Page 4 of Alien Warrior Chef… With Benefits

RUBY

T he last of the scones cools on the rack behind me, their golden crusts flaking just enough to satisfy even Vonn’s absurd standards, and the espresso machine hisses its final exhale like a dragon sighing itself to sleep.

The shop smells like warm brown sugar and cardamom, with a ghost-trace of toasted almond dancing somewhere beneath.

I love this time of day—the hush right before lock-up, when the world exhales and the day folds itself into neat corners.

“Lyrie, you’ve got the inventory, right?” I ask, slinging the satchel of credits over my shoulder. It’s heavier than usual. Today was busy.

She’s lounging against the prep table, scales glittering under the fluorescents like pink opals in heat. “Yup. Already ran the numbers. You want me to do the deposit?”

“No, I’ve got it,” I say, stretching the tension from my shoulders. “You’d just flirt with the security drone again.”

She smirks. “He flirts first.”

“Uh huh.” I roll my eyes and unbolt the side door. “See you tomorrow.”

“Don’t die!”

“Helpful, thanks!”

The door swings shut behind me with a whisper, and the outside hits me all at once—the cool kiss of Novarian dusk brushing against my cheeks, the sulfur-spiced tang of exhaust curling down from the upper traffic lanes, the faint electric hum of city life coiled tight beneath its skin.

Interstellar Commons isn’t exactly dangerous, but it’s not the cozy side of Novaria either. It’s got bite.

My boots clack against the cobblestone, steady and confident even as I glance left, then right.

The alleyway beside Earth Bites stretches long and dim under the orange-pink glow of the overhead lamps.

The light pools more than it spreads, casting everything in pockets of shadow and filtered haze.

The dropbox is only twenty steps away—secured, triple encrypted, monitored by the Alliance—but it still raises my hackles every time I make this run.

Still humming to myself, a tune I don’t realize I’ve been carrying all day, I step into the alley.

It starts with a footfall that doesn’t belong to me.

Then another.

And then a voice, oily and mocking.

“Well, well. Look what’s baking up pretty out here.”

I freeze. Just for a second. Then turn, slow and controlled, like I’ve got nothing to hide and nothing to fear. A lie I tell with my spine straight and my chin lifted.

Three of them.

The Grolgath is the biggest—gray skin marbled with green veins, eyes like melted ice chips and tusks chipped from too many brawls.

The Baragon stands to his right, spindly but coiled with wiry muscle, a flickering blade holstered at one hip.

The third is human, which feels like the worst betrayal.

Tall, dirty-blonde, the kind of smirk you want to wipe off with sandpaper.

Their posture’s all wrong. Too relaxed. Too theatrical. Like they’ve practiced this.

I shift my weight back, mentally clocking the distance to the box. Eighteen steps.

“Don’t,” I say, trying to sound more bored than scared. “The Trident Alliance enforces hate crime statutes on Novaria. Surveillance here is real-time. You’ll be flagged before you even spit.”

The Baragon snickers, a dry, chittering sound that makes my skin crawl. “Flagged doesn’t mean stopped, sweetheart.”

The human lets out a low whistle. “You’ve got a real pretty mouth for a freak-lover. We seen you in your bakery making eyes at the ridge-head.”

My jaw clenches. These guys weren’t just hanging out here. They’ve been watching me. They had me marked. I take a deep breath. “Get out of my way.”

“Or what?” the Grolgath asks, stepping forward. His voice is gravel rubbed against steel. “You’ll call your lizard boyfriend to come save you?”

“Rekkgar is ten times the man any of you will ever be.”

“Yeah? Where is he now?”

Fifteen steps. I pivot slightly, pretending to shift my bag, but I’m winding my body for motion. The human catches it.

“She’s gonna bolt.”

“No, I’m gonna walk,” I snap. “Like someone who knows her rights.”

I take a step.

The Grolgath moves.

A blur. Too fast.

His fist cracks across my cheek with the force of a hammer.

Pain explodes through my face—sharp and immediate, blooming outward from my lip where something splits.

My knees buckle, my vision whites out for a heartbeat, and the taste of copper floods my mouth.

I stumble backward, catching myself against the alley wall, the texture of old stone biting into my palms.

