The technology was months away, they said. Complex calibrations required. But when it was ready, he would be able to stand beside her in daylight. Meet her family as more than a secret. Exist in her world as more than a shadow in the yard.
He found he wanted that. More than he had expected to want anything.
"I'm going to resign from the LAPD," she said. The words came out steady, like she had been thinking about them for a while. "I was already burned out before any of this happened. Fourteen years of watching the system fail people. Arresting the same guys over and over while the real criminals wrote checks and walked free." She exhaled. "I don't want to go back to that."
"What will you do?"
"Morgan mentioned something about working with the network. Using my skills for something that actually matters."She glanced at him. "Would that be... I mean, would you be okay with that? Me staying involved with the Marak's operations?"
The question surprised him. Through the bond, he felt her uncertainty; not about him, but about the shape of their future. She was trying to build a life and did not yet know what pieces she had to work with.
"I have spoken with Zhoren," he said. "The High Arbiter. He has approved my reassignment."
She went still. "Reassignment?"
"To Earth. Permanently." He turned to face her fully, watching her expression in the dim light. "The Marak's protection network requires personnel here. Threats that your species is not yet equipped to handle. The Kha'Ruun can serve that purpose."
"You're staying." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "On Earth. You're staying here."
"I am still Kha'Ruun. I will still take missions when required. But my base of operations will be here." He paused, then added more quietly: "With you."
Through the bond, he felt the surge of her emotion; relief and joy and a fierce possessiveness that matched his own feelings exactly. She reached up and gripped his arm, her fingers digging into the dermal plating hard enough that he felt the pressure.
"I thought..." She stopped, started again. "I thought I might have to choose. Between you and them. Between this life and the one I had before."
"You do not have to choose." He covered her hand with his own. "I am not asking you to leave your world. I am asking to share it."
She made a sound that might have been a laugh or might have been a sob. Through the bond, he felt the walls she had built—the detective's walls, the survivor's walls—begin to crack.
"This is insane," she said. "You know that, right? An alien warrior living in Eagle Rock. Taking missions for some intergalactic protection network. Hiding in the back room when my sister comes over."
"Yes," he agreed. "It is insane."
"And you're okay with that?"
He considered the question. Considered the life he had lived before: decades of purpose without connection, of violence without anchor, of service without home. He had been Kha'Ruun. Weapon and warrior and instrument of destruction. He had expected nothing else.
Now there was this. A house with pink flowers in the yard. A room that washis, with a reinforced bed and blacked-out windows. A family inside making dinner, unaware that their protector watched from the shadows. A mate who looked at him without fear and asked if he was okay with insanity.
He was more than okay. He wascontent.
The word felt foreign. He had never had cause to use it before.
"I am more than okay," he said.
She kissed him. Different from the kisses in the jungle, softer and slower, a promise rather than a claim. Through the bond, he felt her certainty settling into place. Her acceptance. Her commitment.
When she pulled back, her eyes were bright.
"I should go back inside," she said. "Before Aria sends a search party."
"Yes."
But she did not move. Her hand stayed on his arm, and through the bond he felt her reluctance to leave him in the dark while she returned to the light.
"Soon," she said. "I'll tell them soon. Once the cloaking tech is ready, maybe. Once I can introduce you as something otherthan..." She gestured at him, at the armor and the tail and everything he was. "Once I figure out how."
"You will find the words. When you are ready."
