Page 73 of Alien Rescue

“Two hours of morning sex,” he said, unrepentant.

Rose shook her head but when he went after the guard, quickly said, “All right, all right. Two hours morning sex.”

“Go away and don’t come back,” Zanr snarled at the man who ran for his life. Rose breathed a sigh of relief. She’d been afraid he’d kill the guard in cold blood.

“Stay behind me,” Zanr said and walked up to the house.

Rose didn’t argue. Before, there had only been two guards outside. Today they’d encountered four. Who knew how many more guards were on the grounds? It was a long walk, and she mostly had to run to keep up with Zanr. At the big, wooden double doors, he raised a fist and hammered on it, and the doors swung back. Broken. The sight of those broken doors upset Rose. It looked too much like her relationship with her family.

“He’d be in his study.” It was Wednesday, and ever since she could remember, her father worked from his home office on that day. “The first door on the left.” She’d never been allowed to go in there when she was a child.

“What the hell is going on here?”

Rose peaked out behind Zanr and saw her father in the doorway of his study.

A smile bloomed inside her at the way Zanr moved to shield her body with his. Never before had she felt the urge to smile when she saw her father. It was like having a warm blanket to guard you against the cold.

“I should’ve known it was you,” her father said, disgust clear in his deep voice.

She fought the urge to cringe away, to apologise for coming to her family home. No, not her father, she reminded herself. That knowledge hurt, but at the same time it was balm on the raw wound in her heart.

“This is the last time I want to see you. I need some answers and then we will part ways,” she told him.

He seemed taken aback, but he bounced back fast. “It wasn’t necessary to bring an alien with you and even less necessary to destroy my home.”

She shrugged and pointed at Zanr. “I thought I’d bring some muscle this time to ensure you listen to me, and he’s bulletproof.” She took a step forward and stumbled, the world tilting around her.

“Are you drunk?” her father said with distaste. “Get out.”

Zanr had her secure before she could fall. She looked up at him, saw the knowledge in his eyes. The nanos just took a little bit more of her. She kept one hand on Zanr to keep her balance and looked at the man in front of her. “No, I need to talk to you.”

The man who wasn’t her father studiously avoided looking at Zanr. As if he knew she was the weak link, he sneered at her. “Your need for my attention is becoming cumbersome. No father wants a daughter who?”

“You are not my father.”

He paled. “Why do you say that?”

Rose pointed a thumb at Zanr again. “He has the technology to do DNA tests with his super-duper alien DNA scanner. It confirmed we’re not related.”

“That is a lie,” he said vehemently.

Rose frowned at him. He’d never wanted her around, so why did he protest the truth now? For a moment the little girl inside her, who’d been desperate for his attention, hoped that he wanted her at last. But then she remembered the kidnapping, the way he’d always looked at her. His pride. “It will hurt your pride to acknowledge that I’m not yours. You can’t stand the thought that Mother loved another man.”

“She never loved him,” he shouted. Red patches mottled over his dark skin.

Zanr stepped forward. “You do not shout at her.”

Rose would be forever grateful that he didn’t call her breeder in front of this arrogant man. It would only give him something to mock her with.

Rose stared at the man she’d called Father, and horror crawled down her spine with sharpened claws. She knew, suddenly she just knew. Maybe the kind of job she did allowed her to put all the clues together. Or maybe she was just ready to accept the truth at last. “You had me kidnapped,” she blurted.

If she didn’t watch him so closely, she would’ve missed the slight flinch, the way his eyes shifted away, the way his cheeks darkened. “Is this another attempt to get attention? I thought you’d grown?”

Rose held up a hand. “I’m done. I want to speak to my brother before I leave, but I’m done with you.”

“Your brother is not here.”

She could hear the truth in his voice. Maybe it was a good thing that Charles wasn’t around. If he was innocent in the superman crack case, she’d try and keep him out of it. But she very much feared he’d been corrupted by his father.

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