its impossible claim through the scanner’s cracked display.

CHILDREN SHAPED AFTER THE FIRST ARCHITECTS.

Anita places her hand in mine.

“Fuck,” we say in unison.

CHAPTER 3

ANITA

The ruins do not let me sleep.

That is the excuse I give myself, anyway.

Not the impossible inscription. Not the collapse. Not the feeling of Ghar’s body covering mine while half a ceiling tried to pulp us into archaeology paste. Definitely not the way my pulse still misbehaves every time I remember his hand closing around mine in the dust afterward.

No. It is the ruins.

That sounds more professional.

Nareth-Kul’s artificial night cycle settles over the excavation in cold gradients of blue and silver. Floodlights burn across the terraces while the rest of the rogue world stretches away into endless black stone beneath a starless void. The wind has picked up again. It scrapes mineral dust across the prefab habitat modules with a dry hiss that sounds disturbingly like whispering if you are tired enough.

I am tired enough.

The main research tent smells like overheated processors, stale caf, and ancient dirt thawing under controlled atmosphere regulators. Portable heaters hum beside stacks of excavation crates. Holographic scans rotate slowly above the central analysis table, projecting fractured sections of inscription geometry into the air like broken constellations.

Sira-Vel stands beneath the projection field with her hands folded behind her back.

The Pi’Rell woman moves with unnerving stillness, as if ordinary gravity applies to her only out of courtesy. Silver-white skin catches the blue projection light and reflects it softly across the high planes of her face. Her eyes remain fixed on the floating symbols while everyone else in the room drifts around her in increasingly sleep-deprived circles.

Teren once whispered to me that talking to Sira feels like getting psychoanalyzed by moonlight.

He is not entirely wrong.

I drop a data slate onto the analysis table and rake both hands through my curls. “Okay. Either this grammar system is corrupted, or the ruins are actively trying to make me unemployable.”

Teren looks up from a nearby console. “You say that like those are mutually exclusive.”

Brakk snorts from under an open equipment panel. “Kid, if these ruins are trying to ruin careers, they picked the wrong galaxy. Academia already does that for free.”

I ignore both of them and expand the symbol cluster floating above the table. Thin black geometric lines unfurl in the air, nested inside one another with recursive complexity that makes my eyes ache if I stare too long.

Sira finally speaks.

“The syntax is older than Precursor Standard.”