Page 193 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

“Should?” Sira asks.

“I am very confident.”

“You said should.”

“I am emotionally confident and technically terrified.”

The chamber behind us detonates in silence.

No sound. Only pressure.

The wave hits my back and drives all of us forward. For one suspended instant, I see through the walls. I see the final archive chamber blooming into white ruin. I see the full records sealing beneath layers of impossible geometry. I see the central hollow closing like an eye. I see Echo’s last pale trace vanish into the archive’s depth.

Then the junction returns, and we are all sprawled across the floor.

Anita pushes herself up, coughing. The shard remains clutched against her chest. “Everyone alive?”

Brakk groans. “Define alive in a way that includes furious and bruised.”

“Sira?”

“I am here.”

“Ghar?”

I rise slowly. Pain answers from many places, but pain is not death. “I am here.”

Her eyes find mine, and the relief in them steadies me more than any sacred chant ever did.

Rolaev stands near the edge of the junction, staring back toward the sealed archive. The collapsing light flickers across her face. She looks less like a priestess now and more like a survivor who has not decided what survival demands.

I step forward.

Anita’s hand catches mine. “Ghar?”

I turn, and I understand what she fears. She thinks I am going to confront Rolaev with violence. Part of me wants to. Teren’s death still stands between us. The murdered crew. The terror. The attacks. Nothing Echo said erases blood.

But this moment is not for killing.

Not yet.

I face everyone present: Anita, Sira, Brakk, Rolaev , even the trembling remnants of the world that tried to call itself sacred and failed. The ruins continue breaking around us, but my voice comes steady.

“I choose Anita Prentiss.”

Anita’s fingers tighten around mine.

Brakk blinks. “Is this a wedding? Because the venue is terrible.”

I ignore him, though Anita makes a tiny, strangled sound that might become laughter later if we live.

“I choose her without command from destiny,” I say. “Without permission from gods, Precursors, First Ones, or any faith built by fear. The bond between us may have emerged from biology. It may have been shaped by life, chance, and experience. I honor it because I choose to honor it.”

Sira’s eyes shine.

Rolaev looks at me as if I have spoken a language she once knew and forgot under too much ash.

Anita turns toward me fully. “Ghar.”