My Alien Warrior (15 page)

“I’m okay,” she whispered. “I can get home on my own.”

“No,” Khaos said, not even looking at her. “It’s my fault you were put in this mess, and I’m going to make sure you get home safe.” He held Calin’s eyes as he said it, almost daring the leader to argue with him.

It seemed that Calin wasn’t going to do it, because he inclined his head once and then motioned for the rest of them to move on. “We will see you soon, Khaos,” he said as they went, and there was definitely something frosty in his tone.

“You’re going to be in trouble,” Kayla whispered.

“I don’t care.”

He didn’t. He was going to get her back to where she belonged, and then he was going to go face whatever punishment would be handed out. Khaos had more information to give Calin anyway, and maybe that would help him in the long run. Maybe it wouldn’t. He didn’t know, and he wasn’t at a point where he could really care too much about it.

Khaos got Kayla back home and waited while she showered and put herself to bed. More than anything he wanted to crawl in with her and stay the night, stay forever, but there was only so much pushing he could do before it became a terrible idea.

“I should go,” he murmured watching her settle down in the bed. “You should be safe now.”

Kayla hesitated and then reached for him, pulling him close so she could kiss him hard on the lips. “Am I going to see you again?” she asked.

All Khaos could do was shrug. “I don’t know. If they make me go back home, I… I’ll have to go. I’m not a citizen here, and your government would probably kick me out if I tried to go rogue or something.”

She nodded and kissed him again, and this one was slower, more lingering. It was proof that his feelings for her weren’t one sided. “I’ll miss you,” Kayla murmured against his lips, breathing hard.

“I’ll miss you, too. Take care of yourself. If I’m not here to do it for you. Promise?”

“I promise.”

It sounded like she was trying not to cry, and Khaos knew he had to get out of there before he decided that he didn’t care about the Kaspersi or the leader or his responsibilities and just stayed with her.

He drew back, pressing one last kiss to her mouth and then another to her forehead. He watched her close her eyes and savor it and then backed away from the bed, forcing himself to keep walking until he was at the door.

“Khaos,” Kayla called, voice hushed.

“Yeah?”

“When I was in that basement I felt something. I felt like...like you were there with me.”

He let out a breath and nodded. “Yeah. It’s. Well, I don’t know exactly what it means, but I felt it, too.”

“We would have been good together,” she remarked.

“Yeah. Goodnight, Kayla.”

There was no sense in either one of them standing there, dwelling on things they couldn’t have right then. Maybe someday if he came back and she was somehow not taken, they could try to make something work, try to explore what they could have and what was between them, but apparently it wasn’t going to happen now.

He had to make himself go before he couldn’t anymore.

“Khaos?”

This time he didn’t turn. “Yes?”

“Thank you.”

Khaos wasn’t sure what exactly she was thanking him for, and supposed it didn’t really matter. He smiled and nodded at her, watching for just a moment more before he forced himself down the stairs and out the door, petting Charlie goodbye for what was probably the last time.

Chapter 13: Epilogue

The weeks that followed proved to Khaos and anyone else watching that there was still a use for government. While the other quadrants of Blessini hadn’t been as plagued by the Vekosh as the Kaspersi had, once they’d found out what the Vekosh had been doing and just how far flung the whole thing could have been, it turned out that they were perfectly willing to help the Kaspersi in their efforts to banish the Vekosh once and for all.

No matter how crafty or underhanded the creatures were, they didn’t have the power to stand up against the united forces of Blessini’s other races.

While Khaos would have been in favor of killing all of them for the pain and suffering they had caused him and so many others, he was out voted, and it was decided that giving the Vekosh what they wanted was a better way to get rid of them and not have to fight.

Since he was already in trouble with Calin for his stunt with rescuing Kayla, Khaos decided not to argue about it. Instead he watched as the Vekosh were loaded up and taken to a remote planet that would be perfect for them. The explorers had found it recently, and while it was too harsh and cold to be home to any of their races, the Vekosh would thrive there.

“I hope we don’t regret this,” Khaos murmured as the shuttle took off, taking their main enemies to a place where they wouldn’t be able to monitor them as closely as he felt they needed to be monitored to make sure that something like this didn’t happen again.

“They don’t have completely free reign,” Calin said as he came up behind him. “There will be limits to what they can do, and they’re restricted from entering Blessini’s orbit ever again. We will be vigilant.”

“Right,” Khaos replied, nodding.

With the Vekosh gone, they wouldn’t have to worry about people dying from the venom anymore. At least, that was the assumption. Between the scientists on Earth and their own medics, they’d determined that the venom didn’t last long in the food or water and that without the Vekosh around, whatever was remaining there would essentially fade away in a matter of days. They were going to go through and test everything to make sure that there were no more causes to worry, but for the most part, the Kaspersi could breathe easy.

Or at least that was the assumption. Khaos wasn’t sure how much that would apply to him. He watched until the shuttle was out of sight and then sighed, rubbing at his face.

He felt like he hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep since  he’d come back to his home planet. Nothing felt the way it should, and even though he hadn’t had a chance to jump back into the arena yet, Khaos was pretty sure that even that wasn’t going to help. It just felt like something was
missing
and remembering the way Kayla had looked at him as he’d gotten in the car to take her back to the apartment, Khaos was pretty sure he knew what it was.

He’d been told that the thing about mates separating was all legend, but maybe that wasn’t true. Or maybe he just missed her. He’d understood why he had to come back home and why Kayla couldn’t come with him, but that didn’t mean that he was happy about it.

When Khaos looked up, Calin was looking at him speculatively. “You know,” he said. “When I first met you, I believed you were champion material. Now I’m not so sure. You disobeyed me when I told you that we weren’t going to go get that girl. You put her above your people, Khaos, and I don’t think that’s what a champion would do.”

