Page 9 of Claimed by the Alien Assassin

JOSIE

T here’s a sound that hits different when it’s supposed to inspire loyalty but lands like a wet fart in the middle of a funeral.

That’s the sound of a Vortaxian ceremonial bassoon.

And right now, it’s honking out a tune so mangled it might actually qualify as war crimes under the Conclave’s auditory rights treaty.

“Is that… is that the Interstellar Anthem ?” I squint down from the rooftop, shading my eyes against Drexar Seven’s too-bright morning glare. “Sounds like it’s being strangled by a rabid octopus.”

Next to me, Dayn doesn't laugh out loud—he’s far too broody for that—but his lips twitch. That alone feels like a small miracle.

“Think that guy’s playing it on purpose?” I nudge him with my elbow.

“Hard to say.” His voice is as gravelly as always, but there’s warmth under it today, something less stone, more ember. “He tripped over that child on beat three. The kid may’ve improved the rhythm.”

I snort, muffling it behind my hand. Below us, the great parade of “Unity and Prosperity Under Vortaxian Rule” shuffles by like a nightmare stitched together from every bad holodrama and mandatory work celebration I’ve ever been forced to attend.

Purple and gold banners flap weakly in the wind, one half-ripped and tangled around a light post. The marching band consists of twelve beleaguered souls—three of them children, one playing a drum so half-heartedly I feel it in my soul.

A Vortaxian announcer booms cheerful propaganda from a levitating platform, his accent so thick I’m ninety percent sure he called us “honored pebbles of future compliance.”

It’d be funnier if it wasn’t so terrifying.

Colonel Kernal is making his message very, very clear.

We see you.

We suspect you.

We own you.

“He’s getting desperate,” I murmur, watching as ration carts—once neutral and boring—now trail the parade like prizes behind a carnival float.

People clap, but the sound is hollow, forced.

A man near the rear of the crowd claps so hard his hands turn red, lips pressed into a trembling smile that doesn’t touch his eyes.

Dayn follows my gaze. “Fear burns fast. So do performances.”

“Still. It’s working.” I grit my teeth. “People were starting to believe. Now they’re scared again.”

“Not all of them.”

He says it like a promise.

And I feel it—like a vibration in the bones of my spine.

He’s right. I saw it this morning when Mara slipped me a coded message inside a protein ration.

When old Bosh fixed the loudspeaker to blast accidentally garbled Vortaxian commands.

When the teenagers painted the colony’s old emblem in invisible paint across the admin building’s wall.

People are scared. But they’re also remembering how to hope .

And hope’s a lot like fire. You don’t need much to start a blaze.

“Do you think he suspects me?” I ask quietly.

Dayn shifts beside me. “He suspects everyone.”

“Yeah, but I’m pretty loud.”

He actually chuckles. “You’re subtle. Like a plasma torch to the face.”

“I’m trying,” I protest, but my grin gives me away. “It’s just… I can’t stand watching him play nice with our people while planning their chains.”

His eyes meet mine, serious again. “Then we keep moving. Faster.”

We lie flat as a Vortaxian scout drone whines past overhead, its scanners twitching left and right like an indecisive housecat. Dayn’s body is warm where it touches mine, radiating calm despite everything. Or maybe not calm—just focus. He’s always focused.

Still, his arm brushes mine again. And stays there.

I don’t move away.

Beneath us, the parade collapses spectacularly as the bassoonist trips—again—this time over a rogue streamer. His purple plume goes flying, tangling around a flag-waving toddler who promptly sits down and starts screaming.

It’s chaos. Beautiful, ridiculous, unraveling chaos.

Dayn exhales slowly, voice low in my ear. “You still think they’re winning?”

I laugh, and it tastes like oxygen after a long dive. “They’ve got brass and bluster. We’ve got brains and bad luck.”

He hums. “Then we’re even.”

We lie there a few moments longer, the wind tugging at our clothes, the dust whispering through the cracked rooftop tiles. I should feel fear. Or guilt. Or pressure.

But right now, lying next to this strange, dangerous man with his unshakable calm and eyes like storm-split skies—I feel ready .

Let them parade.

The real show’s just beginning.

The night air in the old mining outpost is thick with dust and regret, like the world’s been exhaling centuries of unfaced truths. We arrive silent—Dayn’s hand on my shoulder steadying me through the dark—me, too wound tight to breathe easy, too determined to think clean.

We duck under the hatch into the hidden workshop, greeted by the soft hum of patched-together power cells and the onyx glow of a flickering holo-panel.

