Page 52 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

Down here, it sounds painfully reasonable.

Sira tilts her head slightly, listening to something beyond the limits of ordinary hearing. “There is movement above us.”

The corridor falls silent instantly.

At first, I hear nothing except the hum of damaged emergency systems and the uneven rhythm of our breathing. Then the ruin shifts the sound strangely. Footsteps filter through layers of stone and impossible geometry until they seem to emerge from the walls themselves. Several sets. Disciplined spacing. Controlled movement.

The Choir is already searching the upper tunnels.

Ghar’s posture tightens subtly. “Lights low,” he says, glancing toward Brakk. “No unnecessary talking.”

Brakk lowers the beam on his fusion cutter and snorts. “Necessary becomes a pretty philosophical category underground.”

“Try to become less philosophical.”

We start moving deeper into the ruins.

The passage slopes downward in uneven tiers that seem to rearrange themselves whenever I stop looking directly at them. The black walls narrow and widen without logical progression. Thin silver lines pulse faintly beneath the stone in branching geometric patterns that remind me too much of the archive interface. Moisture beads along certain surfaces but never falls naturally. Some droplets drift sideways through the air before dissolving entirely.

The deeper we descend, the more the tunnels feel less constructed and more…grown.

My scanner hums faintly inside the archive case.

That sound alone is enough to make my stomach tighten.

Every instinct in me screams to open the case again. Every instinct also screams that doing so would be catastrophically stupid. Unfortunately, my instincts have recently demonstrated extremely questionable judgment.

The passage bends sharply left.

Without thinking, Ghar shifts left first.

A fracture opens in the wall to our right, exhaling cold air from somewhere deeper below. Ghar immediately angles his body protectively before continuing forward.

I narrow my eyes.

Three minutes later, the tunnel ceiling dips low over a narrow choke point lined with fractured stone. Ghar moves ahead again, scanning the overhang before allowing me through.

The pattern finally irritates me enough to overwhelm grief temporarily.

“Stop doing that,” I say.

Ghar glances back over one shoulder. “Doing what?”

“Treating me like hostile terrain.”

Brakk mutters from behind us, “Hostile terrain usually complains less.”

I ignore him and quicken my pace until I walk beside Ghar instead of behind him. The corridor narrows enough that my shoulder nearly brushes his arm. Heat flashes through the bond immediately, sharp and involuntary, and I hate the way my body notices the proximity before my mind finishes processing it.

“You keep repositioning yourself between me and every hallway, crack, shadow, and suspicious gust of air,” I say.

Ghar’s expression remains maddeningly calm. “There are many suspicious gusts of air.”

“That is not the point.”

“It should be.”

“It’s not.”