Page 9 of Alien Warrior Chef… With Benefits

RREKKGAR

I don’t remember the walk back.

One moment I’m standing on Ruby’s porch, her scent wrapped around me—cinnamon and sweetened cream, like the pastries she coaxes from her ovens and the laugh that rises in her throat when something delights her—and the next I’m inside my quarters, the door sealed, my back pressed to it like I’m keeping something dangerous locked out.

Or maybe in.

I rub my palm over my face, then lower it and stare at the hand like it’s foreign. My claws are curled, trembling. The skin beneath the scales is hot, raw. Because I touched her. I kissed her.

And gods help me, I didn’t want to stop.

The shame hits low and deep, in the belly where my restraint used to live.

I didn’t mean to do it. Not really . I didn’t go to her shop tonight intending to break every oath I swore to myself, every code burned into my bones from the years spent kneeling before the Vakutan elders.

I didn’t intend to cross that threshold.

But she looked up at me with eyes so wide and soft, with a voice like velvet and lightning.

And when she leaned into me—head resting on my arm during that ridiculous ballet—I felt the chain snap.

She trusted me. She always has. And I…

I took something.

My tunic still smells like her hair. Like those weird Earth berries she keeps in jars behind the counter and sneaks into her baking when no one’s looking.

I inhale, desperate and angry with myself in equal measure, then rip the shirt over my head and throw it into the wash chute like that will burn away the proof of my sin.

But the truth is under my skin now.

Her lips were soft. Too soft. Like heat-soaked silk. Her hands curled into my tunic when I kissed her, not pulling away but drawing me down, begging me without words to keep going.

And I wanted to. Every instinct, every scar, every star-damned beat of my heart wanted to take her inside, shut the door, and drown in her until nothing else mattered.

But it does matter.

She was promised to another. Human tradition or not, it was a bond. Sacred. My people believe in the sanctity of such things. I’ve killed for less.

I pace the room, bare feet thudding against stone, claws scraping the edge of the doorway with every pass. My breath comes hard. My chest is too tight, like the oxygen here on Novaria is thinner than I remember. Or maybe I’m just choking on guilt.

My cybernetic eye tracks every shadow, too alert, too sharp. I can’t shut it off. Not when my blood is still humming from the memory of her mouth on mine. Not when her eyes burned into me like she saw every flaw and still reached .

What kind of man does that to someone bound to another?

I am dishonored. A predator.

But if I am, why did she lean in?

Why did she whisper thank you like I’d offered her a piece of her soul back?

I punch the wall.

Not a full hit, just enough to make my knuckles sting. The metal reinforcement behind the plaster groans under the impact, a dull note of pain to match the one vibrating in my chest.

She kissed me back. She wanted it. And that… that’s what terrifies me most of all.

Because if she wanted me— wants me—then I can never look at her again without remembering that taste. That sound she made in the back of her throat. The one that wasn’t fear or surprise. It was need.

My comm chimes once.

I ignore it.

It chimes again.

I snatch it off the charging cradle and flick it open. The name makes my stomach drop.

Mara Adams.

Ruby’s aunt.

I swipe to play the message. Her voice is clipped, brittle, careful in the way only humans speak when grief is wrapping them in velvet gloves.

“Rekkgar. I don’t know if you’ve heard. But the Kael boy is dead. The Reapers hit the shuttle outside Banu Sector. No survivors. We told Ruby. It was... difficult. She’s resting now. I thought you ought to know.”

The message ends in a click.

I stand frozen, comm still glowing in my hand, heart thundering in my ears.

Kael. Dead.

She’s no longer engaged.

She’s… free.

A breath leaves me, sharp and ragged. My knees nearly give.

And that’s when I know—I’m not afraid of what I did.

I’m afraid of what I’ll do next.

Because now, the last wall between us is gone.

No more contracts. No more vows.

Just my guilt, my shame—and the raw, dangerous hope that maybe, just maybe, the kiss she gave me was permission.

I drop to the floor of the dojo and sit cross-legged in the dark. The moon filters through the narrow slats of the skylight, casting long lines of silver across my shoulders. I can still see the streak of her lipstick on my chest in the reflection of my arm bracer. I hadn’t noticed it before.

A mark.

A brand.

I touch it with reverence, then slide my fingers away like it burns.

