Page 3 of Alien Warrior Chef… With Benefits

REKKGAR

T he dojo breathes with me.

Each inhale echoes off the walls—stone and steel and tempered memory—each exhale grounded in earth and shadow.

My bare feet whisper across the training mats, friction singing a soft tune beneath the low grunt of my breath.

The air is heavy with the scent of oiled wood, old sweat, and the citrus cleanser Vonn insists I use even though it makes my nose twitch.

A pale sliver of pre-dawn light slices through the high-set window, painting the space in a blade of dull silver.

I move through the motions, slow and precise.

My muscles burn, but it is a familiar burn.

Desired. Each movement in the sequence—Gorh’Tai, the Morning Invocation—is deliberate: a step forward, a sharp pivot, a sweep of the arm that would break a spine if an opponent stood before me.

No opponent today. Just ghosts. They never leave. Not really.

My scales are slick with sweat, black gleaming like lacquer beneath the sheen.

The red stripes down my shoulders and ribs pulse with the motion, flickering with every shift of muscle like living ink.

Scars interrupt their flow—pale ridges, silvery with age—earned from a thousand places I do not name aloud.

I stop moving. The silence rushes in.

My cybernetic eye glows faintly, infrared running a lazy sweep across the dojo’s empty floor before I blink the HUD away. Just habit. No threats. Nothing but the scent of my own exertion and the faint, sugary ghost of her pastries leaking through the shared wall.

Ruby.

I close my eye—my one real eye—and let her name settle behind my ribs like a brand.

I tell myself this is foolish. I tell myself to let it go, to let her go.

But the problem is, I’ve never really held her.

Not the way I want. Not the way that haunts me in the hours before dawn when my discipline slips and my hands ache to touch.

I drop into a crouch and rest my forearms on my knees, sweat trailing along the seam of my spine and down into the waistband of my pants.

My breathing slows. The hum of the building’s systems fills the space around me: low, regulated, impersonal.

Nothing like her voice. Her voice is warm butter sliding over hot bread.

It’s laughter buried under grief, light stretched over darkness so expertly that you almost forget the weight beneath it.

But I don’t forget.

She wears pain like perfume—undetectable unless you know the scent. And I do. I’ve known it since the first time she handed me that ridiculous muffin top and asked me, without flinching, how I wanted my espresso. Everyone else flinched. She didn’t.

And now she’s part of my ritual.

I glance at the chrono on the wall. Almost time.

Each morning, I tell myself I’ll do it. I’ll say something. Anything. I’ll find a word that carries the weight of what sits behind my ribs like a dormant warhead, a word that won’t explode her carefully cultivated peace but will still say I see you. I want you.

But then she smiles.

And it guts me.

Because she’s promised to someone else. Because her life was parceled out like a business arrangement by people who meant well, and I won’t dishonor that with want. Not mine. Not hers.

She deserves more than a scarred-up ex-soldier with blood on his hands and a body rebuilt in too many places to count. She deserves a future that doesn’t start in shadow.

And still, I go.

I stand and wipe my face with the rough towel hanging near the weapons rack.

The scent of my sweat mixes with metal and soap, a cocktail of contradiction.

I run one hand over my chest, tracing the deep cleave of the scar above my heart.

A Reaper blade did that. Nearly stopped it. Didn’t. Unfortunately.

I pull on my loose training tunic, the black fabric stretching over the swell of my shoulders, still damp from exertion. The front seals with magnetic clasps, designed to look traditional but smart enough for modern life. I don’t bother with armor. Not today.

I cross the dojo in long strides, each one punctuated by the slight hitch in my left knee. Shrapnel damage. Refused regen treatments. Pain is a friend with whom I have made peace. Like silence. Like solitude.

The outer door hisses open, flooding the small antechamber with filtered daylight.

The mist hasn’t burned off yet—it never does this early.

The Interstellar Commons District is a mosaic of smells and movement at this hour: ground-level street vendors frying up something spiced and greasy, the tang of ion-cleaned air cycling through vents overhead, the unmistakable sweetness of Earth Bites punching through it all like a siren’s call.

And there she is.

Through the glass, I see Ruby moving behind her counter.

Light catches her hair and turns it to molten gold, her skin glowing in the oven heat, her hands working dough like it's sacred clay. She laughs at something—Lyrie, probably—and the sound doesn’t reach me, but I feel it in my bones anyway.

She flicks flour at someone out of frame, and the gesture is so alive I can barely stand to watch.

But I do.

Every time.

I pause just outside her door and let the weight settle. I force my face into the shape she knows: the impassive mask of discipline and control. The warrior. The wall. Anything else is too dangerous.

And then I open the door.

The warmth hits me first.

Not the dry heat of the ovens—though that’s here, wrapping around me the moment I step inside—but the kind that’s harder to define.

The kind that seeps under armor and into bones.

It’s in the glow of the lights above the counter, in the slow swirl of cinnamon and cocoa that clings to every breath, in the syrup-smooth cadence of her laughter that winds through the bakery like wind through temple chimes.

Ruby.

She’s leaning over the display case, rearranging the morning’s offerings with the kind of care most people reserve for weapons maintenance or sacred rites.

Her hair’s up in some twist today, a few blonde strands rebelling along her neck, catching the gleam of the rising sun.

