We sat at the dining table in the hush of the night, the kind of silence that wraps around the walls like breath held too long. Outside, the world was still, moonlight stretching pale shadows across the curtained windows. Inside, the only light came from the bedroom lamp behind me, casting a faint golden halo over the edge of the living room. It wasn't enough to brighten the room entirely, just enough to carve Delmar's face in soft relief and make the tension between us feel tangible.
I couldn't bring myself to look at him directly.
He sat across from me, posture easy, hands folded, unmoving, but his presence was anything but relaxed. I could feel him watching me, like the pressure of deep-sea currents bearing down on my chest. I fixated on my hand instead, picking at the edge of a torn nail cuticle until the skin stung.
"What are you thinking?" he asked, his voice low but resonant. It vibrated in the quiet room like a low hum in my bones, unsettling and unfamiliar. It would take a long time to get used to that voice, deep, oddly textured, like it didn't quite belong to this world. Like it had been shaped by water, not air.
"Nothing," I lied, my voice thin. I forced myself to raise my head, to meet his gaze, and instantly regretted it.
Those eyes. The color of old glass bottles lost at sea, sea-green, haunting, unreadable. His stare felt like drowning. I looked away almost immediately, my heart thudding too fast, too loud.
"Are you scared of me?"
The question came gently, but there was a note I couldn't place, curiosity? concern? His accent made his tone feel foreign, distorted at the edges, as if the emotion had to travel through a different atmosphere to reach me.
"No. Why?" I responded too quickly, too defensively. My fingers curled on the table.
"Are you not happy I came to see you?"
I swallowed. The lump in my throat sat heavy and dry. Happy wasn't the right word. Terrified maybe. Overwhelmed, absolutely. My entire nervous system felt like it had gone into overdrive the moment I saw him step out of that taxi, like my body was reacting to some ancient signal he still carried with him.
The truth was, I didn't know how to process someone turning their entire life upside down, crossing lands and oceans, just to find me. I didn't know how to be that important to someone. And I wasn't sure I deserved it.
"Why wouldn't I be happy?" I laughed, brittle and awkward. My voice cracked on the last word. "But it's not safe. I mean, humans aren't exactly known for being kind to things they don't understand. I don't want you getting into trouble."
For the first time, something flickered across his face. A shift. A shadow of... hurt? Anger? Maybe both. I wasn't sure. His expression was quiet, but his stillness had changed. Subtly. Like a wave drawing back from shore just a little too far, the way it does before it crashes.
My chest tightened. I hated that I might have said the wrong thing.
"Do you think I'm weak, Kash?" he asked, the words cutting through the silence like a blade.
I barely had time to react before he was standing, his shadow stretching long across the table. The light from the bedroom behind us flickered faintly, outlining his figure in gold and shadow, making him look even more otherworldly than he already did, too poised, too still, too perfect.
"I..." I tried to respond, but my voice faltered. Words withered on my tongue as he crossed the space between us in slow, deliberate steps. Every breath in my body stalled. My chair creaked under me. I didn't know what he was going to do, whether he'd lean forward and kiss me with that unflinching, fierce honesty he carried, or slap me for being an ungrateful coward who kept pushing him away.
He did neither.
Instead, he reached out and placed his palm against my cheek. It was a startlingly gentle touch, warm and steady, like a tether pulling me back into my body. My chest rose with a sharp inhale as his face came level with mine, close enough that I could feel the subtle shift of air between us, the heat of his breath just brushing my skin.
I had nowhere to hide. Nowhere to look but into those eyes, green like kelp forests dappled with sunlight, glowing like phosphorescent water beneath a full moon. My throat tightened and I swallowed hard. The motion drew his attention. I watched his gaze dip to my neck, pausing there for a breath too long, before it climbed back to meet mine again, unwavering.
His voice dropped to something raw and reverent. "I want you to know something, Kash. I love you. And I'm not going to pretend otherwise. I'm not a human, and I don't do the unsure dance your kind does around that word. I know it may be too much for you. But I don't want you to feel burdened by my emotions. Just something I wanted to be clear about."
Oh God.
The words didn't feel rehearsed. They didn't feel like declarations made with calculated timing or flair. They were... naked. Honest. And they hit me with the force of a storm tide.
He didn't understand. Or maybe he did, and that's what terrified me more. Did he know what it meant to say something so monumental out loud, to just offer his heart like it was nothing, like it wouldn't shatter if I rejected it?
