Page 5 of Claimed by the Alien Assassin

JOSIE

M y boots hit the grimy corridor outside the bar like they’ve got something to prove, each step echoing with a fury I can’t afford to show—not now, not after that.

The moment I’m clear of the stares, the smells, the stickiness of the fight-laced air still heavy with blood and old beer, I suck in a breath that burns.

I’m shaking, not from fear—I haven’t had time for that since the ship arrived—but from the aftershock of him .

That stranger. That lethal, silent man who caught me like I’d always belonged in his arms.

I don’t even know his last name. I barely caught his first through the roaring in my ears.

Dayn.

Sharp, spare. Like a blade. It suits him.

And I don’t have time for him.

Not now.

Still, my fingers twitch with the phantom memory of landing against his chest. Solid. Warm. His arm had wrapped around my waist like a reflex, not a decision. Like his body was made to catch mine.

I clench my fists and walk faster, weaving through the oily steam that belches from floor vents and breathing in air that tastes like burnt plastic and recycled failure.

The mercenary station—whatever fancy name the smugglers use for this backwater scrapyard—feels like it’s alive, thrumming with the barely restrained pulse of violence and loss.

I climb a narrow stairwell that reeks of mold and desperation, boots scuffing against warped plasteel steps. My door is the second on the left, patched with an old IHC sticker that someone’s scribbled out with black marker. Diplomacy is dead , it reads now.

Apt.

Inside, the room is barely wider than my outstretched arms, and the bed’s a creaking slab of something that might’ve been foam two decades ago.

One wall flickers with a malfunctioning holo-window trying and failing to display a scenic moonscape.

I slam the door shut behind me and throw the bolt.

Not because it’ll stop anything, but because it feels like control. Like drawing a line in the filth.

I drop into the cracked chair in front of the small terminal I managed to coax back into working order last night. My fingers dance across the interface, booting it up with a custom bypass I wrote on my compad. The system hums reluctantly to life.

Come on. Come on.

The IHC comms relay connects with all the enthusiasm of a dead slug, the screen flickering before stabilizing into that too-clean, sterile blue logo that makes my stomach churn.

“Interplanetary Human Coalition Outreach—please input your authorization key.”

I do.

“Snowblossom Colony distress relay acknowledged. Your case number is 8472-XK. Please wait for a representative.”

I lean back, eyes on the ceiling, where some kind of bulb pulses like a lazy heartbeat behind its grimy cover.

A full minute passes.

Then five.

Then the screen blinks, and a face appears.

She’s IHC, all right. Perfect skin, neutral uniform, hair tied back in a bun that hasn’t moved in a decade. Her voice is smoother than synthsilk, and I hate it before she says a word.

“Colonist McClintock, we received your transmission. Thank you for your patience.”

“Don’t thank me,” I snap. “Just tell me help is coming.”

She blinks, just once. “We are currently pursuing a diplomatic solution with the Vortaxian envoy. Alliance leadership believes?—”

“They invaded us.” My voice cracks. “They landed a capital ship in our sky like it was theirs, declared us property, and told us to get used to it. You want to negotiate with that?”

The woman’s expression doesn’t shift. Not even a tremor.

“There have been no confirmed casualties.”

“Yet!”

She sighs. “We sympathize, truly. But the IHC must weigh all variables. Snowblossom is… resource-rich, but strategically isolated. A military engagement risks destabilizing talks across the sector.”

I stare at her, trying to make my brain understand.

“Ten thousand people live there,” I whisper. “My family. My friends. We built that colony from prefab and blood. And you’re telling me it’s not worth war ?”

A pause.

“I’m telling you diplomacy must be allowed to work.”

My knuckles go white on the desk. My other hand hovers above the terminal. Just one push, and I could break the screen. Shatter it. Maybe scream.

Instead, I breathe.

“You’re cowards,” I say. “And when the Vortaxians start using our mineral payloads to build weapons, don’t pretend you didn’t see it coming.”

The comm flickers. She’s already ending the call.

“Thank you for contacting the IHC?—”

I kill the feed before the false gratitude can finish.

Silence slams into me like a vacuum. I stare at my reflection in the darkened screen—eyes red-rimmed, lip still swollen, hair a mess, skin damp with sweat and smoke. I look like I’ve crawled through a war zone.

