Page 7 of Claimed by the Alien Assassin

JOSIE

H e said yes.

I’m still not over it. Hell, I’m still waiting for him to vanish like a hallucination brought on by oxygen deprivation and too many nights trying to sleep in a bed that smells like motor oil and shame.

But Dayn’s still here. Solid, dark, unreadable—except for those moments when his eyes go soft and sharp all at once, like he’s watching something precious about to break.

He’s here.

And that changes everything.

We’re tucked into a back room that smells like spice smoke and frayed circuitry, sitting shoulder to shoulder at a flickering holotable that barely syncs. I’m chewing on a lukewarm protein bar because it's that or my own fingers, and he's staring at the map like he’s memorizing it vein by vein.

“I’ll need entry vectors,” he says, voice low and rough, like it hasn’t been used for anything but threats in a long time.

I swallow. “You’ll get them. There’s a mining tunnel system from before we started terraforming, mostly decommissioned now. They’re off-grid, still dusty. But I know the route by heart. Used to sneak off into them to get away from my family. Twelve kids in one hab? You’d flee, too.”

His lips twitch at that. Not a smile, not exactly. But something close enough to warm me all the same.

“I’ll need cover IDs. Disguise won’t hold forever,” he says.

“I’ll code you into the database as a systems tech. The older models won’t ping anomalies, and most of the updated firmware hasn’t been installed yet, thanks to supply chain delays.” I tap the table. “Snowblossom’s still running on half-broken bones.”

“Good,” he murmurs. “Less surveillance. Less questions.”

I look at him, really look, and feel the heat crawl up my neck. “You know, you don’t talk much, but when you do? It’s all steel and logic. You scare the hell out of me.”

He meets my gaze head-on. “I scare myself sometimes.”

I believe it. There’s something coiled in him, something feral and ancient. But he listens. Really listens. Like he’s trying to hear past the words into the marrow beneath.

That’s new.

We pour over schematics and old patrol routes until my eyes blur and my fingers cramp. Dayn points out potential ambush zones, likely blind spots, and escape vectors I’d never have considered. His brain’s wired for war. Mine’s wired for fixing what’s broken.

Together, we might be dangerous.

“I’ve got a handful of people I can trust,” I say, voice quiet now. “Old miners. Engineers. People who remember the colony before it was bought and sold to the highest bidder. They’ll help.”

He nods once. “Names?”

I rattle them off. “Luis Kendrick, Seema Jo, Tomoko Vale, and Roik. Roik’s sketchy, but he owes me.”

“I’ll reach out first,” Dayn says. “Gauge the colony’s temperature. If they’re brittle, I’ll pull back. If they’re just hiding their flame, I’ll light it.”

I blink. “You’d do that?”

“I said I would help.”

And he means it. Not with fanfare or flourish. Just with this quiet, terrifying intensity that makes me wonder how many people have died to that same tone of voice.

I shiver, but not from fear.

“We’ll need to hit the edge of the system, avoid Vortaxian scans,” I say, yanking myself back into focus. “There’s a gravitational anomaly near a dead moon. I can use it to mask our trajectory.”

He nods again, that slight, efficient gesture. “I’ll prep the stealth matrix. Heat signatures, pulse modulation.”

“Remind me to be glad you’re on my side.”

His eyes flick to mine, unreadable. “For now.”

I roll my eyes, but my pulse skips. “That’s... not comforting.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

The silence that follows is strangely comfortable. Charged, but not tense. Like the static before a storm you’re ready for.

“You ever done something like this before?” I ask.

“Rebellions?” He shakes his head. “I kill people, Josie. Not regimes.”

“Good to know.”

I glance down at the table, watching the slow rotation of the planetary model. Drexar Seven, my home, floats like a promise in the hollow dark. Still occupied. Still afraid.

But maybe not for long.

Dayn reaches across the table, one fingertip dragging across the digital landscape until it settles over the blinking dot that marks Snowblossom. His hand is massive, scarred, and trembling just slightly.

“You miss it?” he asks.

I don’t have to think. “Like I miss oxygen.”

He’s quiet for a beat.

Then he says, “Let’s take it back.”

And for the first time in days, I believe we might actually win .

We don’t talk about the moment in the bar.

Not the look we shared, not the way his arms locked around me like I was something to shield and not something to use. We don’t talk about the breath I caught in my throat when his voice wrapped around “I’ll help” like it was a vow made in blood.

And we sure as hell don’t talk about the way our eyes keep finding each other when we think the other isn’t paying attention.

Instead, we work.

At least, that’s what I tell myself it is.

Grinding through logistics and contingency planning is safe.

Numbers don’t judge. Vectors don’t need emotional clarity.

You can route a sublight corridor a thousand different ways and none of them demand you explain why your pulse hitches when a certain assassin brushes too close.

He doesn’t say much—never does. Dayn’s presence is quiet in the way of massive storms seen from orbit: still, until it’s not.

Every time he moves, it’s with the fluid certainty of a predator who’s never once doubted his strength.

And that should be intimidating. It is , a little.

But it’s the way he moves around me that undoes me.

Like he’s careful not to break me, and terrified he might.

Which is stupid. I’m not fragile. I’m just… fractured.

There’s a difference.

“You always hum when you’re working?” he asks suddenly, voice deep and low, not unkind.

I blink. “What?”

He gestures with one of those impossibly precise fingers. “You’ve been humming the same three notes for the past ten minutes.”

