Page 236 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

Good.

Terrible.

Necessary.

I think of Rolaev in hiding, uncertain and dangerous. I think of Echo, astonished by beauty no one planned. I think of Ghar placing a ceremonial blade on a shrine stone and choosing new words for old grief. I think of Teren’s name moving through thirty-seven inboxes attached to findings that will outlive us all.

“I won’t bury it forever,” I say.

Ghar’s thumb moves across my hand. “I know.”

“I also won’t throw it at the galaxy and call the wounds enlightenment.”

“I know.”

Sira exhales softly. “Then perhaps we begin.”

Outside the viewport, one fragment of Nareth-Kul catches distant light and turns silver for a moment before drifting back into darkness.

I watch it vanish and understand that truth, once released, is never still.

Neither are we.

CHAPTER 34

GHAR

The guest quarters aboard the recovery vessel are quiet in a way that feels almost suspicious.

No alarms scream through the walls. No ruin systems hum beneath the floor. No ancient archive opens its eye and decides my soul requires another philosophical wound. The air carries only the warm, recycled scent of ship filtration, clean linens, faint antiseptic from the bandages sealed across my ribs, and the sweet citrus tea Anita abandoned on the narrow table beside the viewport. Beyond the glass, stars drift in disciplined silence, ordinary points of light against ordinary dark, and after Nareth-Kul’s impossible folds and dying white fire, that ordinary darkness feels more merciful than any blessing I was ever taught to request.

Anita stands at the viewport with her arms folded over one of my spare tunics.

It hangs nearly to her knees.

I am attempting not to stare.

I am failing with dignity.

She glances back at me. “You’re doing the silent Vakutan thing.”

“I do many silent Vakutan things.”

“This one has an expression.”

“What expression?”

“Like you’re trying to decide whether I’m a tactical problem or a religious experience.”

I lean back against the headboard. The medics ordered me to rest. Anita ordered me to obey the medics. Between the two threats, hers carried greater force.

“You are neither,” I say.

She arches one brow. “Wow. Devastating start.”

“You are Anita.”

That stops her.