13
RORY
Two days after the battle, I stood in front of the Council for the second time. This time, I wasn't defending myself.
The chamber seats were full, every Council member present, and the atmosphere was unrecognizable from the hostile tension of Therak's challenge session.
Therak's seat was empty. He'd been arrested the night of the battle, found in a supply depot trying to access an emergency transport beam.
The evidence Zenir had compiled was comprehensive, meticulous, and damning.
His trial would come later. Right now, his empty seat was the loudest statement in the room.
Vrex stood beside me. His injuries had been treated—Velkorin healing was faster than human, and the cuts from Krenix's blade were already sealed, leaving faint silver lines across his dark scales that he wore like medals.
His bioluminescence had settled into a steady warm glow that he'd stopped trying to hide.
We'd been together every moment since the battle.
Not just physically—but emotionally, too.
He'd held me while I slept, his larger body curled around mine, and I'd woken at dawn with his arm across my waist and his heartbeats slow against my back, and I'd thought, This. Whatever it costs, this is what I want.
"The Council has reviewed the evidence presented regarding former Councilor Therak's betrayal," the Council Chair announced.
His voice carried the gravity of someone who had served on this body for decades and had never encountered a situation quite like this one.
"The evidence is conclusive. Therak will face a formal tribunal. "
The assembled officers and observers murmured loudly among themselves.
"Additionally," the Chair continued, "the Council has reviewed the tactical achievements of the Fourth Division under Commander Talon's leadership, with particular attention to the contributions of the external consultant, Rory Sullivan of Earth."
External consultant. Still a euphemism, but at least a warmer one than before.
"The ceremonial war has concluded. General Krenix has formally yielded all disputed territory. The valley—" The Chair paused, his expression softening. "—the valley is ours."
The room reacted. Not with cheers—Velkorin formal proceedings didn't allow for cheers, but with a collective exhale, a settling, the physical expression of three years of tension finally releasing.
Vrex's hand found mine. His grip was tight.
"In recognition of Sullivan's contributions, the Council invokes Article Seven of the Extraordinary Service Protocol.
" The Chair looked directly at me. "This article permits the granting of provisional citizenship to non-Velkorin individuals who have rendered exceptional service to the Velkorin people. "
My lungs stopped working.
"Provisional citizenship would grant residency rights, military advisory privileges, and—" He paused again, the ghost of a smile crossing his face. "—exemption from standard immigration processing."
No six to eight months. No going back to Earth. No waiting.
"There is one condition," the Chair said. "Provisional citizenship requires a one-year residency commitment before permanent status is granted. During this period, you would be unable to return to Earth."
One year. One year away from my family, my apartment, my life. One year on an alien planet, building something entirely new.
I looked at Vrex. His amber eyes were on me. He was holding everything inside—hope, fear, the desperate desire to ask me to stay and the equally desperate refusal to pressure me.
"Can I make a video call to Earth?" I asked. "Before I decide?"
The Council Chair looked confused. "A... video call?"
"A communication. To my family. I need to tell them."
The Bureau's communications systems were, predictably, insufficient for the task.
But Zenir, who had proven invaluable, had apparently been working on this problem without my knowledge, because she produced a modified comm device that could route a signal through two relay stations and reach Earth's cellular network.
I sat in my quarters with the device propped on the desk, wearing my Velkorin formal tunic, and called my sister.
Jess picked up on the third ring.
"Rory?" Her voice was tinny through the relay, but the confusion was clear. "Where are you? Your number's coming up as... I don't even know what that country code is."
"Jess. I need to talk to you. Is Mom there? Can you get Mom?"
Five minutes later, I was looking at a tiny, pixelated image of my mother and sister sitting on my mother's couch in Allentown, and I was trying to figure out how to explain that I had been abducted by aliens, fallen in love with one, and was planning to become a citizen of another planet.
I started from the beginning. They didn't interrupt, not once.
"So," I said, at the end. "I'm staying."
Silence.
"Rory." My mother's voice was cautious—the voice she used when she was processing something big. "You're telling me you're on an alien planet."
"Yes."
"And you fell in love with a... what did you call him?"