I hadn’t noticed. I blush. “It’s from a kids’ holo-vid. My youngest brother used to scream until I sang him to sleep with it.”

Dayn’s mouth quirks. “Effective conditioning.”

“Yeah, well. You try getting twelve kids into sleep pods with one sonic toothbrush and see how your sanity holds up.”

His chuckle is dry but not mocking. It slides under my skin like velvet on old bruises.

And just like that, we go quiet again.

The silence isn’t awkward, though. It’s weighted. Intentional. Like neither of us trusts what might slip out if we keep talking.

I’m used to being the smartest person in the room. I’m used to holding everything together by sheer force of will and caffeine. But Dayn doesn’t need my brilliance. He doesn’t need saving. If anything, he’s the one holding the edge of the universe still long enough for me to draw breath.

And that’s… off-balance. Terrifying.

Exhilarating.

I catch him watching me, once. Not ogling, not leering. Just watching , like I’m a data stream he hasn’t quite cracked the code for. His gaze is intense but oddly gentle, like he’s cataloging the shape of my soul through microexpressions.

I stare right back until he looks away.

I don’t think either of us wins that round.

Later, as we’re reviewing supply caches and scavengeable equipment lists from the station manifest, I ask, “Why do you care? Really.”

His eyes don’t lift from the console. “You asked.”

“That’s it?”

“For now.”

He doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t have to. I hear the gravel behind the words, the weight of a thousand reasons too sharp to speak aloud.

And I realize I want to pry him open like an engine casing. I want to find the sadness lodged behind his stoicism, the wound hiding beneath the callouses. I want to take his silence and turn it into music.

But I don’t.

Not yet.

Because I get it.

We’re both running on fumes and trauma, on hope wrapped in duct tape and desperation. There’s no room for unraveling right now.

But there will be.

There will be.

The ship groans like it’s alive. A bitter, wounded thing, cobbled from parts too proud to die and too stupid to quit.

I like it already.

It smells like dried copper and scorched insulation—like someone bled in here once and the wiring never forgot.

The pilot’s seat creaks under my weight, the headrest stiff with years of sweat and failure.

It’s the kind of vessel you steal in desperation and pray doesn’t blow up mid-jump.

But the controls respond to me with something like grudging respect.

Dayn sits behind me in the copilot’s chair, silent as ever. The kind of silence that knows things. He hasn’t said a word since we left the docking ring. Just watched. Observed. Calculated.

I can feel his eyes on the back of my head even now, cool and unreadable. He’s close enough I can hear the quiet hitch in his breath every time I bank the ship too sharp. He doesn’t complain. He doesn’t flinch. But I know .

“Ship’s not exactly stealth tech,” I mutter, flicking a switch to override the main transponder. “But with the right vector and a prayer to any gods still listening, we’ll slip past their orbitals.”

“You believe in gods?”

“Only when I’m desperate.”

A beat.

“I believe in physics,” he says.

I smile despite myself. “Then let’s hope the math’s on our side.”

He leans forward, not close enough to touch, but close enough that the air thickens between us. His voice, when it comes, is low and smooth. “You always fly like this?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re daring the universe to stop you.”

“Only when someone’s watching.”

Another silence. This one... warmer. Like a truce neither of us wants to break.

Outside, the stars stretch like silver threads against the void.

Hyperspace curls around us, blue and endless.

I keep one eye on the nav, the other on the anomaly ahead—the gravitational knot near Drexar Seven’s dead moon.

It’s risky, but it’s our best chance to punch through without lighting up every Vortaxian scanner from here to the central system.

“I’ve got three rerouted paths,” I say. “A short one that risks full detection, a long one that could fry the shields, and this one.”

He nods once. “The third.”

I don’t even ask if he’s sure. His confidence is infuriating. And addictive.

We drop out of FTL with a jolt that knocks a curse out of me. The ship stutters, groans again. Dayn doesn’t move.

“Gravity eddies are pulling at the stabilizers,” I say, hands flying over controls. “Hold on?—”

I correct, twist, override. My fingers are sticky with sweat, pulse loud in my ears. The ship shudders again, like it’s being pulled into the planet’s gullet.

Then we’re through.

Just like that, space opens up again. Drexar Seven looms ahead, its curved surface catching the first cruel fingers of sunlight.

I exhale, chest aching. “Still breathing back there?”

“Wasn’t worried.”

“Liar.”

I risk a glance over my shoulder.

He’s looking at the planet.

Not like a soldier surveying enemy territory.

More like a ghost seeing home for the first time in years.

I turn back to the controls, heart doing something stupid and fluttery. I hate it. I want it again.

“I haven’t felt this...” I trail off, then swallow. “Not alone. I haven’t felt not alone in weeks.”

His voice is barely a whisper. “Me neither.”

And that—that’s too much.

I focus on the landing sequence. The colony is just a dot now, tucked in the warm folds of the one livable continent. Snowblossom. My Snowblossom.

I grip the throttle tighter.

“I don’t trust you,” I say, honest and sharp.

“Good,” he replies. “Don’t.”

“But I want to.”

He says nothing for a moment. Then: “That’s worse.”

Yeah.

It is.

We breach the atmosphere low and fast, nose down, cloaked by sunrise and guts and a ship that might fall apart any second.

I don’t know what we’re landing into.

But for the first time since the invasion?—

I don’t feel like I’m walking in alone.