Page 22 of Reluctantly Abducted (Nereidan Compatibility Program #3)

He turns to face me fully, his scientific detachment slipping again.

"You approached everything with that same care.

Even me. Even when you had every reason to be hostile.

" His skin pulses with light, emotion breaking through his careful control.

"You saw problems and tried to fix them. You saw pain and tried to heal it."

"It's just what I do," I say, uncomfortable with the sudden intensity of his gaze.

"It's who you are," he corrects. "And I've never met anyone like you, on any world."

The admission hangs between us, heavy with implications neither of us can voice.

I reach for him, drawing him into my arms. He comes willingly, his body molding against mine like it was designed to fit there.

I bury my face in the curve of his neck, breathing in his alien scent, committing it to memory.

"Three days," I murmur against his skin. "How can three days feel like this?"

His arms tighten around me. "I don't know," he whispers. "But I feel it too."

We stand there, holding each other in the empty corridor, the countdown to my departure ticking away relentlessly in both our minds.

I've never been good at goodbyes. In the military, you learn to compartmentalize, to shut down the part of yourself that grieves for what's lost. But this feeling refuses to be contained or categorized.

I pull back slightly, just enough to look at his face. "Kiss me again," I say softly. "One more time."

He doesn't hesitate. His lips find mine, cool and alien and somehow more familiar than any kiss I've known before.

There's desperation in it, and resignation, and something else I'm afraid to name.

His skin glows brilliantly against mine, light pulsing between us like a physical manifestation of the connection we're about to sever.

When we finally separate, I keep hold of his hand as we continue walking toward the transport chamber. The small act of defiance feels important, a reminder that whatever happens next, what we shared was real.

The transport chamber is a circular room with a platform in the center, surrounded by equipment I couldn't begin to understand. Unlike the rest of the ship we've explored together, this room feels cold and sterile. Clinical.

I step onto the circular pad, turning to face Ry one last time. He stands at the edge of the room, his posture rigid, his expression once again carefully neutral. Only the chaotic patterns of light beneath his skin betray what he's feeling.

"Ry," I start, not even sure what I'm going to say.

"Goodbye, Owen," he says formally, cutting me off. His voice is steady, but his eyes tell a different story. "Thank you for your participation in the assessment."

The clinical words feel like a slap after everything we've shared, but I understand.

This is easier for him. Protocol gives him something to hide behind when emotions become too much to bear.

I've done the same thing countless times in the field, fallen back on medical terminology and military procedure when the human reality became overwhelming.

"Goodbye, Ry'eth," I reply, deliberately using his full name one last time. "Thank you for... everything."

He steps toward the control panel, his movements stiff and precise. "Transport initiating in thirty seconds. Please remain still on the platform."

A humming begins around me, rising in pitch and intensity. Lights start to rotate around the platform, creating a disorienting pattern.

Twenty seconds.

Ry takes a single step toward me, then stops himself. His hands are clenched at his sides, his entire body rigid with restraint.

"Maybe in another life," I say, my voice barely audible over the building hum of the machinery.

Ten seconds.

"Owen," he says, taking another step forward. "I—"

The humming reaches a crescendo. Light surrounds me, bright enough to blind. I try to hear what Ry is saying, but the sound of the transport drowns out his words.

Five seconds.

I keep my eyes on him until the very last moment, trying to memorize every detail. The last thing I see is the brilliant flare of light beneath his skin, a luminescent goodbye more eloquent than words.

One second.

And then nothing.

The world dissolves around me, reality stretching and compressing in impossible ways. For a timeless moment, I exist everywhere and nowhere, my consciousness scattered across an incomprehensible distance.

Then, sudden solidity. The hard floor of my apartment beneath my feet. The familiar smell of my home. The sound of a car alarm somewhere on the street below.

I'm back. Exactly where I was three days ago. Exactly as I was, wearing nothing but my underwear in the middle of my living room.

Except I'm not the same at all.

I stand there, disoriented by the abrupt transition, my ears still ringing with the sound of the transport.

My body feels heavy, weighted by Earth's gravity after days in the ship's lighter pull.

My lungs struggle slightly with the difference in air composition.