She deserves better. She deserves flowers and music and slow laughter over breakfast. Not a beast who’s too broken to sleep without a weapon in reach.

And yet…

I want her anyway.

Gods help me, I want her like air.

The sweat on my brow drips into my eye, stinging like acid, but I don’t wipe it away.

I need the burn. I crave it. Pain keeps me present.

Pain is control. Without it, I’ll drift—back to her porch, back to her lips, back to the way she tasted like cinnamon and secrets.

Back to the moment I became the man I swore I’d never be.

My palm smashes into the padded training post with a dull thud , reverberating up my arm. The next strike is half-hearted. The one after that worse. I know the form. I could run these drills blind, backward, underwater. But today, every movement feels like slogging through tar.

“Master Rekkgar?”

The voice is hesitant. Small. Hesitation is dangerous.

I whirl. My eye flashes red as the cybernetic hums under strain. The apprentice—a young Mirandi boy with too-long arms and unshorn horns—blinks up at me, clutching a training staff like it might shield him from my fury.

“What?” I bark.

He recoils, flinching.

I exhale through my teeth. Damn it.

“I—um... you said to pivot on the strike and lead with the hip rotation, but... I wasn’t sure if I’m doing it right.”

His voice trembles at the edges, more mouse than warrior. The others behind him are stone silent, pretending to focus on their own forms, but I can feel the room tightening. My fury is not just felt —it’s smelled. The sharp, sour musk of discomfort clings to the dojo like fog.

I step back. “Continue your drills.”

“Yes, Master.”

They scatter like leaves before a storm. I deserve their fear. No instructor worth their skin lashes out like that. Not over a question. Not toward a student. But I’m not thinking like a warrior today. I’m not thinking at all.

Because all my thoughts are her.

The door slams open without warning. I know it’s her before I even turn.

“Are you kidding me right now?” Lyrie strides into the training hall like she owns the air and the sunlight. Pink scales shimmer beneath her barely-there wrap, and her tail flicks with agitation. “Snapping at students? Glowering like the world pissed in your tea? What is wrong with you?”

I grunt and turn away, letting my fists rest on my knees.

“No answer? Typical. Vakutan males and their melodrama. You’re worse than humans.”

“I’m busy.”

“No, you’re avoiding. ” She crosses her arms, hip cocked. “You haven’t set foot in Earth Bites in five days . You think she hasn’t noticed? You think the rest of us haven’t?”

My silence is answer enough.

She stalks forward, stopping just short of my reach, not that I’d ever harm her. But I think she wants me to think she’s in danger. She wants the drama.

“She wore a dress today,” Lyrie says, each word sharp as a slap. “Blue. The kind that clings. The kind that made everyone stop and stare when she bent to pull a tray from the oven. She even curled her hair. You know how long that takes with those little metal rods?”

My throat is dust. I force myself to swallow.

“She baked your damn muffin herself. You know she never bakes the morning batch. That’s Vonn’s job. But no. She got up early, measured everything by hand, burned her thumb, and still did it. Then she waited. All morning. Right at the counter.”

I close my eyes. That image—her behind the register, face hopeful, chin tilted up every time the door chimes—it lands like a blade.

“She said you might come in,” Lyrie continues, voice quieter now. “She had that little smile. The one that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. And then she waited until close, boxed the muffin, and left it on the counter like an idiot . Vonn threw it away.”

I exhale a ragged breath. My hands shake.

“Don’t make her chase you,” Lyrie says finally. “She’s had to wait long enough for happiness.”

I look up.

Her face is different now—no flirtation, no sparkle, just raw exasperation. The kind born of watching someone you care about suffer in silence.

“She’s not a warrior,” I say at last.

Lyrie cocks an eyebrow. “That’s the best you’ve got?”

“She’s not built for war. For... me .”

“She’s built for love, you idiot. And she wants you . Why is that so hard for you to believe?”

I stare at the floor.

“Because I don’t deserve her.”

Lyrie huffs. “You think anyone does?”

She storms off without another word, tail lashing behind her like a whip.

I sit in the center of the dojo long after she leaves, eyes fixed on the pale patch of tile where Ruby’s muffin used to rest.

The shame doesn’t go away.

But now... neither does the longing.

I walk slower than I ever have in my life.