Page 113 of Alien Burn

He missed her touch almost immediately.

“I would like a very boring life for a while.”

He considered the plate in front of him.

“I was about to ask you which of these you thought I should try next. Would that help?”

Her gaze moved from his face to the food, then back.

“The yellow one.”

“Is that advice or revenge?”

“You'll have to trust me.”

He ate it.

It was sweet. Perfectly harmless. She watched until he swallowed, then laughed at whatever his face had done.

There she was again, across a breakfast table. Frightened and funny and trying. A female who had reasons to guard every answer, offering him what she could anyway.

He wanted to earn the next one.

When breakfast was over, he walked her to the secured wing.

She stopped before the doors and turned toward him.

“You haven't asked what she knows.”

“You've told me enough to take the threat seriously.”

“That isn't what I meant.”

“I know.”

There were people passing at the end of the corridor. A guard checked a staff badge. Someone laughed behind a closed office door.

Dhomhes kept his voice low.

“I am curious, Sereya. I won't pretend otherwise. But I would rather you told me because you wanted me to know than because she frightened you into it.”

She looked down, then back at him.

“There are things I want you to know.”

His chest tightened.

“All right.”

“Not here.”

“No.”

“And perhaps not all at once.”

“Then not all at once.”

She stepped closer and straightened a fold at his cuff that did not need straightening.