I pushed my chair back so fast it scraped harshly against the floor. I needed space. Air. Distance. My chest was rising and falling too fast, and I could feel panic rising like bile.
"You have no idea what you're talking about!" I snapped, heat and fear twisting in my voice as I stepped away. "You can't just come and say stuff like that. You don't even know what human norms are."
He didn't flinch.
"I wouldn't have come looking for you if I didn't know what I was talking about," he said, slowly straightening to his full height. His presence filled the room like an ocean surge, calm on the surface but with the promise of devastating depth underneath. He looked like he belonged in a throne made of coral and pearl, like he could command tempests with a flick of his fingers.
Like the God of the ocean.
And I... I was just a boy who wasn't sure he knew how to be loved like that.
"You don't love me. You're confused." My voice was barely more than a whisper as I turned away from him, unable to hold his gaze. It was too much, his nearness, his certainty, the gravity in those sea-glass eyes. It felt like standing too close to the edge of something vast and bottomless, something that could swallow me whole.
"Don't tell me how I feel." His words came low, firm, steady. "I know what I want. The real question is, what do you want?"
My pulse thundered in my ears. The room felt too small, the air too thick, like I was suffocating on every breath. My heart ricocheted against my ribs like it had no rhythm of its own anymore. I wanted to scream, to bolt, to wrap myself in some rational argument that would make this all go away.
"What are you so scared of, Kash?" Delmar asked, his voice softer now, and yet it cut deeper. He was standing so close I could feel the warmth radiating from his body. "Tell me you don't want me, and I'll go."
I turned and looked at him then, my gaze narrowing as if to find some lie in his eyes. But there was none. Just aching honesty. It wasn't really a choice, was it? Not after everything. He had crossed oceans, mastered a foreign tongue, endured who knows what kinds of indignities just to find me. Just to stand here, in my shitty little apartment, asking for a truth I hadn't yet admitted to myself.
How could I tell him to go when everything inside me screamed for him to stay?
Even if I knew I shouldn't.
Because the truth, the terrifying truth, was that I wanted to throw myself into his arms, to bury my face into the hollow of his throat and stay there until I forgot the world. I wanted to know what we could be, what we might become if I let myself want him the way I already did. But things were never that easy... were they?
"We're different species," I tried, the excuse tasting stale on my tongue even as I spoke it.
"Kash, you're stalling," he said, his voice now barely audible, feathering over my skin like the brush of a wave. "That's not an answer."
Then he tilted my head, and I felt the ghost of his breath against the side of my neck. My knees nearly buckled. He smelled exactly like I remembered, like the ocean on a stormless morning, clean and cool and ancient. And beneath that, something wilder, something uniquely him, as though the sea had birthed him from foam and myth and raw need.
"I don't hold the power to make you want me," he murmured. "You have no idea what it took me to come looking for you, but I would gladly walk away if you asked me to. Just once. But if you feel even a fraction of what I feel, don't push me away."
I swallowed hard. My lips parted to speak, to say something, anything, that could ground me. But the words never made it out.
"You're inviting complications," I tried again, weakly. "I told you before, and I'm telling you now, we're don't belong, "
I didn't get to finish.
Because his lips found mine.
The kiss wasn't demanding or rushed. It was deliberate. Deep. Unapologetically tender. Like he was relearning the shape of me, mapping the memory of a moment we'd both carried for three long years. His lips moved over mine with a reverence that undid me, and when his tongue brushed gently against the seam of my mouth, I opened to him without thinking, without defense.
He kissed like he knew. Like he had studied the mechanics of desire, not from books or theory but from the ache of longing itself. The push and pull of it, the softness, the pressure, the pulse. His mouth molded perfectly to mine, until I forgot we were different, until the lines between us blurred and all that was left was the pull.
When he finally pulled back, his breath was shallow against my lips.
"This doesn't feel like we don't belong," he whispered.
And he was right.
I had no argument left. No words. No breath. Nothing in me could muster resistance, not after that. Not after being reminded, so vividly, so devastatingly, of what it felt like to be wanted like this.
How had I lived three years without this? Without him?
I honestly didn't know.
I was just about to say it, finally give him what he needed. My confession. The truth I had swallowed for three endless years. The weight of it sat like a stone in my throat, trembling against the rush of everything I had buried. I was going to tell him how I had suffered too. How many nights I had lain awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering if I'd made the biggest mistake of my life by not going back. How many times I had hovered over the "search" button, eyes swimming with tears, trying to convince myself that forgetting him was survival. How not a single day had passed without some trace of him lingering in the shadows of my mind.
