Page 81 of Alien Assassin's Heir

“I hated you,” I whisper, the words burning, because they’re true. “I hated what you did to me. I hated that I let you close enough to break me. But gods help me, I missed you too. Every time she kicked, every time I felt her moving, I thought of you. Of your voice. Of your hands. And it made me sick, because I couldn’t scrub you out of me. Not from my body, not from my heart.”

His breath shudders, and for once, he doesn’t try to defend himself. He just listens.

“I raised her alone,” I continue, brushing Solie’s hair back from her scaled patch. “I patched cargo records, scrubbed ship logs, worked shifts until my hands shook. And still, every night, I’d stare at her and wonder if she’d have your eyes, your temper, your curse. I told myself I could keep her safe by keeping her secret. By keeping you away.”

Kael swallows hard, his throat working. His hand inches forward, hesitant, until his claws graze Solie’s blanket. “And did it work?”

I laugh bitterly. “You’re here, aren’t you? Somehow you found us anyway.”

Silence swallows us again. He looks down at her, at the little girl nestled between us. His face softens in a way I’ve never seen—not even years ago, before the lies, before the war. His voice is low when he speaks, almost reverent.

“She saved me, and I didn’t even know her name.”

I blink against the sting in my eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I thought all I had left was the blood on my hands. Thought I was nothing but a weapon Targen kept pulling out of the box. But then she looked at me—like I wasn’t a monster. Like I was worth something. And it broke me, Luna. In ways I didn’t know I could still break.”

My lips tremble. I reach across Solie’s sleeping form, my fingers brushing his cheek. The scales are rough beneath my touch, but the warmth beneath them is alive, trembling.

“We can’t change the past,” I whisper. “But maybe we can stop running from it.”

His eyes burn. “And if the past comes knocking?”

“Then we answer together,” I say, firm despite the tears sliding hot down my cheeks.

He lets out a sound—half laugh, half sob—and presses his forehead to mine. “This time,” he says, voice breaking, “no lies. No silence.”

“This time,” I echo.

We don’t cry. Not really. The tears come, but they’re quiet. No dramatic collapse, no screaming. Just two broken people whispering truths into the dark, clutching each other across the body of the child who binds us.

We don’t run.

We choose.

When Kael leans in, his kiss isn’t hungry, isn’t desperate. It’s steady. Solid. The kind of kiss that saysI see you. I still want you anyway.

And I kiss him back.

Later, the lamplight gutters out, and the world narrows to the slow rhythm of breath, the warmth of skin, the soft weight of Solie nestled between us.

“This time,” I murmur as sleep takes me, “we leave nothing unsaid.”

Kael’s arm tightens around me and Solie both. He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to.

We fall asleep as a family.

For what might be the last night of peace we’ll ever know.