Page 99 of Fated in A Time of War

Because we didn’t just escape. We landed in possibility.

I’m not treatedlike a soldier here. Not anymore.

Each morning, I wake to the soft hum of the solar collector lines powering our humble water purifier. Alice is already there before sunrise, humming under her breath as she adjusts the panels, eyes closed, face tilted like she’s hearing the sun speak.

“Come work,” she says—her voice always gentle, never hesitant—like an invitation into a world I once thought I had no place in. Her hand brushes mine as I clip in a support beam, and she doesn’t flinch. No fear. Just trust.

So I stay.

I help build that purifier—handsonce made for combat now steady with purpose. I weld pipes, align mirrors, and finally watch as liquid gold cascades from the tempered glass turbine: clean water, born from the sun. I taste it—metal sweet with proof of her world’s soft resilience.

I learn names. Mira, the girl with new freckles, brings me a glass of that water one afternoon. She doesn’t flinch at my size—but laughs instead when I nearly spill it from the heat. “Careful, warrior,” she teases.

I laugh too, it turns out. I don’t know I still have laughter left.

The days become puzzles: feeding the gardener vegetables grown in spiral plots, sharing soup in the courtyard, guiding visiting ataxian exiles through the garden. My growl stillrumbles sometimes—my predator’s echo—but I learn to let it vanish. Children no longer hide. They wave.

One night,when the sky is wide with stars unshadowed by smoke, Alice drags me to the rooftop of our quarters.

The wind is soft. The air smells of jasmine weave and solar panels cooling in the moonlight.

“Look,” she says, hand in mine, eyes lifted to constellations I still don’t know. “I used to think I’d die on Horus.”

The words come slow.

She turns to me, and I see her bare skin glow under lunar light.

“I expected to. Wanted to, maybe.”

I swallow the wind in my chest, the memory of blood and darkness; I nod.

I take her hand, and everything in me stills.

“I’m glad we didn’t.”

Her thumb strokes my palm.

Then she kisses me.

It’s not desperation. It’s not war. It’s not the fight I’ve known.

It’s light. Searching. Gentle.

It fills me with something I thought the war buried—hope.

The stars above us glitter,bright and cold and infinite. They remind me of the war—of silence, of survival—but they don’t matter now. Not while she’s here, beneath me, wrapped in jasmine and moonlight.

Alyssa’s breath comes soft. Her bare back presses against the warm rooftop tile, pale skin glowing against the dusky red stone. The scent of her—jasmine, sweat, and something singularly hers—threads through the night and tangles around my thoughts like a net I don’t want to escape.

Her eyes search mine, intense and open. She doesn’t fear me—not the claws, not the scales, not the weight I carry in my limbs and past. She only sees me. Me. Krall. Not a warrior. Not a creature. Just… the male who’s given her his heart.

She reaches for me with both hands, fingers slipping over the curve of my jaw, brushing the black patterning on my cheeks. I lean into her touch, my breath catching. It’s not instinct—it’sneed.Not for her body alone, but for the peace that only she can anchor inside me.

“I’m here,” she whispers.

My chest tightens. “I know. I feel it everywhere.”

The kiss starts soft—my mouth seeking hers, lips brushing gently. But the moment we connect, the heat roars back to life. My claws flex against the rooftop tile before I brace one hand beside her head and slide my other arm under her lower back, lifting her just enough so our bodies align.