Chapter 12 #2
"You're staring," Harper said, hiding a smile. The midnight blue silk swished against her legs as they walked the industrial gray corridors toward the function hall.
Kirr's gaze slid sideways again. It felt like a warm hand stroking over the bare curve of her shoulder.
"I’m appreciating," he rumbled. "There’s a difference."
"Is there?" She bit her lip, refusing to look at him.
"It would be a failure of discipline not to."
She laughed, the sound escaping before she could stop it. She touched the silver bracelet on her wrist again, feeling the cool metal against her skin. It caught the overhead lights, sparkling like captured starlight.
"I feel like a princess," she admitted, the words slipping out before her cynicism could catch them. "Like I stepped into a fairytale." She glanced up at him. "Do Latharians have fairytales? Or do you just have war stories?"
His lips quirked, his eyes warm as he looked down at her. "We have stories. Though perhaps they differ from yours."
She bumped her arm lightly against his, baiting him. "Give me the big one. What’s the classic Latharian fairytale?"
He considered the question as they rounded a corner, his brow furrowing. "We tell the younglings of Kayan Vorr. The First Emperor."
"Let me guess," Harper said. "He conquered a galaxy?"
"He united the princes against an ancient enemy that threatened to consume us all," Kirr said.
"But the war was not the only battle he fought.
To claim his bride, the first Empress, he had to wage a war against a rival family who sought to keep them apart.
He burned their strongholds and broke their armies, not for land or power, but to reach the woman the gods had chosen for him. "
She blinked. "So, he started a war for a girl?"
"He ended a war for his mate," Kirr corrected. "And yes. He bathed the sector in blood to ensure no one could ever take her from him. It is considered our greatest romance."
"Riiight." She shook her head, though a shiver slid down her spine. "Of course it is. Your romance involves burning down strongholds. I should have guessed.”
"Is that not what a fairytale is?" he asked, confusion in his deep voice. "A male proving he is strong enough to keep his chosen female safe against all threats?"
"In Earth fairytales, usually the prince just finds a shoe," she muttered.
But as she looked at him—at the sheer size of him, the lethal grace in his movement, the way his eyes scanned the corridor for threats even now— it made sense. Latharian fairytales weren't about magic. They were about claiming… about violence committed in the name of devotion.
It should have terrified her. Instead, heat curled through her.
They reached the double doors of the function hall. Two guards in formal dress snapped to attention as they approached.
"Ready?" Kirr asked, offering his arm again.
She took a deep breath as her imposter syndrome tried to flare up again.
Who did she think she was, walking in here like she belonged?
Then she looked at the silver vine bracelet around her wrist and up at the giant warrior at her side.
The one whose jaw had hit the deck when she stepped out of the bedroom.
She threaded her hand through his arm and lifted her chin like she was daring the room to try her. "I’m ready."
The doors slid open.
The hall was impressive, a cavernous space with a vaulted ceiling that displayed a holographic projection of a nebula somewhere. Not outside. She might not have known much about space, but she knew there was nothing like that in Earth’s solar system.
Soft music played, and the air smelled of unfamiliar spices and expensive perfume. Conversation lulled as they walked inside, heads turning their way.
She braced herself for judgment. For the sneers, quickly hidden, that she'd seen from the LMP panel, or the dismissal she'd gotten from the engineering techs before she proved them wrong.
She didn't get it.
As they moved through the crowd, people nodded. Respectfully. A group of warriors near the buffet table—the same ones who had scoffed at her yesterday—straightened and inclined their heads as she passed. One even raised a glass.
"They remember," Kirr murmured against her ear, his hand warm on the small of her back. "They know what you did."
"I just read the data," she deflected, as she took the glass Kirr handed her from a passing server's tray.
"You saved the station." His fingers spread wider on the silk of her dress. "Accept the honor, kelarris. You earned it."
She sipped her drink again, trying to look natural standing next to the most imposing man in the room.
"War-Commander."
A younger Latharian male approached them. He was tall, because they were all tall, but he lacked the sheer, overwhelming bulk of Kirr. His hair was a lighter shade of blond, woven with intricate braids, and his smile was easy. Open.
“T’aarn," Kirr acknowledged. His tone dropped a decibel. It wasn't rude, but it wasn't welcoming.
