Page 12 of Claimed by the Alien Assassin

JOSIE

I hate secrets.

They’re the grease that clogs trust’s gears, the silence that turns questions into suspicion.

I’ve always been an open book—even if the pages are dog-eared and scribbled in coffee stains.

So when I catch that flicker—just for a heartbeat—of something not human under Dayn’s image inducer, I don’t recoil. Hell, I get curious.

It’s in the workshop during late-night repairs.

Noodles simmer, greasy and fragrant, the makeshift stove rattles with each bubble.

Dayn’s hovering over a relay junction; I glance up and see it: iridescent scales along his neck, four eyes—two human, two alien—tightening on the circuit's core before the inducer flicks back.

My pulse jacks. I blink. Damn—did I see too much ?

He catches my stare. My lips curl into a defiant half-smile. “You know,” I say, voice teasingly light, “everything’s better after secrets are spilled.”

He stiffens. Circuit sparks catch his reflected eyes.

So I poke. “Scales in the moonlight, or did I imagine that?”

His hands stop mid-twist. Silence hums louder than the stove.

I hold his gaze. “Look, I might not be a trained assassin with cat reflexes and scar-etched consent issues, but I’m not stupid.”

He exhales. Sparks flicker in his eyes, the ones that aren’t meant to show.

I pour wine—stolen from the station’s smugglers. The bottle’s chipped, cork’s musty. I raise my glass. “Let’s toast to malfunctions and mechanical unicorns, shall we?”

He doesn’t look amused.

I set a bowl of noodles between us. Steam curls upward. “Eat.”

He huffs—bitter, wounded. He lifts noodles with practiced grace, avoids my eyes.

I chew, savoring soy and oil. “So… hot unicorn,” I repeat, smile widening. “You okay, dragon-boy?”

He chokes on his wine. I jump over to pat him.

“See? I’m here when world-ending myth meets noodle.”

He wipes wine from his chin, chest heaving. “I… am not a unicorn.”

“Big deal. Ponies are overrated.” I slide across. “Talk.”

He stiffens, but he talks .

“I am Shorcu,” he says. Voice low, reverent, like uttering taboos. “One of their warrior caste. We have four eyes. Sharp scales dense as armor. Claws that cut like blades. Legends? Yes. Soul-eaters. Pariahs.”

I swallow. Noodles go brittle in my throat.

He continues, voice quiet, painfully mortal. “They feared me. I… left. Haunted them. Haunted myself. I wear this face to survive. To hide.”

He’s shaking. Not fear. Grief.

I close the space between us. “You left. You chose to be here, with me.”

His gaze flickers. “I wasn’t allowed a choice.”

“So you made one.”

He exhales slowly. “I can’t go back—ever. They’ll hunt me.”

I lift a hand and stroke the image-inducer line. “So, you're a runaway god. Not unicorn, fiery war-prince.”

His corners twitch. “Hot.”

I grin. “Hot outside, hot inside, hot scale-man.”

He laughs—dark, throaty, genuine.

I lean in, voice low. “Thanks for trusting me.”

He reaches, brushes my cheek. “I trust you.”

A beat.

Then we share the kind of kiss that tears apart science and superstition. I taste noodles, wine, steel, and starlight. I taste home—and wild.

He pulls back, breath loud in the dim glow. “I never told anyone.”

“Nobody I would burn on sight,” I admit, voice soft though my heart’s beating like drums.

“Why not?” he asks, quiet thunder.

I smile so hard it hurts. “Because you’re you . Scales, claws, four-eyed anomaly—you’re mine.”

His jaw works. Tears glint—not tears, exactly, but something like relief. “Mine too.”

We lean back, foreheads touching. The noodles go cold. Wine grows sharper.

Outside, a dawn bird sings somewhere—a trill so foreign I forgot planets still birthed that.

He whispers, “Together?”

“Together,” I echo, voice steady.

And for the first time, I feel how deep this could go—across myth, war, galaxies.

Because secrets aren’t always poison.

Sometimes they’re the spark that binds souls.

Morning light filters through the dusty holo-screen, painting Dayn’s face in soft gold. My heart tugs, tangled and real, and I feel my breath catch in my throat. He’s lying beside me—bare, vulnerable—image inducer discarded on the table, skin cobalt and scaled, eyes closed but peaceful.

My chest tightens. I am in love with someone my colony’s textbooks would call a monster—something children are warned against viewing in nightmares. But horrors are not roots, and I am not afraid anymore.

I trace the line of his jaw, smooth transitions between alien texture and pure humanity. There is no dissonance, only harmony. His breathing is velvet, steady. I cup his cheek. That dark curve of his reeds in my palm is softer than starlight and stronger than steel.

The hunger for normalcy bleeds out of me.

I think of Snowblossom—the fear, the silence, the surrender—and of him, who didn’t give in.

He held back . He chose to fight on behalf of everyone else.

Every damn drop of restraint was wood chiseling a pillar of honor in a world that expected monsters to destroy rather than protect.

The scent of him—smoke, oil, ancient earth—wraps around me like a promise.

He twitches, eyelashes flick open. His gaze meets mine—four eyes, unconditional. One human pair, one deeper set, glowing faint silver in the morning haze. My whole world sways with it.

“Hey,” I whisper, voice hollow and full at once.

“Hey.”

He lifts a scaled hand and presses it to my collarbone. Warmth blooms from that touch, a tide in the vessels of my chest.

“You okay?” he asks—each syllable rough, caring, vulnerable.

I swallow. My hands tremble. But I lean in anyway, brushing my lips along the ridge of his thumb.

“I... I pick you.”

My words tumble, simple but seismic. My fingers trace scars—ours and his. I let it sink into my skin, the certainty of it, the revolution it births in my soul.

“You choose me,” he murmurs, voice brittle with relief, pain, something raw and tender.

“Yes.” I cradle his face. “Monsters, legends, soul-stealers...they’re stories. But you? You’re real. And I love you.”

He closes his human eyes, and his extra ones glimmer like distant constellations. He nods, slowly, as if the weight of it all could reshape the gravity of his bones.

“You okay with this?” he asks, voice low.

I smile tear-bright. “I’m terrified.”

He shifts to wrap me against him, my head resting beneath his chin. “Good.”

“Why?” I press, voice trembling.

“Because it means you’re human.”

I laugh, soft and trembling. “I’m not sure that’s comforting.”

He strokes my hair. “You’re more human than anyone I’ve ever met.”

Silence settles, deep and luminous, our bodies dim magnets among the ruins of the workshop. There’s no false hope left. Everything’s bare: our love, our fears, our scars. But we’re together.

I shift, hand slipping under his. “We stake our claim on this, then. Paths set in stone.”

He hums low. “Paths,” he echoes. Then softly: “Together.”

I lean up, kissing him slow, worshipfully—every star birth and cataclysm summarized in that press of lips.

When we break, he whispers: “I would burn kingdoms to keep you.”

My answer is hush: “Then let’s fan the flame.”

And in that morning glow, between myth and mission, hope sparks eternal.