Page 43 of Fated to the Dragon Alien
She frowned. “Why not?”
“You’re not going back to the barracks,” he growled, running a hand down her hair, tugging lightly.
She watched him carefully, unable to read this hungry, possessive version of him. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ll stay with me,” he said.
Her stomach twisted. “In admin housing?”
“In my quarters.” His silver eyes were nearly luminescent in their intensity.
She started. “That’s against every rule—”
“Fekthe rules. You’re on medical observation status. We’ll say your vitals require direct supervision.”
“But I’m not sick.” She looked up at him skeptically. “Those medics saw us and they know that you—that I…”
“They know nothing,” he said. “They think they saw a controller who wants to fuck a prisoner, which they’ve seen a hundred times—not with me,” he added quickly. “They won’t say a thing. If I need to file a false record about you needing isolation, I will. That’s something I can manage.”
Cerani hesitated. All the alarms in her head wanted to scream. This would be crossing a line. Not a personal one—she’d already crossed that. But public. Visible. Tied to his title, his control. “I don’t know, Stavian.” She bit her lip, hit with uncertainty. “Why is this necessary? We should keep this a secret for as long as we can.”
“Cerani, if something goes wrong before we’re ready, they’ll come for you first,” he said. “And I will not let that happen. I have a plan. A way to get you—and the others—off this moon. But we need those miners on their feet and that will take a few cycles. During that time, I will keep you safe, and that means keeping you close.”
She exhaled, reeling with this new information. A plan? She’d hoped they’d come up with one, but apparently he’d been busy while she’d been unconscious. “Stavian—”
“You said yes to learning to read,” he cut in. “Say yes to this. To being mine.”
Cerani pressed a hand to the smooth wall beside the alcove. Cold metal. Clean lines. This wasn’t just protection—it was him asking for something more. He wanted her close, not just to keep her safe, but because he needed her with him. As his. Not in some controlling way, but in a way that said, “I’m choosing you.”
He was asking her to choose him back. Not just for now. For what came next. Her chest swelled, not with fear, but with clarity. After everything, her heart already knew the answer. She looked back at him. He held himself still, wings tense, face unreadable like he was bracing for a no.
But all she could think about was how it felt to be with him.
To feel steady.
To hold on to something that didn’t hurt—something that made her feel seen, like she wasn’t just surviving, but was worthy of being chosen. Wanted. Cherished. It was the way he looked at her like she mattered in a way no datapad or designation ever could. It was right there, in his eyes—she wasn’t just useful or strong. She was someone worth protecting. Someone worth upending the galaxy for.
And in him, she saw more than the title. More than the uniform. She saw the way he held people’s names close—the way failure unsettled him more than power ever soothed him. He saw the broken parts of the world and wanted to fix them, not because he was ordered to, but because it was who he was beneath the control they’d forced on him.
For the first time, she wasn’t alone in the fight to be more than the life she’d been handed. And that—that was something worth holding on to.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “Yes, to being yours.”
His eyes softened instantly. Relief washed over his features like a loosened knot unraveling all at once. His shoulders, drawn tight with restraint, eased visibly—as if the weight of the hope and fear he’d carried for her had finally found its answer.
“Let’s go.” He reached for her hand again.
This time, she grabbed his right back.
TWELVE
Stavian
Stavian had never brought anyone here. His quarters sat far above the command wing, just off the secondary access tunnel connecting to the surface compound. The building was nearly deserted at this time, the beginning of the sleep cycle. Lights glowed softly along the curved walls, perfectly spaced, with not a single smudge on the floor.
This room was enormous—too clean, too orderly. The walls were pale gray, sleek and featureless. It looked stripped of personality—like an image from a catalog rather than a space someone actually inhabited. Twice the size of the barracks, yet ten times more sterile. Two wide doors at the back slid open into a sleeping chamber, revealing a perfectly made bed, a sink basin carved from black stone, and not a single piece of clothing scattered around. Another wall opened into a bathing unit, separated by a frosted screen.
The ceiling was all glass. No small section—every inch overhead was clear, displaying the sky outside, or what passed for a sky on this moon. Red haze during the day. Ember stars atnight. Those stars were scattered across the dome like splatters of white gold. Cerani’s bare feet didn’t make a sound as she stepped from his washroom, but he felt the weight of that silence.