But then the shrill sound of my phone shattered the silence. It vibrated cold against my palm.
I glanced down.
Peter.
His name flashed in bold, sterile letters. The timing couldn't have been more cruel.
I stepped away without looking at Delmar, dragging the phone to my ear like it weighed a hundred pounds.
"Kashton, you left without a word," Peter's voice came through, casual concern wrapped in accusation. "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah... yeah, everything's fine," I lied, eyes still darting toward the hallway, toward the bathroom where K'liira was still resting, where Delmar's figure lingered, shadowed and still.
"You cancelled again," he said, disappointed. "That's what, three times in a row now?"
"I'm sorry. I had guests drop in," I muttered, guilt already coiling in my chest.
"Who?"
"An old friend."
"You never mentioned a friend before."
"You never asked." My tone had a bite I hadn't meant to let slip. I exhaled and tried to recover. "Peter, let's make a plan for next week. I won't cancel, I promise."
"You better not," he chuckled, voice softening. "I want to spend some quality time with you, babe."
Babe.
That stupid word made my stomach twist. I hated when he called me that. It felt fake, a term dressed up in affection that never quite fit. But I didn't correct him. I never did. Let him have the illusion.
I ended the call and slowly turned back around.
Delmar was watching me.
He wasn't angry, not exactly. But something had shifted. His eyes, usually glinting with curiosity and unfiltered emotion, had gone still, like deep ocean water hiding a coming storm. His gaze flicked once to the phone in my hand, and I saw it, the moment realization hit him like a crashing wave.
"I shouldn't put you into unnecessary trouble," he said quietly.
Then, without waiting, he turned and moved, fast, too fast, toward the bathroom.
"Delmar, stop," I called out, panic flaring in my chest. But the words barely left my lips before he was already shaking K'liira awake.
"K'liira, wake up. We need to go. Now."
She blinked at him, dazed and confused. "What...?"
"Delmar, stop!" I rushed to follow him. "It's not what you think."
"You don't owe me explanations." He avoided my eyes, shoving the towel toward K'liira. "I had no right barging into your life. I see that now. I was so fucking stupid."
"No, please just listen to me."
He finally turned, pain etched in the lines of his face. "You know, Kash," he said, voice breaking around the edges, "I was part of a harem. A beta among other males, all loyal to one queen. We were... content. It wasn't love like humans describe it. It was instinct. Balance. Family. And then she was killed. By your people. Some human covenant mission, they slaughtered her, my brothers, the children of our kin."
His voice cracked, raw now.
"I should've hated you all. I wanted to. I should've drowned the first human I saw. But then I met your father. And I realized... not all of you are monsters."
He looked at me, and his eyes were rimmed with a grief so vast, so ancient, it nearly knocked the breath from my lungs.
"I didn't mean to fall in love with you," he whispered. "But when I saw your picture... my mind, my biology, my entire being clicked. We're not like you. When we fixate, it's permanent. You think I didn't know how impossible this was? That an interspecies bond could only end in pain? I tried so hard to stay away. But you, you, you came looking for us. Spent endless nights on a thred bare raft in the ocean...surrouded by sharks, by darkness, with pathetic excuse of a lantern. I couldn't ignore that."
His voice was shaking now, lips trembling with the force of everything he had never said.
"When our eyes met... I knew. I knew I was lost."
He laughed then, quiet and bitter.
"Stupid me. I never stopped to consider the possibility that might not want me back. You are human after all...not an omega."
"I want you, dammit!" I snapped, louder than I meant to. "I've never wanted anyone but you!"
I took a trembling step forward. "Why do you think I joined the PhD program? Why do you think I let myself fall into a relationship with someone I don't even like, let alone love?"
My chest rose and fell violently, the air in the room suddenly too thin.
"There are bigger things at stake than my goddamn feelings, Delmar. My father was murdered. Your family slaughtered. An entire race is being erased from the face of this earth like they never existed. I need answers. We need closure. That's why I did all of this."
He looked at me then, really looked. I could see words forming behind his eyes. Could feel the tight ache of his breath.
But instead of speaking, he turned spoke to K'liira in his tongue then put her back into the bathtub.
"Can we get few minutes of privacy," he said without fully turning.
My heart ached a little at his request but I didn't let it show. I stepped out of the bathroom and clicked the door shut. The soft click louder than any scream.