Page 19 of Accidentally Abducted (Nereidan Compatibility Program #1)

"—and the molecular reconstitution occurs at the exact point of origin, ensuring spatial integrity," he's saying, his voice so formal he sounds like a different person entirely.

"Zeph," I interrupt, placing a hand on his arm. "It's okay. You don't have to do this."

He stills, not looking at me. "Do what?"

"Pretend this is just another day at the office. Pretend you're not feeling exactly what I'm feeling right now."

Through our bond, I can sense his struggle, the conflict between his training and his emotions, between duty and desire. Finally, he turns to face me, and the naked pain in his expression makes my breath catch.

"I do not know how to say goodbye to you, Jake Morrison," he admits, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Then don't," I say, reaching for him. "Not yet."

He pulls me close, and for a few precious minutes, we just hold each other, his face buried in my hair, my arms wrapped around his waist. His hands move across my back in slow, deliberate motions, as if he's creating a tactile map of me to take with him when I'm gone.

I do the same, my fingers tracing the lines of his shoulders, the curve of his spine, the texture of his skin, committing everything to memory.

I try to memorize everything, the warmth of his skin, the strange rhythm of his heartbeat, the way he smells like ocean and something spicy I can't name.

"I need to remember this," I whisper against his chest, and he responds by framing my face with his hands, thumbs stroking over my cheekbones as his golden eyes lock with mine.

"As do I," he murmurs, his gaze moving over my features with such intensity I can almost feel it as a physical touch.

Too soon, the ship announces that the transportation cycle will activate in thirty minutes.

Zeph pulls back reluctantly, his hands lingering on my arms. "You should prepare. The process can be... disorienting."

"Right. Wouldn't want to arrive back on Earth inside-out or something." I attempt a smile that probably looks more like a grimace. "That would be a hell of a conversation starter at parties."

Zeph doesn't laugh. Instead, he turns abruptly and moves to a panel on the wall, pressing his hand against it. A hidden compartment slides open, revealing a small device that looks something like a metallic river stone, smooth and flat with faint blue markings.

"This is against every protocol we have," he says, his voice tight. "I could lose my position for this."

"What is it?" I ask as he presses the device into my palm.

"A neural communicator." Zeph closes my fingers around it. "For emergencies only. It can transmit a single signal across interstellar distances."

I stare at him, not quite believing what I'm hearing. "You're giving me a way to call you?"

"It is extremely limited," he cautions. "It cannot transmit actual messages, only a simple distress signal. And it is meant solely for true emergencies, not... casual communication."

The unspoken message is clear, he's breaking rules for me, risking his career to make sure I'm not completely cut off. "How would I know if you received it? Or if you respond?"

"You would feel it," Zeph says, tapping my chest lightly. "Through our bond."

"I thought the bond would fade once we're separated." The thought has been haunting me, losing not just his physical presence but that deeper connection we've formed.

"It will diminish with distance," he acknowledges. "But not disappear entirely. Not if what we have experienced is... as significant as I believe it to be."

The ship announces twenty minutes remaining, and my heart rate kicks up a notch.

"Thank you," I say, closing my hand around the communicator. "Though I have to say, your definition of 'emergency' better be pretty broad."

That gets me a ghost of a smile. "I trust your judgment."

"That might be the first mistake you've made since we met," I joke, but it falls flat.

"You should position yourself in the center of the room," Zeph says, guiding me to the spot where I first arrived. "The transport coordinates are locked to your original location on Earth."

I stand where he indicates, suddenly feeling very small and very human. "So this is it, huh?"

"Yes." Zeph's professional mask is slipping again, pain showing through the cracks. "Jake, I—"

"No," I interrupt. "Don't say it. Not if this is goodbye."

He nods, understanding without me having to explain. Some words shouldn't be said unless there's hope of a future to back them up.

Ten minutes.

"I'm going to miss you," I say instead, because that much is safe to admit. "More than I thought possible after three days."

"And I you," Zeph replies, his voice rough with emotion. "More than I thought possible in a lifetime."

Five minutes.

The room begins to fill with the same blue light that brought me here, and I feel a familiar tingling sensation starting in my extremities.

"Zeph—" I start, suddenly desperate to say everything I've been holding back.

But it's too late. The blue light intensifies, and the last thing I see is Zeph's face, golden eyes wide and filled with an emotion that mirrors the one tearing my own chest apart.

Then there's nothing but blue light and the bizarre sensation of being everywhere and nowhere at once.

When reality reasserts itself, I'm standing in my living room, exactly where I was when this all started, same apartment, but everything's slightly off.

The TV is showing some reality show I don't recognize instead of that British baking program.

The pizza I left on the coffee table has a suspicious greenish tint to it now.

And there's a stack of missed calls and texts on my phone that's been charging on the side table.

The air hits me immediately, stale, slightly musty, with that faint hint of microwave popcorn that always lingers in my apartment building's hallways. After three days of breathing the ship's perfectly regulated atmosphere, the ordinariness of Earth air feels like an assault on my senses.

Three days have definitely passed. The experiment was real. All of it was real.

The evidence is in the small communicator clutched in my palm. And the container of gemstones in my pocket. And the hollow ache in my chest where our empathic bond is already beginning to fade.

I stand there for a long moment, the silence of my apartment crushing after days of Zeph's presence, his voice, his movements, the subtle hum of the ship that I hadn't even realized I'd gotten used to.

"Well," I say to the empty room, because talking to myself is still my brand, apparently. "That just happened."

My own voice sounds wrong somehow, too flat, too ordinary after days of Zeph's formal, melodic speech patterns. I move to sit on the couch, but my legs give out halfway there, and I end up on the floor, staring at the communicator in my hand.

For emergencies only, he said. Not casual communication.

But what constitutes an emergency, really? Is having your heart torn out of your chest and left in another star system an emergency? Is realizing that your crappy apartment and meaningless job and empty life are unbearable now that you know what else exists an emergency?

I close my fingers around the communicator, tempted to activate it immediately, to send a signal that says I need you, come back, this isn't right .

Instead, I carefully place it on my coffee table and check my phone.

According to the display, it's Friday night, exactly three days since I was abducted.

The screen is filled with increasingly concerned text messages and missed calls from my coworkers and even a couple friends who noticed I'd completely vanished.

There's a particularly angry text from my manager that makes it clear I no longer have a job at the coffee shop. Three days of no-shows with zero communication was apparently the final straw after my "consistently mediocre attitude toward customer satisfaction."

The crushing reality of it all makes me want to scream. Or cry. Or both. Three days that changed my entire life, and all I have to show for it is an alien communicator, a pocket full of gemstones, and an empty apartment that feels even smaller and more pathetic than it did before.

Instead, I pick up the communicator again, running my thumb over its smooth surface, feeling the faint vibration that suggests it's more than just a stone. With my other hand, I touch my chest, searching for that empathic connection that was so vivid just minutes ago.

It's there, but faint, a ghost of what it was, a bare impression rather than the vivid link we shared.

And it's fading even as I focus on it, like a dream slipping away upon waking.

I close my eyes, trying desperately to hold onto it, to reach through whatever vast distance now separates us.

For a moment, I think I feel something, a flicker of warmth, an echo of that golden glow, but it slips through my mental fingers like water, leaving nothing but the cold emptiness of its absence.

"Come back," I whisper, though I know he can't hear me. "Please come back."

There's no response, of course. Just the quiet of my apartment and the dull ache of loss that feels too big for my body to contain.

I curl up on the floor, clutching the communicator to my chest, and finally let the tears come.