Page 128 of Stripped By the Alien

"Hey, I was captured a few days ago. I was in a cell! Look how weak I am." I lift one arm, then let it flop weakly to my side, pretending I'm too weak to keep it there.

Krix'vorr chuckles. "You also destroyed a slave-trading operation and married a Chief Harrower at the same time. I think you can afford to lose one sparring match to me without it troubling your record."

I laugh, and take up the stance anyway, mostly because some part of me does want to know. I want to test, one more time, whether the ground beneath us has really changed as much as it feels like it has.

"There's something I should have told you a long time ago." He catches my wrist mid-feint, but gently, holding rather than deflecting. "The lightning. The Inquisitor told me what it means, although I already suspected. There's a word for it: Marankz. It's ancient. It means we were... chosen. Matched. Before either of us knew it."

I study his face. He's bordering on sheepish, and it's entirely charming. "You mean… fated mates? How long have you known?"

"Since before the Nest. Since Brax'tok told me on the Beast's hull, in vacuum, where nobody else could hear. Though I suspected it earlier."

I free my wrist. "And you didn't tell me?"

He looks away. "I didn't know what it would cost you to hear it. Or what it would cost me to say it."

I consider being miffed about that. Then I consider how many things I kept from him for exactly the same reason. Earth's location, Sophia's mission, my own escape attempts. "I think we're both bad at sharing important information."

“Let's get better at it.” He lunges, slower than he used to, more deliberate, and I sidestep out of habit and catch his wrist the way I did that very first night, pivoting to pull him off balance.

He lets me.

I feel it the instant it happens. The deliberate giving of his weight, the same trick he pulled on me back when we were only pretending not to be falling for each other. and instead of sending him crashing to the floor, I find myself pulled forward into his chest instead, his arms already closing around me before I can protest that it isn't a fair move.

"That's not a combat technique," I tell him, muffled against him.

"Oh?" he says. "Perhaps I am inventing a new one."

I push gently away from him and deliberately roll my eyes. “Perhaps you’re trying to turn this into something else.”

“That eye thing is genuinely infuriating,” he growls. “Do it again.”

I roll them again. “Why should I?”

“That’s it.” He tips my chin up, and kisses me, slow and unhurried in a way we've never quite had the luxury of being before — no Queen waiting, no Inquisitor circling, no ticking clock counting down toward an auction or a war. Just the quiet hum of the Beast around us, and his hands finding the ties of my wrap with far more patience than the last time we stood in this room together.

"If this is your combat style, I have to say I like it." I murmur against his mouth.

"It has its attractive points," he agrees, and picks me up entirely off my feet, and carries me toward the resting platform at the edge of the chamber without breaking the kiss even once.

“But now I can never let you fight anyone else,” I tell him. “I can't have your enemies fall in love with you.”

The lights of the training chamber dim of their own accord, the Beast's version of discretion.

“Oh, I will only ever use this style when I'm fighting you.”

“Do you think we'll do a lot of fighting?”

“The thing is, we don't have to be actually fighting. This technique is only suited for practice.”

"Then we'd better practice a lot," I murmur as the wrap slides off my shoulders and his mouth finds the curve of my neck. "I hear it takes a lifetime to master a new technique."

"At least," he agrees, lowering me onto the platform with a gentleness that still, after everything, surprises me. "Perhaps longer. I'm told humans are slow learners."

"And I'm telling you right now, locusts are stubborn teachers."

"Then we're perfectly matched." His weight settles over me, warm and vast and utterly safe, and the Beast dims her lights the rest of the way, leaving nothing but starlight, and the slow pulse of a living spaceship who is, at least for once, content to share him.

EPILOGUE