Metal tools lie scattered across the workbench—wrenches, calibration sensors, half-finished circuits that whisper of promises we haven’t fully shaped.

I scrub my hands on a rag, grit lodged under my nails reminding me this isn’t a place for polished armor or polished words. It’s raw and unfinished. Like us, I think.

Dayn watches me, the image inducer still hiding the jagged truth beneath his face, his posture taut with a kind of controlled ignition.

“So,” I start, voice rough, “we pushing harder after the parade?”

He crosses his arms—still too wide for someone who claims not to want power. “We escalate, yes. But we don’t provoke an open fight. We hit Vortaxian supply lines, communication hubs—not people.”

I scoff, tossing the rag into a half-full tub of coolant. “Supply lines won’t erase the sight of that parade, did you see it? We need something more. Something that hurts . Makes them stop.”

He steps forward, heat rising off him. “Hurts what , Josie? Hurt civilians too? Hurt the people we’re trying to save?” His voice, normally gravel and calm, is ragged now.

I iron a curl from my hair, using the tension to fuel me. “We’re not safe under their thumb, Dayn. We’re planning a revolution, not cuddling under the status quo. You can’t keep being the voice of caution with that steel under your ribs.”

He narrows his eyes, jaw working. “And you can’t keep throwing firecrackers at a bunker and expect it to crumble. That’s impulsive.”

I step forward. Hard. Too hard. “And you calling me emotionally constipated?” Every word digs in, proud and jagged. “We’re working with limited resources, I know that. But they need to believe in our cause with more than whispers.”

“I’m trying to save lives!” he hisses. His voice echoes in the cavernous workshop. “Not spark off an uprising we’re not prepared to control or win.”

I laugh—short and bitter. “Save lives how? Starve them into obedient silence?”

We stop. Breath catches in our throats like ragged nets. The harsh hum fills the pause between us.

His eyes, dark behind the visor, soften. He exhales, sudden weight in his shoulders. “Your fire scares me,” he admits. “Not because it’s bad—but because you’re too close to getting burned.”

“Maybe I want to burn,” I whisper.

That stops him. The line in his jaw claws at control. He steps closer, hands settling on my shoulders like he’s anchoring himself. “I don’t want to lose you.”

That breaks something open in me so fast my vision blurs. “Don’t,” I echo.

Silence blankets us. Only the hum, only our ragged breaths.

Then a spark ignites.

His lips find mine with an urgency that sets every nerve ablaze. My world tilts, the workshop’s cold metal and low light bleeding away under his touch. His mouth is firm, demanding, and for the first time in my life I feel wanted —not as a cause, not as a spark, but as something hot and real.

My hands clench his jacket, tugging him in deeper. This is a reckoning more intense than any map or weapon. This is us unguarded and unprepared. He tastes of bitterness, blood, maybe something he didn’t want to carry alone.

He kisses back hard, binding us into storm and shadow. His hands drift to my waist, pressing me against him. I can feel the scar across his chest through his jacket, the hard muscles that have killed and now hold me. The masculine strength I feared... but needed.

Our breath comes in ragged gasps. Clothes tangle. We stumble toward the old cot, but never make it. That deep starfire ignites in the space between us and drags us further past hesitation.

Josie shakes against Dayn’s chest, knees weak with desire and need. She whispers, “Gods, Dayn?—”

He pauses, forehead against mine, his voice a rasped prayer. “Shh.”

The world contracts to skin, fire, and heartbeat shared.

The cot’s a joke. We both know it. But Dayn doesn’t just let it go—he makes a point of ignoring it.

In one motion, he lifts me straight off the floor like I weigh nothing.

My breath catches as his arms wrap around my thighs and his claws rake up my back through my shirt.

My legs cling around his waist, heat pooling between us.

The moment I grind against his belt buckle, he growls—a deep, primal thing that vibrates against my chest.

“You challenge me like a soldier,” he rasps, backing me into the cool metal wall of the workshop. “But you moan like a woman who’s already mine.”

His scaled hands grip my hips, his claws just grazing flesh—not enough to break skin, just enough to remind me of what he is. Not human. Not safe. And exactly what I want.

His mouth crashes into mine again, bruising and possessive, and I melt into the heat of him. The third eye on his forehead glows faintly between our foreheads. I want to ask what it sees—but right now, I’m too far gone to care.

He tears my shirt open—buttons scattering like shrapnel—and groans when he sees I’m not wearing a bra.

“Fuck, Josie…” he murmurs, staring. “These are mine. ”