Page 22 of Alien’s Retrieved Mate

Nothing had happened. Except for the hum. That low vibration in the stone that I'd felt for half a second and then talked myself out of. The hum that I now realized sounded exactly like the harmonic that lived under Kel's voice.

Then, after the missing hours my watch could not explain, I woke on a slave ship.

My hands went cold against the alien stone. Coincidence. It had to be coincidence. An ancient civilization from another part of the galaxy couldn't have left carvings in a Colombian jungle. That was insane. That was the kind of theory that got you laughed out of academic conferences and relegated to the ancient-aliens-conspiracy table at career fairs.

But I was standing on an alien planet reading twelve-thousand-year-old carvings that my archaeologist's brain kept insisting looked like cousins of the ones I'd found on Earth. And I filed that thought away in the part of my mind labeled things I will absolutely investigate later when I'm not being marched through a jungle by a glowing alien, and kept reading.

My hands were shaking. Not from cold, not from fear. From the sheer overwhelming privilege of being the first person from my planet to touch this.

"They're telling a story," I said, mostly to myself. "The panels read left to right, top to bottom — the touch-wear on the stone runs that way, panel to panel. These figures here, see the repeated motif? Leader, deity, ancestor — I can't know which. And these —" I pointed at a series of circles in descending sizes. "Could be star charts. Could be a solar-system diagram. The sequence may be cosmological — creation, migration, something else. I can't translate the symbols, but the structure is narrative. They carved a story into the walls."

I was tracing the visual grammar of twelve-thousand-year-old alien stone carvings, and I didn't care that I couldn't actually translate the symbols. The layout established sequence, repetition, and emphasis even when the content remained unknown. Civilizations across the universe apparently shared the same fundamental urge: to leave a story before they disappeared.

I turned around. Kel was standing at the entrance to the ruin, weapon ready, watching the tree line. Guarding me while I geeked out over dead alien civilization.

But he wasn't just watching for threats. He was watching me. I caught him turning back to the trees a half second after I turned, but I saw it. He'd been watching my face. And his markings were doing that steady, warm glow that I was beginning to associate with... something specific. Something that wasn't "various stimuli."

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing." He checked his scanner. "Your ten minutes have elapsed."

"Already?" I looked at the walls. There was so much more. SO much more. I could spend weeks here. Months. A lifetime.

"Taylor." Just my name, in that voice with the harmonic underneath — the vibration that hummed below the word like the ruins themselves were speaking through him.

"I know." I stepped back from the wall. Ran my fingers over one last carved symbol — a spiral, possibly representing a galaxy, possibly something else entirely. "I know."

We left the ruins. I kept looking back until the jungle swallowed them. My chest ached in a way that had nothing to do with physical exertion.

We walked in silence for a while. Then Kel said, without looking at me: "When we reach the outpost, I can arrange to send a report to the Galactic Archaeological Council about the site. With your observations as primary documentation."

I stopped walking.

"Your analysis of the directional markers, the stone construction, and the narrative carvings was detailed and accurate. The Council would find value in a firsthand report."

I stared at the back of his head. He kept walking.

"Are you..." I jogged to catch up. "Are you offering to publish my alien archaeological findings?"

"I am offering to ensure your observations reach the appropriate academic body. Under my name, until yours can carry it."

"Kel." I grabbed his arm without thinking. He went rigid. Light raced across his skin under my touch, bright enough to cast shadows. I let go quickly. "Sorry. But — seriously?"

"Your expertise has value. It should be recognized."

He said it simply. Like it was obvious. Like of course my knowledge mattered, of course my work should be documented, of course the things I noticed were important.

No one had ever said that to me so plainly before. My professors had qualified it. My advisors had told me my niche was too narrow. The grant committees had told me my work was "interesting but not fundable." And this alien, this stoic, secretive-in-the-dark alien, had looked at my excitement over twelve-thousand-year-old stone carvings and decided it had value.

My eyes stung. I turned away before he could see.

"Thanks," I said. Casual. Light. Like my entire worldview wasn't rearranging itself.

"You are welcome."

We kept walking. And for the first time, I didn't grumble about the pace.

11