There’s flour dusted across one cheek. I want to brush it away with my thumb.

I want to press my forehead to hers and breathe her in like absolution.

Instead, I step forward.

She senses me before I speak—of course she does. Her head lifts, blue eyes locking on mine, and the smile that curves her lips isn’t forced. Isn’t wary. Isn’t hollow. It’s real.

“Morning, Rekkgar,” she calls out, voice warm enough to melt the boneplates off a tundra wolf. “Same order?”

“Yeah,” I say, my voice low, roughened from disuse and everything I’m not saying. “Same.”

It’s always the same.

A double-shot Earth Espresso—no foam, no syrup—and a chocolate chip muffin top, extra chips if they’re warm from the oven.

I don’t particularly care for sweets. Vakutan biology leans toward protein-heavy diets, and the sugar gives me a stomach ache if I don’t pace myself.

But none of that matters. I buy it because it gives me an excuse to sit.

To stay. To be near her without needing to explain why.

She turns, humming to herself as she pulls the fresh espresso shot.

I watch the smooth economy of her movements—how her fingers dance over the control pad, how she taps the portafilter into place with a flick of her wrist. Her apron strings trail behind her, her steps light despite the early hour.

She moves like someone who belongs in her space, like every tile and counter and fixture knows her name.

I envy the tile.

“Vonn says you’re causing the pastry drawer to run three minutes off schedule,” she murmurs as she plates the muffin top, her back to me. “She threatened to stage a coup.”

“I’ll deal with her.”

She glances over her shoulder, smirking. “You’re going to spar with a Fratvoyan grandma?”

“If necessary.”

She snorts, amused, and the sound vibrates in places it shouldn’t.

I lower myself onto the high stool at the end of the counter, the one closest to the far wall.

My back to the glass, eyes on the door, always.

Old habit. I perch like a weapon at rest, trying to pretend I’m not cataloging the way her skin glows beneath the pendant lights or the soft sigh she gives when she hands me the cup, the ceramic warming my palm.

“There,” she says, sliding the muffin toward me. “Baked at six, out of the oven at six-thirty. Still soft in the middle.”

“Thanks.”

Our hands brush—brief, unintentional. Her skin is so warm it makes mine feel cold.

I take a bite of the muffin, more out of ritual than hunger. It’s too sweet, too sticky, but I chew anyway. Her eyes flick toward me as she wipes the counter.

“You never make a face,” she says softly.

I raise an eyebrow. “Why would I?”

“I don’t know. Most Vakutan don’t eat baked goods. Let alone Earth baked goods.”

“I’m not most Vakutan.”

That earns me a smile—small, secret. A gift.

We fall into the morning rhythm then. Customers come and go, a blur of faces and languages.

She greets each one with the same warmth, the same unguarded joy, but her eyes keep returning to me.

Not always directly—sometimes just a glance, a quick check to make sure I haven’t vanished—but it’s enough.

We talk, as always.

“Got another shipment of that spice you like,” she says, leaning against the prep counter with a towel draped over her shoulder. “From the Tovax system. Lyrie says it smells like feet, but she eats raw kelmar so what does she know.”

“Kardeth spice?” I ask, surprised.

“Mmhmm.” She opens a small jar and tips it toward me. The scent wafts up—cinnamon’s darker, meaner cousin, all heat and smoke. “I was thinking of doing a cinnamon roll hybrid. Earth technique, alien kick.”

“You’ll start a war.”

“Pfft. I’ll start a line out the door.”

“You already have one.”

She shrugs, unbothered. “Maybe I want a longer one.”

“Maybe you should expand.”

She stills for a second. Just a beat. But I catch it.

“No,” she says at last, softer. “This place is enough.”

I don’t press. I never do.

The silence that stretches between us isn’t awkward.

It’s weighted, maybe, but not uncomfortable.

She turns and starts restocking the pastry case.

I sip the last of my espresso, watching her fingers as they trail over glass and paper and metal, wondering—again—what they’d feel like curled around my jaw, pressed to my chest, gripping my shoulders in something far more primal than friendship.

I shift on the stool, discomfort tightening my spine. Not from her presence. From everything I can’t say.

She treats me like I’m normal. Like I’m whole.

She doesn’t flinch from the scar that rakes across my cheek, doesn’t ask about the cybernetic eye glowing red in my face. Most people do. Some are subtle—furtive glances, questions coated in curiosity—but others are blatant. Children point. Tourists whisper. Sometimes I hear them.

Ruby never has.

She looks at me like I’m a man. Just a man. And that terrifies me.

Because I’m not.

I’m a weapon half-sheathed. I’m war wrapped in skin. And I want her. Badly. Recklessly. So much that it makes it hard to breathe.

But I can’t have her.

I grip the ceramic mug a little too tightly, the faint crack of stress echoing across the counter. She looks up, brow furrowed.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

She doesn’t believe me, but she lets it go. Another kindness I don’t deserve.

Eventually, I finish the muffin. The taste lingers, sharp with sugar and regret. I rise from the stool and place the empty plate on the far edge of the counter.

She watches me.

“Same time tomorrow?” she asks, tone light.

I nod. “Yeah.”

She bites her lip. Just a little. And I look away before I do something unforgivable.

The door hisses open behind me. I step out into the morning, back into the chill, trying not to think about how badly I want to turn around and stay.