Because I have .

Only this war hasn’t started yet.

And I might be the only one willing to fight it.

I press my palms to my thighs, feel the tremble there. Not from fear. From rage. From sheer helpless fury. IHC won’t help. The mercs are too scared. The colony’s too quiet.

But there’s still me.

And I’m not done.

Not even close.

I don’t sleep. Not really. I lie flat on the slab of a bed and stare up at the ceiling like it owes me something. My muscles ache, my temples throb from holding in everything I want to scream. The IHC comm's final chirp still rings in my ears like an insult.

So I don’t waste the night sulking.

I get up. I move.

By the time I hit the lower levels, the station has a pulse like a festering wound—wet, clotted, alive with things that shouldn’t crawl.

The stink’s worse down here. A humid mix of coolant leaks, fried protein packs, and what I’m pretty sure is cooked sting tail meat on skewers, served by a vendor with more cybernetics than jaw.

No one looks at me too long. I’m small, yeah, but I move like I’ve got something to prove, and that keeps most hands off my ass and most blades in their belts.

I hit every docking bay I can access. I climb greasy ladders, duck under hydraulic arms, and dodge a pair of naked androids arguing about fuel ratios. I talk to mercenary captains with warships older than I am and fighters so new they still reek of factory ozone.

Every conversation starts the same.

“I’ve got a job.”

And it always ends the same, too.

Because I say the wrong word.

“Vortaxian.”

And then the smiles fade. The interest dies.

I watch shoulders tense. I watch blasters get casually unholstered. I see laughter turn to suspicion, like I’m a lunatic with a ticking bomb in my pocket.

They don’t even try to hide it anymore.

One captain, a woman with half her face replaced by shimmering blue synthskin, actually laughs in my face when I offer her triple standard rates and a crate of tritanium ingots.

“You trying to get my crew atomized, sweetheart?” she drawls. “Or just your damn self?”

“They annexed my home,” I tell her. “Snowblossom. Drexar Seven. Ten thousand people, all too scared to fight. We’ve got ion turrets, we’ve got personnel, we just need a spine.”

“You think I want to be the one to challenge the Vortaxian Empire’s grip? You got balls, girl. I’ll give you that.”

“Do you have honor ?”

She snorts. “No. I’ve got rent.”

That’s how it goes. Over and over.

A wiry Trelkan male actually climbs into his ship to avoid talking to me. A bounty hunter with three star decals on his pauldron offers me a drink, then turns ghost-white the second I name the enemy.

“Not worth it,” he mutters, more to himself than me. “Not for a colony no one’s even heard of. Not for any credits.”

I want to shake him. I want to scream .

I’m halfway to hoarse when I hear the laugh.

It’s low, mocking, too loud for the corridor we’re in. A gathering of mercs—real bottom-shelf types—huddled around a half-busted weapon crate, one of them making obscene gestures as he recounts some conquest.

That’s Krigg.

I recognize him from earlier. He’d been in the bar when Dayn caught me like a fairytale. I remember his leering face, the way he watched like he wanted to own me.

He’s still talking. Loud. Gross.

I don’t hesitate.

“You think it’s funny?” I bark, stomping up to him like I own the godsdamn place.

The group freezes. Krigg turns, teeth yellow and uneven. His armor's patched with tape and ego.

“Funny?” he echoes.

“You laughed when I asked for help. You think it’s a joke?”

He grins slow. “I think a tiny little human girl walking into our den asking for a war against the Vortaxians is the funniest damn thing I’ve seen in cycles.”

I square up. I’m not even at his shoulder, but I stare up at him like he’s already on his knees.

“You’re all cowards,” I say, voice flat. “Big guns, loud mouths, but when the time comes, you fold like cheap synthcloth. I hope you choke on your shame.”

Krigg’s face shifts. He smiles again—but there’s no humor in it now.

“You want to know why no one’ll help you?

” he growls. “Because we’ve seen what the Vortaxians do.

They don’t just kill you. They erase you.

Your name, your bloodline, your data. Like you never breathed.

You’re dead before you hit the floor. They don’t miss.

They don’t fail. And no one wants to die for a colony that’ll be rubble in a week. ”

I stare at him. I can feel the fury bubbling, scalding my tongue. “We’re not rubble. We’re people. ”

“You’re statistics. And that’s being generous.”

