The Arrival: A Sci-Fi Alien Warrior Paranormal Romance by Ashley West

fled. When the people could have used your help, you were gone."
    "I was injured."
    "You got better, clearly! You're standing here before me, looking like every bit the warrior you were when you left four years ago. You could have come back." Now her voice dropped to something resembling a whisper. "I thought you were going to come back."
    It hit him then, that Halphia had needed him. She'd been in charge of all of this, the entire city and its reconstruction, the funerals and all the mourning that had no doubt happened. Her own feelings had been pushed aside so she could be there for her people, and no one had been there for her. That was Sorrin's role, traditionally. As her friend, he was the one who went to her and made sure she had someone to vent to at the end of a long day or when the rest of the Senate was being impossible to work with. Or when tragedy struck. She'd relied on him heavily, and he hadn't been there.
    It was a wonder that she'd let him in at all. This was just another failure. Something he'd messed up to the point of not being able to fix it. People kept telling him that it wasn't his fault this or that happened, but they didn't see. His carelessness, his selfishness was just making everything worse.
    "I shouldn't have come."
    When Halphia looked up, her eyes were blazing, and she was truly mad now. "Is that what you heard?" she demanded. "Honestly, I don't know what happened to you, Sorrin. Or rather, I suppose I do, but it just makes me so sad for you. You're going to throw your life away for no reason, you act like you have no right to be here when this was your home for so long. You just don't understand, and I don't know how to make you see. I missed you. Do you understand that? I missed you like I was missing a limb, and I kept telling myself that it would be fine because you were coming back. I saw how upset you were. I saw how much Gollen Par meant to you and how much what happened affected you, and I knew you were going to want to make it right. So I waited. And I waited. And you never came back."
    “I know.” There wasn’t anything else to say, really. They both knew what had happened, and they both knew what was going to happen now, and there was really no way to make it different. Sorrin had failed. He’d failed the city, he’d failed Halphia time and time again, and now he was going to make sure that he couldn’t fail anyone again.
    “Why are you here?” she asked again.
    “I wanted to say goodbye.”
    “You said goodbye the first time,” she pointed out. “If you never meant to come back, then why say it again now?”
    Sorrin didn’t have an answer for that. Telling her that Poola had suggested it was the wrong response, and he knew that. There wasn’t much he could really say to make her understand why he’d needed to do what he did. So he went with honesty in a different way. “Because I wanted to see you again before the end of it. I wanted you to know that I…” That he what? That he was going to do this for her? For the people? That he’d be thinking of her to his last? “That you were the best friend I ever had.”
    A war took place on Halphia’s face, then. She looked like she desperately wanted to stay angry with him, but just couldn’t bring herself to do it, and finally she gave in and let the tears well in her eyes. She’d missed him, she said, and Sorrin could see it now. He could see how much she wanted to ask him to stay, and he could see that she knew he wouldn’t.
    There were no more words between them. Sorrin took the initiative and stepped closer, enveloping her in a hug. Halphia was still for a moment, and then she sighed and hugged him back. They both pretended like she wasn’t crying.
    “She’s all done,” Caldir said when Sorrin walked up to the roof. He was grinning and covered in grease, so Sorrin was sure that he’d gone and done things ‘the old fashioned way’. That was fine. There wasn’t anyone else around that he was going to trust