"I heard the rumors, but seeing is believing," the younger male said, turning his smile on Harper. It was a nice smile. Charming. "You must be the human female who outsmarted the entire engineering department. I'm T’aarn."
"Harper," she said.
"A pleasure, Harper." He stepped a little closer and gestured to the buffet. "Have you tried the gliss-tarts? The texture is strange for humans, or so I'm told, but the flavor is worth the risk."
He was nice. Safe.
She looked at him and realized he was the kind of man she would have chosen for herself. Before. The safe choice. The one she could hold at arm's length, the one who wouldn't crack her open and see what was inside, and she felt... nothing.
He was handsome. He was polite. He wouldn't pick her up and put her on a counter. He wouldn't stare at her like he wanted to devour her whole. He would be a good, sensible match who would probably ask before he kissed her and respect her boundaries.
But she didn’t want safe. She didn't want polite conversation about space-pastries. She wanted the storm standing rigid beside her.
T’aarn reached out, his fingers brushing her elbow. "Let me show you where—"
The air pressure in the room seemed to drop.
Kirr moved. A single step forward, but it hit like a blast door slamming shut. He didn't shove T'aarn. He didn't even touch him. He simply occupied the space between the other male and Harper, his massive body blocking out the light, the room… hell, the rest of the universe.
He stared down at the younger warrior. He didn't speak. He didn't have to. His posture screamed violence.
“Mine,” he growled.
T'aarn froze. His smile faltered, then vanished. He took a step back, hands raising slightly, palms out. The instinct to survive overrode the instinct to be charming.
"My apologies," T'aarn said, his voice tight. "I didn't realize... I'll leave you to your evening."
He retreated. He didn't just walk away; he vanished into the crowd like he’d never been there.
Kirr stepped back and pulled her against his side—too hard, his fingers digging into her hip like he was afraid she'd dissolve if he let go. She looked up at him. His jaw was locked tight enough to grind steel.
"You growled," she said. “You actually growled.”
He looked down. The flatness in his eyes fractured, replaced by a simmering heat that was infinitely more dangerous. "He was going to touch you."
"He was just being friendly, Kirr. He was talking about pastries."
"He was showing interest." His voice was rough, like gravel sliding down a chute. But his eyes weren't angry anymore. They were hungry. "He was looking at what is mine."
Harper opened her mouth to argue. She should argue. She was a modern woman, she didn't belong to anyone. Being treated like property was archaic, sexist, and just plain wrong. She should tell him to back off, stomp her foot, and demand that he apologize.
She didn’t.
Because beneath the modern sensibilities, beneath the layers of cynicism and exhaustion, something low in her belly uncurled.
Heat flooded her veins, thick and heavy like syrup. Her heart didn't stutter with fear; it kicked hard. He had looked at a room full of his peers, at the social hierarchy of this station, and decided none of it mattered as much as keeping other men away from her.
He wasn't safe. He was possessive, overwhelming, and terrifying.
And she loved it.
She wanted him to look at her like that again. She wanted him to put his hands on her and leave marks that told the rest of the galaxy exactly who she belonged to.
Her breath caught, and she wet her lips with her tongue.
His gaze dropped to her mouth, and his pupils blew wide, the gold all swallowed by black. He smelled her reaction. She knew he did. She saw the moment he registered the arousal radiating off her, the moment he realized she wasn't angry, and his nostrils flared.
His hand tightened on her waist, dragging her even closer, until her thigh bumped the hard ridge of him beneath his dress uniform.
"We're leaving," he said. “Now.”
It wasn't a question. It wasn't a suggestion. It was an order. Full stop.
"Kirr, we haven't even—"
"Now." He cut her off, his voice dropping low that scraped against her nerve endings. "Before I take you right here against the wall and give them something to talk about for the next few cycles. Of course, then, I’d have to kill every male who saw you in such a state of undress. That’s for my eyes, and my eyes only. "
She swallowed, all the strength going from her knees.
If he hadn’t been holding her, a strong arm wrapped around her back, she would have melted into a little puddle at his feet.
The function hall, the music… all faded into the background.
The only thing that existed was the heat coming off him and the promise in his eyes.
"Okay," she whispered.
Kirr didn't wait. Turning her, he kept her tucked against him, shielding her from the room as he marched them toward the exit. People scrambled to get out of their path.
He was taking her home, and looking at the set of his jaw, they weren't going to be talking about fairytales when they got there.