Page 42 of Alien’s Retrieved Mate

"So we'd grow old together. At approximately the same rate."

"Yes." A pause. "The bond does not alter either lifespan. Our natural aging rates and expected years are close enough that it does not create a meaningful disparity. If that was your concern."

It was. I hadn't realized it was until I'd asked, but the relief that flooded through me told me exactly how much I'd needed that answer. Permanent meant permanent. Not permanent-for-him-and-a-fraction-of-a-lifetime-for-me. The same permanent. The same timeline. That mattered more than I'd expected.

"And you didn't want to tell me this because you didn't want me to feel pressured into alien marriage just to keep my memories."

"I did not want the political reality to influence a decision that should be—" He paused. "Personal."

I looked at him. Standing on an alien hillside, backlit by a lavender sky, his markings glowing steady and earnest. An elite warrior who could kill things I couldn't even name, who had dragged me screaming off a slave ship and carried me through a jungle and kept me alive and warm and fed for over a week. Who could feel my emotions, who had held my wrist like it was sacred, who had said "getting to know you is what made me want to be yours" and meant it with every glowing line on his body.

And who was terrified — I could feel the echo of it now, that tight pressure in the bond I finally had a name for, fear he'd been masking — that I would bond with him out of necessity rather than choice.

God, he was such an idiot. A beautiful and glowing noble idiot.

"Kel."

"Yes."

"Thank you for telling me."

He blinked. Surprise flickered through his expression. "You are not angry?"

"Oh, I'm still furious. You should have told me all of this days ago. But I understand why you didn't, and I'm choosing to be mad about it on a diminishing schedule." I started walking again. "And my arm? You said you couldn't heal it without explaining why."

"I had already taken enough from you without consent."

I had no answer ready. Not because he was wrong — because he was right. Because he had spent the entire time agonizing over every choice, every boundary, every piece of information, terrified of imposing the bond on someone who hadn't chosen it.

He had finally named his handler while we walked: Renn, his oldest friend as well as the officer assigned to bring him home. Thinking about everything Kel had risked brought me back to the mission that had put him on that ship. "You said the diplomat's daughter was safe. Was she hurt?"

"She sustained injuries in the cell block collapse," he said quietly. "Renn told me she is receiving treatment at the main station. She will recover."

Something in my chest loosened and tightened at the same time. She was alive, but alive did not mean untouched by what had happened. I'd been carrying the weight of a girl I'd never met whose rescue mission had gone sideways because of me.

I didn't say anything. I just walked close enough that our arms brushed. His markings warmed at the contact. Mine: well, I didn't have markings, but I felt something. A warmth. A rightness. The compass needle settling.

We walked the rest of the afternoon like that. Close. Arms brushing occasionally. Not talking about it. Not needing to.

Zhara glanced back once, took in the distance between us, or lack thereof, and turned around without comment. But I could have sworn one of her secondary eyes winked.

That night, Zhara made camp and then announced she was going to "scout ahead for a few hours." The look she gave Kel as she left was not subtle. Zhara was many things. Subtle was not one of them.

Before she disappeared, she dropped a sealed trade-guild medical pouch beside me. Its archive disc described a long-acting barrier compound for pathogen and conception protection, designed for contact species the guilds had not catalogued. I read every warning twice, made Kel compare it against the eight days of baselines his scanner had collected — the same baselines that said our biologies were compatible enough to need it — and asked questions until he ran out of answers.

The disc ran a full triage scan before it would unlock the dose. It flagged dehydration, caloric deficit, and respiratory irritation, but no acute organ distress. Its slim monitor band would stay green while my readings were stable and sound an alarm if the chest pressure, dizziness, or tremor worsened. I fastened it around my upper arm. Kel argued for waiting for a medic. I read the limits myself, watched my numbers stabilize after the emergency hydration, and chose within them. Then I broke the seal and applied the barrier. If alien biology had another surprise for me, it was not getting to arrive through somebody else's decision.

The fire crackled between us. Purple and orange. The bioluminescence was thinner on this plateau but still present — a scattering of blue-green lights in the scrubby vegetation. Both moons were up, the gold one low on the horizon, the pink one directly overhead.

I sat next to him. Not across from him. Next to him. Our shoulders touched. His markings pulsed.

"So," I said. "Resonance."

"Resonance."

"Your biology says I'm your person."

"Essentially."