Page 86 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

She notices. Of course she notices. Her hand pauses against my scales, and her eyes lift to mine.

Brakk clears his throat from across the room. “Sira and I are going to inspect that far wall for, uh, terrible things.”

Sira looks at him.

Brakk widens his eyes. “Terrible things, moon lady. Very urgent.”

Sira’s expression softens with understanding. “Yes. The far wall may be extremely informative.”

They move away, though the chamber is too small to grant real privacy. The gesture is enough to make my control strain harder.

Anita presses the med patch over the burn with careful force. I hiss through my teeth.

“Sorry,” she says.

“I have had worse.”

“I know, and that is a terrible thing to know about you.”

Her voice cracks on the last word. She tries to hide it by reaching for another patch, but I catch her wrist gently before she can turn away. Her pulse hammers beneath my fingers.

She looks at my hand around her wrist, then back at my face. “Is this real?”

The question is soft enough that I almost pretend not to understand.

I cannot.

“What?”

Her eyes shine, furious and frightened and too open for either of our defenses. “This. What you feel. What I feel when you look at me like that. Is any of it actually ours, or did some ancient soul-engine reach into our heads and decide we’d make a nice matched set?”

I release her wrist slowly, though the loss of contact cuts.

“I do not know,” I say.

That answer hurts her. I see it land. I hate that I have nothing cleaner to give.

Anita looks down at the med patches in her lap. “That’s not comforting.”

“No.”

“I was hoping you’d lie better.”

“I am tired of lies.”

Her laugh is small and broken. “Yeah. Me too.”

I lean forward, elbows braced on my knees, bringing myself closer to her level. “I no longer understand destiny. I know not what the Precursors made, inherited, or buried. I do not know whether jalshagar began as divine design, biological architecture, or something older wearing both masks.”

She swallows hard.

I continue because the truth is ugly and she deserves it intact. “I know that when the wall folded between us, I felt something in me tear open. I know that hearing you scream my name did more damage than the plasma burns. I know that when I saw you under that slab, I would have broken myself apart to get you out.”

Anita’s breath catches.

The med patch falls from her fingers.

“I do not have a doctrine for that,” I say, my voice roughening despite my efforts to control it. “I do not have faith steady enough to name it cleanly. I only know losing you felt unbearable before I had time to dress it in meaning.”