Page 4 of Claimed by the Alien Assassin

“No,” I say, voice like glass cracking in cold. “But you spilled my drink.”

That’s all it takes.

I move like breath—sharp and vanishing.

My elbow slams into his throat before he even lifts his fist. His eyes bulge, wheeze cut off mid-snarl. I follow it with a knee to his gut and twist behind him, yanking his arm back at a brutal angle until he screams.

The room is watching now.

“I don’t mind noise,” I say into his ear, my voice a quiet growl, “but I hate stupid.”

With a flick, I send him sprawling face-first into a table. It collapses beneath his weight. The drinkers scatter.

The others—his friends, his audience—they don’t move.

I turn back to Josie.

She’s on her feet now, arms crossed, eyes lit with something between amazement and annoyance.

“That was unnecessarily hot,” she says.

“I aim to please.”

Her lips twitch. “You any good with a plasma turret?”

“I prefer knives.”

“Close combat type?”

“When necessary.”

She nods, then squints at me. “You just some random good Samaritan, or you got a name?”

I don’t smile. I don’t do those.

“Dayn.”

She studies me a beat longer than is polite.

“Josie,” she says finally. “And I’ve got a problem.”

“I figured.”

“You wanna help fix it?”

I glance at the merc still groaning in the rubble of broken table legs.

“I think I just did.”

Her name shouldn’t feel like it means anything.

Just a word. Two syllables. Simple.

Josie.

But the moment she says it, something behind my ribs shivers like metal under stress. Her voice burns through the haze behind my eyes, clearing out all the dust and darkness I’d long accepted as permanent. I can feel the shape of her name pressing against parts of me I thought long scabbed over.

I can’t stop looking at her.

That’s dangerous.

Her mouth curls into this crooked half-smile like she knows something I don’t—like she’s amused by the universe’s attempt to throw us together and dares me to figure out the joke.

I want to look away. I need to. But my instincts are a storm now, lightning arcing through bone, blood pounding in strange rhythms. My skin prickles. My vision sharpens.

And my Shorcu soul starts screaming.

Jalshagar.

The word slams through me with the weight of a starship.

It shouldn't be possible. It can’t be. My people are dead, scattered.

The old ways—forgotten by most, buried by the rest. But this?

This is instinct older than memory. Recognition rooted in the marrow of my bones.

I haven't felt it since I was a child—since my father warned me of what it meant.

A fated bond. A soul link. A mate.

Her.

Josie.

It’s absurd. Irrational. Unfair.

I don’t even know what system I’m in.

And yet... the moment she locked eyes with me, the galaxy shifted. Everything else faded, and this clarity—sharp and terrifying—cut through my indifference like a blade.

My fingers twitch at my side.

I force myself to breathe.

And then the idiot returns.

With friends.

The first merc staggers into view again, flanked now by three more, all armored and trying to look like they weren’t just drinking themselves unconscious ten minutes ago.

One of them has a shockbaton, the others brandish blasters still set to stun.

Morons. Their leader’s face is a mottled mess of swelling flesh and humiliation.

He points at me like I’m a rabid dog he’s finally gotten permission to put down.

“Kill him,” he spits.

Josie, bless her recklessness, doesn’t flinch. “You sure about that, baldy? You want a rematch already? I thought you liked your teeth.”

He snarls, but I’ve stopped listening.

Because my pulse is humming.

I stand.

It’s not graceful this time—it’s intentional. My movements are deliberate now, slow and terrifying. I roll my shoulders, let the image inducer flicker for just a second—enough to show a flash of something not human. A hint of what lies beneath.

They hesitate.

I don’t.

The first comes at me like a linebacker, roaring like noise will do what muscle can’t.

I sidestep, hook my arm under his, and twist. The crack of his elbow shattering is drowned by the thwip of my hidden blade slicing into his armpit, severing arteries clean.

Blood founts in an elegant arc. He drops without sound, just a bubbling gasp and then stillness.

The baton wielder stutters, raising his weapon. Too slow.

I close the distance and jab two fingers into his eye socket. There’s a wet pop as his soft, squishy orb collapses under pressure, and he screams, dropping the baton. I spin, knife flashing, and jam the blade upward beneath his chin. It punches through the soft palate and into his frontal lobe.

His legs twitch.

The crowd is screaming now. Chairs topple. Drinks shatter. But I’m locked in.

The third tries to shoot.

Tries.

I twist behind a metal support column just as his blast discharges, scarring the wall with heat. Before he can adjust, I drop low and sweep his legs. He hits the floor with a grunt, and I stomp on his windpipe with enough force to crush it into pudding.

That’s three.

I turn back to the big one.

The original problem.

He’s not moving. Not anymore.

He’s staring at me like he’s just realized he brought a knife to a godfight.

I tilt my head. “Still want round two?”

His mouth opens.

No sound comes out.

He runs.

I could chase him. Could end him easy.

But my eyes find Josie.

She hasn’t run.

She’s watching me with a look I’ve never seen before—equal parts awe, confusion, and something that might be trust. Or insanity. Or worse: curiosity.

“You done?” she asks, voice hoarse.

I nod, breath steady. My shirt clings to my back from the heat of exertion, but my hands don’t tremble. They never do.

“Are you done dragging trouble with you?”

She grins. “I haven’t even started.”

I should walk away.

I should.

But I don’t.

Because for the first time in what feels like decades, there’s a voice inside me that isn’t whispering about death or escape or isolation.

It’s whispering stay.

And damned if I don’t want to listen.