Page 109 of The Alien Warrior's Vow

“You are afraid you are incapable of conceiving?” Lans asked, his voice grave and his purple eyes intent on her.

She glanced away.

He turned her head back to him. “I have said it before and I will say it again. Eema, you are most precious to me. You are my treasure. My light. My life. It matters not if we have a brood. I would spend the rest of my life with you and feel incredibly grateful.”

“No, Lans.”

“Neh? Then what is the matter?”

“Itoldyou. It’s not that I can’t conceive. It’s that… it’s that I’m so afraid to.”

His eyebrow nubs crinkled. “Tell me what you are afraid of, Eema.”

“You wouldn’t understand.” She gestured with her hands. “Back then, when I found out I was pregnant, my first thought wasn’t that I couldn’t provide for the baby. It should have been because I didn’t have a lick of money and no job lined up. I barely had a place to live, but I figured I could work out the logistics.”

“You did not live with your family?” Lans asked, his voice grave.

“My mom would always threaten to kick me out and if I showed up with a kid, she definitely would.”

“That does not sound like a mother.”

“Yeah, well. She wasn’t much of one.” Emma’s voice snapped with hurt. “My mother was a drunk who kept making bad decisions. I thought I was worthless because she told me I was.”

Lans’s lips flattened into a firm line.

Emma shook her head. “But she was the only mother I knew and I loved her. Sometimes, I found myself acting like her. And that’s what scared me. What still scares me.”

“Eema…”

Fear made her eyes dart left and right. “What if I end up like my mother, Lans? What if I end up hating my own child and making her life miserable? What if I try my best to be a good mom and fail? The thought of that,” she trembled, “makes me feel like I’m drowning. Like I’m about to explode. I can’t subject another living being to that kind of torture. I couldn’t live with myself if I unconsciously treated my own flesh and blood the way my mother treated me.”

“Eema.Eema.”

Her hands flailed as she spiraled deeper into her hurt. Having kept these truths trapped for so long, they kept spilling out. Kept bursting free. Kept tearing through her until she felt ragged inside.

“I’d rather die than become my mother, Lans. I’d rather—”

“Eema!” His voice echoed. Lans grabbed her hands and kept her in place. “Look at me.”

She couldn’t.

Her eyes fell on the still, clear waters of the sacred lake. It was so blue, she could see to the sand beneath it.

“Look at me,” Lans said firmly.

She turned her chin up, inch by inch, until her eyes slammed into his violet ones. Set in that rough and dangerous face, she should have shivered in fright. Instead, looking at Lans was like wrapping her body up in a warm blanket on a cold night.

She saw no judgement.

No anger.

No disgust.

Only steadiness.

This alien was nothing if not consistent.

And something about that made her heart melt.