“With all due respect, Calin, you made me champion because I won a certain number of fights. You didn’t know anything about me or my character. Just that I could fight well,” Khaos replied. Mouthing off to the leader probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, especially considering he still didn’t know if he was going to get punished for that whole disobeying thing yet.

Calin’s eyes were slightly amused as he looked at him. “That’s a fair point. I was more than a little desperate at that point. But the fact remains that things could have turned out much worse for all of us because of your interference. As such, I am stripping you of your title of champion. Since you have proven you can’t make the Kaspersi your first priority, you no longer have to.” He held Khaos’ gaze for a long moment and then inclined his head. “Good day.”

Khaos watched, confused as Calin walked away. Was that it? He was being stripped of a title that was basically obsolete now anyway? That was his punishment?

“Think about what he
said
,” someone murmured from behind him, and Khaos turned to see Bran standing there.

“You’re sneaky, aren’t you?” Khaos asked.

Bran laughed. “It helped you out, didn’t it? Now do it. Think about what he said.”

“He said that I wasn’t champion anymore. What’s to think about?”

“Oh for-” Bran sighed. “Warriors. He said that you don’t have to make the Kaspersi your priority anymore. Because you made Kayla your priority before. So since the Kaspersi don’t have to come first…”

“Kayla can,” Khaos said, eyes wide. “He’s...he’s letting me go back?”

“A round of applause for you.
Yes,
Khaos. He’s letting you go back.” Bran shook his head, clearly amused. “But will you? I know how much you love the arena here.”

That was true. For the longest time, fighting in the arena had been his life. It had been the reason he got up in the morning and the thing that kept him going through the day. He’d measured his worth in how many battles he’d won and how many people were proud of him because of his skill. But his time on Earth had shown him that he could be good at other things and that there were plenty of other reasons to get up in the morning and keep going through the day.

“Are you going to be heading back there?” he asked Bran.

“Within the next few days, yes. I like it here, but my home is there now. And I need to be there if ever other Kaspersi need to come to Earth. Will you be coming back with us?”

“Yes.”

It wasn’t even something he had to think about.

Back on Earth, things were proceeding as normal. People came into the clinic for everything from colds to broken bones, and Kayla treated them with her usual grace and good humor. She was trying so hard to get back into her groove, the way things were before she’d met someone from a different planet who had turned her world upside down in a matter of weeks.

She missed him, to be sure, but they both had responsibilities and lives apart from each other, and that was probably the way it should have been. He’d saved her, and she’d kissed him goodbye, and now it was time to get back to her life as it had been before this whole thing had started.

The nurses noticed, of course, that she wasn’t the same as she’d been before. They’d asked about the whole her being kidnapped thing, and Kayla’s vague excuses hadn’t really been believed, but when it became clear that she didn’t want to talk about it and that Khaos was the person who had saved her, they’d let the matter drop. Of course, she still caught them watching her sometimes, eyes concerned as they went about their days.

A week passed, and Kayla found excuses to linger at the office after hours. Going home to her empty house was no longer something she could pretend gave her any joy. She still had Charlie and that was better than being alone, but now she knew what she was missing.

And god, did she miss it.

She missed
him.

She missed the way he had always gone home with her and made things so much less lonely and just...
brighter.
She missed kissing him and being held by him.

“Do we need to hunt him down and hurt him?” Christina asked one night as they were cleaning up and putting things away for the night. “Because I don’t like seeing you like this. None of us do.”

Kayla forced a smile and shook her head. “I’m fine, Christina. I promise. I just miss him, but it’s fine. He had to go back home.”

“For his family emergency?”

“Something like that, yeah. I...he’s not the kind of man who can just abandon his family and friends because of a girl. Not until they’re okay. And I respect that.”

It was clear that Christina did, too, even if she wasn’t happy about the way it was clearly making Kayla feel.

She insisted on staying with Kayla that night, but she shooed her off, promising that she was fine and there was nothing to worry about. She’d picked a couple of new doctors that she needed to interview to come in and help, and she needed to finalize the questions she had for them and set dates for that.

There was plenty to keep her busy and keep her from pining pointlessly. She was better than that.

And if she had to wipe away a few tears that had trickled down her face while she typed, well. That was fine, too.

Kayla jolted when she heard someone knocking on the door to the clinic, heart leaping up into her throat. She was still on edge after being basically abducted from her place of work, and she gripped the knife she’d started keeping in her desk drawer before she got up and made her way out to the waiting room.

For a moment, she thought she was seeing things because surely there was no way that Khaos was standing outside of the clinic with his bags, looking like he wanted to be let in. There was no way.

But even when she closed her eyes and then reopened them, he was still there, smiling when he caught sight of her through the glass window.

“What are you doing here?” Kayla demanded as she flung the door open.

“What kind of question is that?” Khaos replied, glancing down at the knife in her hand. “And what are you doing with
that
?”

Kayla shrugged. “Can’t be too careful these days. But seriously, what are you doing here?”

He smiled and stepped inside, dropping his bags on the floor. “I came back. Because I missed you. I just. The Kaspersi don’t need me. I pretty much proved that I can’t just fight for them all the time, and that I want some things for myself, too. So I was...dismissed.”

“They kicked you out?” Kayla asked, incredulous. “After all you did for them?”

Khaos laughed and pulled her into his arms. “They didn’t kick me out. They...told me that I was free to pursue other options. And I chose that because all I could think about is you. So if you want me, I’m yours.”

She thought about telling him that she didn’t see how it would work. There was so much that he didn’t know about living on Earth, and she knew that he was going to miss his friends and his fights and that she probably wouldn’t be able to give him all the things he needed. It was going to be a struggle for them to make it work, but even knowing that, Kayla clung to him tighter.