Scaled Heart: A SciFi Alien Romance (Project: F5 Book 2) by Jade Waltz (ereader android .TXT) 📕

sipping my tea. “Why would I continue to punish you for a slip-up? I have greater worries than holding grudges for something misspoken. You sought me out after realizing your mistake, apologized, and asked for forgiveness, so I gave it to you. We can both be mature about what happened. If you want to prove yourself to me, learn from your mistake and move on.”

“I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe you. This has to be some sort of test. How can you just say everything is fine?”

“What do you want me to do, Chyox?” I muttered, placing my drink on the table. “Scream at you and call you names? Demand retribution? Life's too short to dwell on trivial mistakes. I am sorry I’m not like most females you know, but you need to stop judging other species by the standards you grew up around. We are not like you.”

“I am just… lost.”

“Find yourself, Chyox. You are no longer on your home planet or ship, surrounded by only Circuli around you. This is Destima, where there is not only a blend of different demihumans on the moon, but other species as well.”

“I am trying, Kaica. Really, I am.” He chuckled and glanced at his hands. “Selena was a rude awakening that shattered everything I knew about this universe. Now, working beside you and Oeta, I’ve learned much more.”

“Am I that bad?” I tilted my head, studying him. “I thought I was succeeding at doing my job and staying out of the way.”

“You’ve been perfect,” he sputtered, his gaze flicking to mine. “Sometimes I forget you are even there.”

Somehow that didn’t sit right with me.

“I am used to working alone in my lab,” I sighed. “I’m sorry I am not as talkative as the others. I can work on it.”

“You don’t need to change. However, there is something else I want to address with you.”

“What is that?”

Was he going to ask me to be his nestqueen after all?

“Have you ever dealt with personally compromising medical cases? Have you ever cared for a sibling, not knowing if they would survive?”

Sighing, I slumped back on my couch, unsure what to think. I had gotten my hopes up expecting him to confess but instead, he wanted to know about one of my greatest fears.

“Short answer? No.” Rolling my fingers around the mug’s handle, I considered my words carefully. The last thing I wanted to do was to convince him I needed to be removed from the team and stationed in Destima’s hospital. Or worse, kept away from patients entirely and left to work on my fertility research.

“What’s your long answer?”

“Long answer?” I licked my lips and prayed to the Stars he wouldn’t think less of me after this. “Thankfully, I have only feared for my siblings’ lives a few times; Kaede’s, mainly. It seems he is always looking for a way to push his limits harder and further, and to become better than ever before. Without our cryopods and his quick self-healing ability, I don’t know if he would be alive today. Of course, I hate having to deal with life-or-death situations—I would rather do research—but out of my siblings, I was the only one with real talent and drive to study medicine, so I became the Fab Five’s healer.” I paused to gauge his reaction. “Right now, my focus is on saving the lives of Selena’s nestmates, so experiments will have to wait. I could never turn my back on those in need… but that isn’t what drives me.”

“Then what is?”

“Have you stopped to think about what will happen if they die?” I gestured in the infirmary’s direction. “If Selena doesn’t return in time, they will die. The princes will die, and who knows what will happen to the Circuli population.”

“She is our Queen,” he breathed. “If she dies, if the princes die, we will all perish with them unless someone takes over the mental web.”

Ice filled my veins.

That wasn’t what I wanted to hear—not now, not with all the problems we already faced. It only added more pressure to my chest.

“Why was this knowledge withheld from me? Does the Sovereign know?”

“He knows, but he has his own worries.”

“How long have you known?”

“It was a gradual realization that clicked when she claimed her Primaries.” He wiggled in his seat as if he was uncomfortable about what he had to say. “We all felt the change. I just assumed you had been told.”

Why hadn’t I been told?

We had always shared everything over our family network. It was rare for Z to keep important information from us but since Kaede had hidden a custom spacecraft and disconnected from the network, I wondered what else had been kept from me.

“I didn’t mean to instill doubt in you.” His eyes shot to my hair and I realized it must be displaying the mixed emotions I didn’t want him to know. “That wasn’t my intent, nor do I mean to question the extent of your education. But I am wondering if you have ever studied how to disconnect from your work. Have you been trained to shed the stress and pressure of personally knowing your patient to focus on what needs to be done?”

“Truthfully? No.” I shook my head. “I spent all my time researching other species’ medical programs. I was interested in how they approached treatment in case I had to use more basic and perhaps barbaric methods to help a patient.”

“If I may, I would love to provide you with some of my materials on the subject.” Chyox reached forward and paused, frowning before dropping his hand. “Perhaps even help you work through it.”

“Why?”

“Because it is the right thing to do. Just as you can’t walk away from those in need even though you would rather do research, I can’t keep watching you struggle with your patients.”

“I would like that.”

He smiled—the first smile I had ever seen on him. Surprisingly, he looked very handsome when he wasn’t in his default grumpy state.

His medium-green skin