Page 44 of Alien’s Retrieved Mate

"So you can feel that I'm⁠—"

"Yes."

"And I can feel that you're⁠—"

"Yes."

We looked at each other. The fire crackled. Both moons hung above us. Somewhere in the trees, a nocturnal creature made a sound that under any other circumstance I would have identified and assessed for threat level. I did not care about it. I did not care about anything except the woman in front of me with firelight in her eyes.

"I should tell you something," she said.

"Yes?"

"You know I've been calling you Glow Stick since basically day two, right? I want you to know that was always a compliment."

I remembered assuming the term was an insult when she first used it. Hearing her confirm it as a compliment softened something in my chest.

"I've been counting your freckles," I said.

"What?" She pulled back far enough to look at me. "Is that a — is that a bond thing?"

"No. The resonance carries your feelings, and what your skin tells mine when I touch it. It does not count freckles. This was only me. Looking at you. One hundred and seventeen times." A breath. "There are seventeen."

She stared at me. "That is simultaneously the weirdest and most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me."

"I also know what your pulse does when I stand too close, because I have had my hand on your wrist."

"Okay, that one's more on the weird side."

"And how warm you are, which I know for the same reason."

"Kel."

"And the pattern of your breathing when you sleep, which changes rhythm approximately every forty minutes, which I know because I have been awake for most of it and⁠—"

She kissed me. To shut me up, probably. It was effective.

The kiss deepened. Her body pressed against mine and the resonance translated the sensation with punishing accuracy, the warmth of her against my chest, the curve of her waist under my hand, the way her breath caught when I pulled her closer. I could feel the change through the bond — a tight pressure unclenching, warming. I read it as nerve giving way to want, and her face agreed.

The monitor band on her upper arm showed live readings inside the narrow limits the guild triage had set. I showed them to her and asked again if she wanted to wait for a medic. She repeated the three hard-stop conditions, then told me no, clear-eyed. Monitored. Chosen with full information.

I wanted her. The resonance wanted her. My body, my mind, every cell that carried the bond wanted her with a ferocity that frightened me. I had never wanted anything like this. I had never allowed myself to want anything beyond the mission, the next extraction, the clean completion of duty. Want was a vulnerability. A liability.

She was a vulnerability I would choose every time.

"Taylor." I pulled back. Her hands were on my chest, fingers against my markings through the fabric, and every point of contact was a small fire. "I need you to understand something."

"If you say 'this is complicated' one more time I swear to⁠—"

"The resonance bond, once consummated, becomes permanent on a level that exceeds what has already occurred. Third tier. Full integration. I would be able to sense you across significant distance. It cannot be undone."

She was quiet for a moment. Her gaze went distant and analytical, the same look she had worn over toxic plants, hidden river crossings, and twelve-thousand-year-old narrative carvings.

"So what you're saying," she said slowly, "is that if we do this, really do this, it's forever."

"Yes."

"No divorce. No take-backs."