Page 6 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

“I think you are here because the League got nervous and hired the biggest wall it could find.”

“I am here because intelligent people often become reckless when they mistake curiosity for invulnerability.”

“That almost sounded like a compliment.”

“It was an assessment.”

“Try putting a bow on it next time.”

The corner of his mouth moves, not quite a smile but close enough to be insulting. “You are reckless and intelligent, Anita Prentiss. The second quality does not excuse the first.”

My name in his voice does something strange to the air.

I do not like it.

I take a step toward the wall, partly because I need the scan and partly because I refuse to let my nervous system be bossed around by a handsome armored barricade. Ghar moves faster than something that size should move. He is in front of me before my boot lands, blocking the symbols with his body.

“Move,” I say.

“No.”

“I am not one of your soldiers.”

“That is obvious.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“A soldier would have followed the sign with the skull on it.”

“The skull lacked peer-reviewed context.”

His gaze flicks over my face. “You use jokes when you are angry.”

“I use jokes because they are efficient.”

“You are also afraid.”

Heat rises in my cheeks. “Buddy, I have student debt, professional rivals with tenure, and a mother who still thinks archaeology means I dig up dinosaur bones. You are going to have to work harder than standing there looking like a warship with cheekbones.”

This time, he almost does smile. Almost. The restraint of it makes me want to win the argument by any means necessary.

I shift left.

He blocks me.

I shift right.

He blocks me again.

“Oh, for the love of every dead civilization.” I reach out to push past him. “I need one clean scan.”

My gloved hand lands against his forearm.

The universe opens. For one impossible instant, the world splits through the center and shows me too much.

Heat floods through my palm, but it is not heat from his skin. It is memory without sequence, sensation without permission. I see fire reflecting off metal walls. I taste blood that is not in my mouth. I feel a battlefield tremble under artillery, hear Vakutan voices roaring in grief and triumph, smell smoke, rain, burned circuitry, and something sweet rotting under alien suns. I feel loneliness held under discipline for so long it has calcified into armor. I feel a certainty so vast and violent that my own thoughts scatter before it.

Then I see myself through his eyes.