Excerpt:
“In my culture, names have strong meanings.” D’lane pulled out the curved blade strapped to his arm and cut up the meat he’d been eating earlier into small precise pieces. “They’re meant to impart wisdom and advice throughout our lives.”
She straightened and tucked her hands onto her lap. This was an interesting conversational change. “There are, or at least used to be, cultures on Earth that believed the same. I’ve always loved that philosophy. What does yours mean?”
“Mine is a powerful name.” His lips were roguishly tipped up at the corner, exposing sharp eye teeth. He settled into his seat, as if preparing to lecture a student. The surrounding mess hall noise dimmed as she focused on him. “I am named after one of our past kings. A mighty Chriw’rian who fought valiantly against the Hissat or, as you humans call them, the Anunnaki. He’s credited with their first defeat on our planet.”
She locked her fingers together. “Really?”
He placed the curved knife beside her tray. “For your protein.”
Shannon glanced around the room. Surely someone would jump in to stop him from offering her a weapon. When no one did, she picked up the knife and cut up the last bit of food on her plate, a wrinkled sausage link in an off-putting green color. The blade cut smoothly through the dehydrated chunk. “Thank you.”
She fingered the metal handle. Smooth and warm in her hand, she tilted the blade far enough to see her reflection on its surface. She wanted to keep it. She placed the knife beside her tray and glanced up as D’lane consumed the last of his jerky.
He pushed his empty tray to the side. “The previous D’lane crashed his warship into the Anunnaki fighter set to bomb our most vulnerable. His actions disrupted the mothership and allowed the rest of the fleet to destroy them. If not for his heroic actions, my planet wouldn’t
have survived their last attack.”She ate a bite of the sausage and winced. It fought her with every chew. Mouth dry, she discreetly spit it into her napkin. A few brows arched in her direction, including D’lane’s. To give herself something to do, she handed the knife back, handle first. He wouldn’t have let her keep it anyway. “Have you figured out how your name dictates your future?”
“Yes.” His fingers brushed hers as he accepted its return. The silver metal blurred when he holstered the blade. This male moved quickly.
She was afraid to ask about his future. She kind of liked this particular alien and didn’t want to see him dying any time soon. “And?”
He grinned and flashed his sharp canines. “One belief is I will be a great benefit to my people, but unable to participate in the ultimate victory of my path.”
“Does that mean you expect to die?” Shannon asked, undecided on if his smile edged from sexy into frightening.
“It is a possibility.”
She picked up her sausage, put it back down, and frowned. “You said one of the meanings. Can you choose another path?”
“There are many possibilities that exist for an individual. The Namegivers do not choose lightly when gifting a child at birth with their destiny. I could follow another D’lane’s path, or I could forge my own fate and provide a future for another down the line as the previous D’lane did.”
“Which destiny is yours?”
“I follow the path of the king.”
“Ah.” She ran her finger over the smooth surface of the table. Did that mean he expected to die or was there another path within that destiny he would follow? How did someone know which one to follow?
It had taken her months in college to discover she wasn’t interested in chemistry. Six long hellish months. The frustration alone for losing that small bit of time seemed inconsequential when compared to the possibility of traveling an entire lifetime down the wrong path.
He tapped the table. “What does your name mean?”
She huffed, knowing her name meant little when compared to his. She’d looked it up once after an unpleasant conversation with her father. “It means possessor of wisdom.”
Her father had wanted to call her Clair after his sister, but her mother had gone with Shannon after hearing it on a show during labor. The uncomfortable conversation on how he’d hated her name had been a slight peek into her mother’s past, even as her dad lay drunk on the couch. He’d apologized later, but the damage had already been done. She forced a laugh to lighten the mood. “If you take it to mean I went to school, then I’ve lived up to the title.”
“It is accurate.” His nail pressed down on the table’s surface. A bit of plastic curled in its wake. His nails were either extremely durable or the tables were flimsy. Shannon flattened her hand next to her tray and curled her fingers. She scratched at the table and winced as her nail bent back. “How so?”
“You were revived for information that will save billions of lives and stop a war.”
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