My scream rips free before I can stop it.

High, raw, soaked in disbelief.

They laugh.

It’s the laugh that guts me more than the pain. Like I’m nothing. Like I’m sport.

Blood trickles down my chin, hot and humiliating.

“Look at that,” the Baragon croons. “Told you the soft ones bruise easy.”

I scramble upright, head spinning, fury crawling up my throat.

“You’ll regret this,” I snarl.

The human snorts. “Sure. We’ll tell the drones you tripped.”

I’m cornered. Cornered in my own neighborhood, five steps from the door where I serve coffee and kindness to half the species in this district. My pulse pounds in my ears, my fingers twitch with the need to do something—but all I’ve got is a satchel of credits and a mouth full of blood.

The Grolgath steps forward again, menace thick in every motion.

And then?—

Something shifts.

The air cracks.

Not sound. Not really.

More like pressure giving way. Like something heavy and ancient unfolding.

They feel it too—their postures twitch, predator’s instincts catching a scent they don’t understand. The Baragon’s hand twitches toward his blade. The human’s grin falters.

And then I hear him.

Rekkgar.

A roar that doesn’t sound like any species I know. It’s not even a word. It’s force given shape. A tidal wave built from rage.

He hits the Grolgath like a meteor, a blur of shadow and red-striped fury.

One second the thug is standing, the next he’s airborne—hurled bodily into the opposite wall with a sound like a tree trunk hitting concrete.

There’s a hideous crunch, followed by the wet, meaty slap of mass meeting masonry.

Bone splinters. Tusks shear against stone.

The Grolgath gurgles, twitching, then slumps in a broken pile.

The human barely has time to draw his shockblade.

Rekkgar doesn’t slow.

He closes the distance in a single stride, rips the weapon from the man’s hand with a snarl, and slams a knee into his chest hard enough to dent the man’s ribcage inward.

The human folds over with a strangled wheeze, eyes wide, mouth flapping in silent agony.

Rekkgar seizes him by the throat—one massive hand curling around like a vice—and hoists him clean off the ground.

I hear vertebrae pop.

Then he drives the man straight down, back-first, onto the pavement with such force that a spiderweb of cracks splits the cobblestones. The man convulses, limbs flailing. Not dead. Not yet. But not getting up again either.

The Baragon?

He’s still standing. Still thinking this is winnable.

He flicks his wrist, and a shimmering vibro-blade snaps to life. Slick little thing, probably lifted off a corpse. He whips it toward Rekkgar with a snarl, the arc fast and practiced.

Rekkgar doesn’t flinch.

The blade kisses his forearm—just a graze—and draws blood. Black, thick, viscous. He looks down at it like he’s insulted by the mere idea that this insect could hurt him.

Then he smiles.

Not the quiet, bemused smile he gives me at the counter. This is something ancient and unholy. Teeth bared. Scar stretched. That glowing red cybernetic eye pulsing like a targeting beacon.

The Baragon hesitates.

Fatal mistake.

Rekkgar lunges, grabs the thug’s weapon arm mid-swing, and twists. There's a snap like a tree branch breaking in a storm, followed by a howl that spikes the back of my neck.

Then—he rips the vibro-blade from the Baragon’s hand and buries it to the hilt in the bastard’s shoulder.

The alien screams, flailing, but Rekkgar’s not done.

Not even close.

He jerks the blade free and slams it through the Baragon’s knee, dropping him instantly.

Then he kneels beside the whimpering mess, grabs his face with one hand, and growls, “You like soft ones? Let’s see how soft you are.”

I can’t look away.

Rekkgar pulls.

There’s a wet, shearing noise, and then the Baragon’s jaw is off. Just—gone. Torn free like paper from a gift box. The alien twitches once, then collapses face-first in a pool of his own blood.

Rekkgar stands slowly, breath heavy, chest heaving, every muscle in his frame still taut with battle tension. His scales are slick with sweat and blood—some of it his, most of it not. The red stripes across his chest seem brighter now, vivid against the sheen of violence.

He turns to me.

And freezes.

His expression—rage, vengeance, all-consuming wrath— shatters.

His gaze locks on the blood at my mouth, the tear at the collar of my blouse, the tremble in my fingers that I can’t quite stop.

