Page 14 of Tamed by the Alien Warlord

GEORGIA

T he thing about victory is that it doesn’t always feel like one.

Jasmine’s safe—curled up in a nest of blankets in the Reaper medbay, her hair braided with rough care by a seven-foot alien who used to sharpen knives with his teeth. Lanz’s crew treats her like some war-touched relic. Sacred, untouchable. They nod when they pass, never speak.

And yet...

She won’t meet my eyes. Not for long.

She flinches when anyone laughs too loudly. Her voice, once so quick with jokes and razor sarcasm, now whispers like wind through cracked glass.

I did everything to save her. Tore myself inside out, offered myself to an alien warlord, walked into a lion’s den.

And still, part of me wants to scream because it wasn’t enough.

Lanz notices.

Of course he does.

He watches from his medbed throne, one arm gone, torso wrapped like a mummy, eyes dark and distant. It’s like the moment we kissed, the heat between us, that soft quiet vulnerability—it all got buried under plasma burns and war wounds.

So I do what any sane, emotionally stable woman would do.

I mess with him.

“You know,” I announce loudly, dropping into the chair beside his bed, “this medbay is tragically lacking a sex hammock.”

He nearly chokes on the sip of water he’s trying to take.

I slap his back helpfully, maybe a little too hard. “I’m serious. Look at these beams. Sturdy. Ideal suspension points. We could get one with Reaper-grade tensile strength and?—”

“You are deranged,” he growls, wiping his mouth.

“And you love it,” I say, flipping my hair. “Imagine the possibilities.”

“I’m trying not to.”

“You could heal faster with regular cardio. Think of it as physical therapy.”

His nostrils flare. “Georgia.”

“Say it,” I purr. “Say ‘Georgia, please install the sex hammock.’”

“I’m going to throw you out an airlock.”

I grin, pleased to have cracked the stoic bastard even a little. But the grin fades when he looks away again, jaw tight, gaze fixed on the far wall like it personally offended him.

And just like that, my mood snaps.

“No,” I say, standing. “Uh-uh. You don’t get to go all emotionally constipated on me after risking your life to save mine. Nope. Talk.”

He doesn’t answer.

“Lanz.” My voice sharpens. “Why the cold shoulder?”

He sighs. Long. Painful. And I feel the weight of it settle in the room like a storm cloud.

“I almost died,” he says finally.

“I noticed.”

“And all I could think was—what if I did? What if you ended up collared by some other Reaper? Someone crueler. Someone who didn’t care?—”

“Oh my god.” I drop my head into my hands. “You’re pulling back because you care?”

“I’m scared,” he admits, voice raw. “I don’t know how to do this. I know rage. I know war. But you? You’re fire and wit and chaos and compassion. You’re everything. And I don’t want to lose that. I don’t want to lose you. ”

My throat tightens. Emotion surges in my chest, a tidal wave of relief and fury and—yeah—love. Stupid, overwhelming love.

I cross the room in two steps and grab his face in both hands.

“You idiot,” I whisper. “I’m right here. ”

Then I kiss him so hard he forgets his name.

It’s not soft. It’s not gentle. It’s messy and hungry and full of every feeling I don’t have the words for. He kisses me back with equal desperation, his good hand tangling in my hair, his lips devouring mine like he needs this more than oxygen.

We break apart gasping.

“Better,” I say, chest heaving.

“Still want that hammock?” he croaks.

“I want a whole room of hammocks. And mirrors. And maybe a fog machine.”

He laughs. Actually laughs. A real one, rough and rusty but beautiful.

Our dynamic shifts in that moment. Again. More honest. More raw. No more pretending.

We’re not enemies. We’re not captor and captive.

We’re... us.

Right then, the door slams open and a Reaper scout barrels in like a grenade.

“Captain! Urgent!”

Lanz’s entire body tenses beneath me.

“What is it?”

The scout, still breathing hard, flicks a holoscreen open. “Helios Combine just put a price on both your heads.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “Both?”

“Twenty bars each. Alive. Ten, if dead. They want the woman and her ‘genetically interesting sister’ returned. They want you dead.”

Lanz growls low in his throat.

I lean against his chest, smirking. “Well. I always wanted to be famous.”

He grunts. “They’ll regret putting that bounty on you.”

“Sweetheart,” I whisper, grabbing his jaw and kissing him again, “they already do.”