Page 53 of Alien’s Retrieved Mate

He was quiet for a moment, and the bond went warm in the startled way it did when he had not been asked something before.

"I trained for military service from age twelve. It is standard for Valorian youth. My aptitude was for solo operations: retrieval, extraction, reconnaissance. I was commissioned to the Authority at twenty-two. I have been working alone since."

"Alone."

"Retrieval specialists operate independently. It is considered optimal for the work."

"But you like it? Being alone?"

Another pause. Longer. "I was efficient alone. Whether I liked it is a question I never considered relevant."

"That's not the same as liking it."

He looked down at me. His violet eyes were soft in the room's dim light. "No. It is not."

I traced the marking over his heart. "Tell me about Valorian food. Is it all compressed misery rectangles?"

"The emergency rations are not representative." Almost defensive. "Valorian cuisine is complex and varied. There is a dish called vel'thara — roasted grain with fermented fruit reduction and⁠—"

"Does your planet have anything hot to drink? Like a warm beverage? In the morning?"

"We have kel'shor. A stimulant brewed from the bark of the⁠—"

"Is it bitter?"

"Moderately."

"Is it hot?"

"It is served at high temperature, yes."

"Kel." I propped myself up on his chest. "Your planet has alien coffee?"

"I would not equate⁠—"

"YOUR PLANET HAS ALIEN COFFEE."

His expression was somewhere between alarmed and amused. "The chemical composition is likely quite different from⁠—"

"I don't care. I need you to understand that you just became thirty percent more attractive. And you were already at an unreasonable level."

He stared at me. Then he laughed. A real laugh, quiet and low and startled out of him. Through the bond: joy. Pure, unguarded joy that he didn't know what to do with.

I kissed him because he was laughing and because the joy in the bond was infectious and because I was in love with him. I was in love with a glowing alien warrior who could feel my emotions and had alien coffee on his planet and laughed like someone who didn't get enough practice at it.

I didn't say it yet. I held it close, this warm and terrifying certainty, and let the bond carry it for me.

But when he pulled me closer, when his arms tightened and his markings brightened around us, he felt it anyway.

I told him about Minnesota. About the winters — not because snow was new to him, but because he was appalled that humans voluntarily built cities where exposed skin could freeze — and the summers and the lakes and the way the light looked in October. I told him about my mother again, on purpose this time, who called every Sunday and would find a way to blame this entire situation on my refusal to wear layers. I told him about my tiny apartment and my student loans and the grant proposals that never got funded and the career that never quite launched.

"You are an archaeologist," he said. "A galactic archaeologist now, if you choose."

"If I choose."

"There is an entire galaxy of dead civilizations waiting to be studied. The Kethari are one of hundreds. Your expertise has value far beyond your planet, Taylor."

I stared at the ceiling. An alien ceiling. In an alien room. On an alien planet.