“Ruby…”

His voice is ragged. Like it’s been dragged over fire.

I can’t speak. Not yet.

All I can do is breathe—ragged, shallow, caught somewhere between horror and awe.

Because I’ve never seen him like this.

And I’ve never, ever felt safer.

His fists drip, dark and wet, rivulets of blood sliding down the curve of his knuckles like a second skin.

His breathing comes hard, fast, chest expanding beneath scaled armor that glistens under the alley’s fractured light.

That cybernetic eye still glows, pulsing low like a warning beacon.

But the rest of his face—gods, his face—has crumpled into something close to panic.

“Rekkgar?” My voice scrapes out, half-breath, half-whimper.

He flinches like I’ve hit him. And then—he’s gone.

Just… gone.

Turns on his heel without a word, disappears into the blur of dusk like the street swallowed him whole. The air still buzzes with the echoes of violence, but he leaves behind only silence and the sound of my ragged breath.

“Wait—!” I choke the word out, stumble a step after him. But he’s already melted into shadow, into memory, into whatever place he hides that ferocity from the world.

I’m alone.

I stagger toward the side door, fumbling with the keypad.

The screen blurs. Not from malfunction, but from the sting of tears that I didn’t realize had welled.

My lip throbs in rhythm with my heartbeat.

Metallic tang floods my mouth. But it’s not the pain that’s shaking me.

It’s something else. Something much deeper.

I make it inside, slam the door behind me, thumb the manual lock, and then slide down until I hit the cold tile floor. The satchel of credits topples beside me, forgotten.

The room spins for a moment. Fluorescents overhead buzz. Everything feels too bright. Too still.

I touch my lip and hiss.

“Shit.” The word’s small and useless, but it’s all I’ve got. That hit was no joke. I’ll bruise—hell, I might need stitches. I wipe my mouth with the hem of my shirt and stare at the blotch of red left behind. The fabric shakes in my hand.

And yet.

I close my eyes. Replay the moment. That first sound—the way he roared, the way the pavement cracked beneath his feet, the velocity of his rage. The precision of his strikes. Brutal, yes. But measured. Controlled, even in the chaos. He didn’t just fight—he punished .

He annihilated those bastards.

For me.

My hand drifts to my chest, curling over my heart as if I can calm its frantic hammering. But it’s not fear that beats there. It’s something hotter. Wilder. My body’s still keyed up, but not in panic. It’s heat. Desire. Recognition.

That side of him… the one he hides behind monosyllables and espresso orders… it’s not monstrous.

It’s magnificent.

I’ve always known Rekkgar was dangerous. You don’t walk around seven feet tall with a cybernetic eye and a body built like a shock tank and not drip menace. But I never saw that side of him turned loose. Never saw the fire behind his control, the violence that lives in his bones.

And gods help me, I liked it.

A lot.

Too much.

My lip throbs again, and I lean my head back against the door. My neck’s stiff. My shoulder’s sore where I hit the wall. But I don’t care. All I can see is the way his gaze snapped to me when it was over. The horror. The guilt. Like he thought I’d recoil.

I didn’t.

I won’t.

I wipe at my cheek with the back of my hand, sniffling hard enough to clear my sinuses. The tiles under me are still cool, but I don’t shiver. I burn. Inside out.

Rekkgar.

He came the second I screamed. He heard me. Found me.

And then he vanished like a ghost with a conscience.

Why did he leave? Why didn’t he stay? Say something? Anything?

My fingers curl into the fabric of my jeans. I want to scream. I want to find him. Drag him back here and make him look me in the eyes and see what I felt when he destroyed those monsters. I want to tell him I’m not afraid. I want to tell him that maybe—just maybe—I want him even more now.

But instead, I sit there in the dark, blood drying at the corner of my mouth, adrenaline still surging like a second heartbeat in my chest.

I let my head tip sideways against the wall and exhale through my nose.

Lyrie’s going to freak.

Vonn’s going to threaten someone.

But all I want is Rekkgar.

Not the careful, quiet version he brings into the shop every day.

I want the version who broke bone for me.

And I think—no, I know —I don’t want him to hide that side of himself from me ever again.