Page 38 of Alien Assassin's Heir

And I haven’t even had the chance to know her.

I don’t want to screw this up. Not again. So tonight, I’ll show up.

I’ll talk.

I’ll listen.

And I’ll figure out who the hell I’m supposed to be now that the war’s not the only thing consuming me. Because it’s not the mission that’s keeping me awake anymore. It’s Luna. And maybe…Just maybe…That kid.

The reportI send is cleaner than it has any right to be. Surgical. Just facts about the Alliance courier's movements—nothing about Luna, nothing about the girl, nothing about the fabrication center. It reads like the dry intel briefs we used to roll our eyes at in the field—precise, bloodless, forgettable. The kind of thing that slides through layers of bureaucracy without a ripple.

Targen doesn’t ping back. Yet.

I stare at the encrypted delivery confirmation on my compad, then toss the device onto the cluttered table like it burns. It rattles next to an old field knife and the remains of a half-eaten ration bar that tastes like chalk and engine oil. My gut knots anyway—not from hunger.

I know what I’m doing. I’m lying. Again.

Only this time it’s not to Luna. It’s to the Coalition. To Targen. To everything I’ve bled for in the last decade. And the worst part? It doesn’t even feel like betrayal. It feels like mercy. Like I’m finally doing something that matters.

I lean back in the creaking synthframe chair and press the heels of my hands into my eyes until the world becomes nothing but pulsing red. My thoughts are a snarl of memory and scent—Luna’s breath on my neck last night, the curve of her back against my chest, the way her voice broke when she whispered my name in the dark.

I never deserved that kind of softness. Still don’t.

But it’s not just her. It’s the kid, too.

Solie.

I didn’t know her name until I heard it in the plaza—Luna saying it with that mother’s lilt, gentle but firm, as the girl veeredtoo close to a robotic fruit vendor. Solie. A human name. Simple. Sweet.

I stood in the shadow of a defunct power terminal and watched them—watched the way Luna knelt to adjust the collar of the kid’s jacket, the way Solie giggled and squirmed, curling fingers around her mother’s braid.

Then she turned and saw me.

Golden eyes. Big, curious, and wide. My heart stuttered, a misfire in my chest.

And she smiled.

Not one of those nervous kid-smiles either. No, this was warm. Confident. Like she knew me. Like I was someone safe. Someone solid.

I shouldn’t have been that someone. I’m a shadow, a saboteur, a soldier with too many deaths on my claws. Kids don’t look at me like that. Not unless they’ve never been taught fear.

But she looked. And she smiled. And for one terrifying second, I smiled back.

It messed me up worse than any shrapnel.

I told myself it was coincidence. A flicker of expression with no meaning. I’ve seen a thousand smiles in my time—most of them lies.

But that one? That one stuck. Lodged behind my sternum like a lodged shell casing.

“She’s not mine,” I mutter, pacing the room now, voice low and raw. “She can’t be.”

But even as I say it, I remember how her eyes match mine.

Not exactly, no. Hers are more amber, more fluid with light. But close enough to freeze the blood in my veins.

I pace faster. Each step is a drumbeat of denial.

Luna would’ve told me. Right?