I see red.

“You’re a waste of oxygen,” I snap.

He snorts and grabs my arm.

I twist, but he’s faster than I expected. And meaner.

“Let me go?—”

“Nah. Let’s teach you what happens to loud little liars who cry wolf.”

And then I’m airborne again.

This time, I expect it.

My stomach lurches. My ears pop. I twist midair, trying to aim for something soft—but there’s nothing soft on this station. The metal wall rises up like judgment.

I brace?—

The impact never comes.

Again.

Arms close around me, hard and fast, a cage of steel and muscle that halts my momentum like a tractor lock. My breath punches out in a gasp, more surprise than pain, as the world tilts and rights itself in a blur of stale air and flickering neon.

I’m not touching the floor. I’m not sprawled in blood or bruises.

I’m in a lap.

His lap.

Same chair. Same stupid, impossible bar.

My hands curl instinctively into his coat, rough-textured and smelling like smoke and something sharp beneath—metal and something older, something not-quite-human. His chest rises and falls against my back, slow and steady like the galaxy doesn’t get a vote in how fast his heart beats.

His arms don’t move. He holds me like I’m precious. Like I’m breakable.

Like I’m his.

Around us, the bar goes quiet. Real quiet. Not even a glass clinks. The laughter dies in throats like it’s been poisoned. All I hear is the buzz of flickering signage, the breath wheezing out of Krigg’s lungs, and the drumbeat of my own pulse behind my ears.

My face is burning. Again. But it’s not shame this time. Not entirely.

There’s something else.

I tilt my head back, trying not to look too obvious about it, but it doesn’t matter. His eyes are already locked on mine. They glow faintly—just a shimmer beneath the image inducer, like a crack in reality. Like there’s something ancient looking out through a borrowed face.

Dayn.

I should say something clever. Or grateful. Or at least angry that I keep getting launched like a dodgeball.

But all that comes out is a whisper.

“Help me.”

His gaze doesn’t shift. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t soften. But something in it changes. A depth opens up I hadn’t seen before, and I feel it like a drop in cabin pressure—this jolt in my gut, like the universe just clicked into place.

“I’m serious,” I murmur, because I have to keep talking or I’ll drown in the silence. “Everyone else is too scared or too busy or too… small. But you—” I swallow, “—you caught me twice. That has to mean something, right?”

He still doesn’t say anything.

I lean forward, still half-cradled in his lap like a story I haven’t finished telling. I whisper close to his ear, hoping no one else hears what comes next. “Snowblossom was my fresh start. My only shot to build something that mattered. They can’t just take it.”

He inhales through his nose. Just once.

It’s not dramatic. It’s not even loud.

But it’s final.

He sets me gently on my feet—again—and stands beside me. His hand grazes my lower back as he does, a barely-there touch, but I feel it like a brand. He turns to Krigg, who’s wisely decided to backpedal toward the nearest exit like he’s being pulled on strings.

Dayn doesn’t follow.

He just looks at me.

Not the way most mercs do. Not like I’m a distraction or a weakness or a notch in a nonexistent belt. He looks at me like I’m… gravity. Like the stars might shift if I said the right word.

So I say it again, steady this time.

“Help me.”

And the second I do, I know something’s changed.

In him. In me.

Something shifts.

Not a big moment. Not some flashy epiphany.

Just this… feeling. Deep and quiet and unrelenting. Like stars settling into new orbits. Like something older than either of us just nodded and said, yes, this.

I try not to tremble.

He exhales and finally speaks. “What’s the plan?”

I blink.

“The—wait. You’re saying yes?”

His mouth twitches, not quite a smile. “You asked.”

“That’s it?”

“For now.”

I blink again, then nod. Too many thoughts crash into each other in my head, and none of them make it to my mouth in one piece. I settle for breathing.

Dayn turns toward the bar. “You have somewhere to regroup?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Room above a gambling den.”

He glances at me. “Classy.”

“You should see the water pressure.”

“I’ll pass.”

Despite everything—despite the bruises on my pride and body—I laugh. It’s not elegant. It’s more of a bark. But it’s real.

And suddenly, I’m not alone in the fight anymore.

I have a weapon.

And he has a reason.