Page 9 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

My mind still holds the echo of a battlefield I have never seen.

My chest still aches around that impossible phrase.

One soul with two bodies.

I hate it. I hate that some buried, frightened part of me wants to turn the phrase over and examine it from every angle like an artifact pulled from sacred ground.

I straighten my spine. “Fine. I’ll go to command.”

Merrow exhales in relief.

I point at him. “Not because you won.”

His relief dies a quick, deserved death.

Then I point at Ghar. “And not because you ordered me.”

Ghar inclines his head once, controlled and infuriating. “Of course.”

“I am going because my scanner is malfunctioning, and I need a better equipment suite before I prove all of you are standing on the most important archaeological discovery since the first verified Precursor vault.”

Teren gives me a weak thumbs-up. “That sounds healthier than shock.”

“It is healthier than shock.”

“It sounds a little like shock wearing a blazer.”

I walk past Ghar because retreat feels less humiliating if I make it look like strategy. For one dangerous second, my shoulder passes close enough to his arm that every nerve in my body seems to lean toward him.

Neither of us touches.

Somehow, the absence of contact feels louder than the contact did.

As I duck back under the hazard gate, I look toward the command structure, the floodlights, the workers, the practical world of permits and scans and academic warfare. I do not look back at the Vakutan standing guard before the impossible wall.

I absolutely do not.

Not until I reach the cleared path.

Then I glance over my shoulder.

Ghar remains in the fracture zone, broad and motionless against the black architecture, his golden eyes fixed on me with an expression I cannot classify. It is not desire, exactly. It is not anger, either. It is the look of a man who has survived wars, walked away from gods, and just discovered the universe still has one more cruel joke left in its pocket.

My palm tingles again.

I shove the hand into my coat and keep walking.

Static discharge, I tell myself.

Stress response.

Environmental interference.

Anything but fate.

CHAPTER 2

GHAR