"Velkorin. His name is Vrex. He's a military commander. He's seven feet tall and has scales."
More silence.
"Is he good to you?" my mother finally asked.
The question was so simple and so exactly right that my throat closed.
"He's good to me," I said. "He notices when I haven't eaten. He listens to me. He trusts my judgment. He—" My voice cracked. "He sees me, Mom. He actually sees me."
My mother was quiet for a long time. "Can we visit?"
I laughed. It came out wet and shaky. "I'm working on that."
Jess, who had been uncharacteristically silent, leaned into the camera. "Rory. You're telling me you got abducted by a temp agency, won an alien war using paintball strategy, and are now dating a seven-foot reptilian commander?"
"Yes."
"That is the most insane thing I've ever heard, and I'm studying tort law." She paused. "Are you happy?"
"Jess. I'm so happy."
My sister smiled. It was the same smile she'd given me when I'd told her I'd gotten the Battlezone job—not understanding, not approving exactly, but accepting. Loving me regardless.
"Then stay," she said. "But I want regular calls."
"I'll figure out the comm relay."
"And I want to meet the alien boyfriend."
"He's not technically an alien. I'm the alien here."
"Rory."
"You'll meet him. I promise."
I accepted the citizenship. The Council announced it formally. The compound erupted.
Not the restrained celebration of the first victory—it was a full, uninhibited, three-year pressure valve finally releasing.
Soldiers who'd fought beside me for three weeks lifted me onto their shoulders—a terrifying experience when the shoulders in question were seven feet off the ground—and carried me through the corridors while chanting something in Velkorin that Zenir later translated as roughly "the small one who roars. "
It wasn't elegant. I loved it.
By evening, the celebration had moved to the commissary, which had been transformed with what passed for decorations on a Velkorin military base—banners, lights, something that looked like streamers, but was apparently a traditional victory textile. The food was abundant.
I ate everything. I complimented the chef. I danced—badly, because Velkorin music had a rhythm structure that my human brain couldn't quite parse—with Zenir, with Korvis, and with three soldiers whose names I'd memorized using seating chart mnemonics.
Vrex watched me from across the room. He'd been watching me all evening, and I'd been letting him. The look on his face—pride and wonder, and the steady rose-gold glow of his bioluminescence—was something I wanted to memorize.
When the celebration began to wind down, I crossed the room to him.
"Take me home," I said.
He held out his hand.
His quarters were warm. They always were—Velkorin body temperature ran several degrees above human, and the environmental controls in his rooms were set to match.
The space was spare and military, but in the weeks since I'd started spending nights here, small changes had appeared.
A second pillow. A shelf at my height in the washroom.
A reading light on "my" side of the bed.
He'd been making room for me. The Velkorin version of clearing a drawer.
I turned to look at him. In the low light, his scales caught the glow from his own bioluminescence, and the effect was stunning—black and bronze and rose-gold, like someone had cut a figure from the night sky and lit it from within.
"We won," I said.
"We won." His voice was low. Rough with everything we'd been through in the past forty-eight hours—the fight, the battle, the fear, the resolution.
"And I'm staying."
"You are staying." He stepped closer. His hands found my waist. He was careful, his claws retracted.
His touch was deliberate and warm. "You are staying, and I am—" He paused.
Searched for the word. "Grateful is insufficient.
Relieved is inadequate. The Velkorin language has a word—tavreni—that means the feeling of a warrior who has fought for something his entire life and finally holds it in his hands. "
"Tavreni," I repeated. The word felt different in my mouth, shaped for a tongue and teeth different from mine.
"You speak it well." He was close now. The warmth of his body wrapped around me like standing near a hearth. His hands tightened on my waist.
"Vrex."
"Rory."
"I'm yours," I said. "You know that, right? Not because of a contract or a citizenship or a Council vote. Because I choose you. I choose this."
His scales flared. The bioluminescence blazed along his arms, his shoulders, his spine—the rose-gold light that meant desire and devotion, and that permanent, irrevocable bond that Velkorin warriors spent their lives hoping for and rarely found.
"You are mine," he said. It wasn't a question. It was a simple fact. "And I am yours."