These physical adjustments are jarring, but they're nothing compared to the emotional whiplash.

My fingers reach automatically for a blue-skinned wrist that isn't there. My eyes search for a bioluminescent glow in a room lit only by ordinary lamps. My ears strain for the gentle hum of the ship's systems, hearing only the mundane sounds of my apartment building instead.

Three days with an alien. Three days that somehow carved deeper channels into my soul than my entire fifteen-month marriage.

My ex-wife and I shared a home, a bed, a life, and when it ended, I walked away bruised but fundamentally unchanged.

Three days with Ry'eth, and I feel like I've left part of myself behind on that ship.

How is that possible? How could seventy-two hours with someone not even human reshape me so completely?

In the military, we trained for extreme situations.

Physical endurance, psychological pressure, moral complexity, I thought I understood what it meant to be changed by experience.

I've held dying men together with nothing but gauze and determination.

I've made impossible choices in moments that stretched into eternity. I thought I knew what intensity was.

I had no idea.

There's something almost ridiculous about it. If I told anyone, my former commanding officer, my ex-wife, even my therapist, they'd think I'd lost my mind. Three days with an alien scientist and suddenly I'm what? Pining like a teenager? Questioning everything I thought I knew about connection?

But it's real. As real as the phantom sensation of cool blue skin against mine. As real as the memory of bioluminescent patterns pulsing in response to my touch. As real as the taste of his lips that lingers even now.

"Fuck," I whisper to the empty apartment, running a hand through my hair. "What the hell just happened to me?"

I walk to the window and look up at the night sky. Somewhere up there, a ship is already moving away from Earth's orbit. Somewhere up there, an alien environmental specialist is probably filing his final report, documenting the successful completion of the assessment protocol.

Somewhere up there, Ry'eth is following the rules we both agreed to follow.

My marriage ended with a whimper, a slow, grinding descent into separate lives under the same roof until we finally admitted what we'd both known for months.

I mourned that relationship the way you mourn something that's been dying for a long time, with resignation, with relief, with a dull ache that fades a little more each day.

This is different. This is sharp and sudden, a wound that hasn't had time to scab over. I've known Ry for just seventy-two hours, yet the absence of him feels like a physical thing, a presence in my chest where something vital has been removed.

We never slept together, not in the sexual sense. Just that one night of holding each other, his cooler body curved against mine, his arm draped over my waist, his breath against my neck. More intimate, somehow, than any night I spent with my ex-wife in our four years together.

How is that possible?

I press my hand against the cool glass of the window, my eyes fixed on the stars. Three days ago, I would have given anything to be right here, back in my apartment, free from alien abduction. Now, all I can think about is what, who, I've left behind.

"Goodbye, Ry," I say softly to the stars. "I wish..."

But wishes don't change protocol. And protocol says this is the end.

I turn away from the window, from the stars, from impossible wishes. I have a life to return to, appointments to reschedule, explanations to fabricate for my three-day disappearance, a future to rebuild.

But as I move through the familiar spaces of my apartment, spaces that now feel simultaneously too large and too confining, I know with absolute certainty that nothing will ever be quite the same again.

Three days with an alien has somehow rewritten everything I thought I knew about connection, about intimacy, about myself. I've spent years trying to find my place after leaving the military, searching for purpose in a civilian world that never quite made sense to me.

Now, I'm not just lost in the civilian world, I'm lost between worlds.

I make my way to the bathroom, flicking on the harsh fluorescent light.

My reflection stares back at me, same face, same body, same person I've always been.

Except for my eyes. There's something different there now, something changed.

I wonder if anyone else will notice, or if this transformation is visible only to me.

Tomorrow, I'll have to explain my three-day disappearance. I'll have to fabricate some believable story, reintegrate into my life, pretend that the most profound experience of my existence never happened.

But tonight, I allow myself to remember every moment with Ry'eth, every touch, every glance, every flare of light beneath his skin. I let myself feel the full weight of what's been gained and lost in just three days.

And as I finally collapse onto my bed, exhaustion overtaking me, my last conscious thought is of cool blue skin glowing beneath my fingertips, and words left unspoken in the humming chaos of the transport beam.