Page 27 of Alien's Eternal Mate

Lo stopped cold. I took several steps before I realized he no longer strode beside me. Returning to his side, I found him utterly flabbergasted.

“You don’t remember. I keep forgetting that you have amnesia.”

“What have I forgotten now?”

Lo licked his lips and shifted his stance uncomfortably.

“Lo, I am not a patient man.”

“You did it,” he blurted.

I stared at him in confusion for several moments until my comprehension sunk in.

“I did? I mean, Gro did it? Why?”

Lo dropped his gaze to the ground.

“Arael is friends with Jord the Miller. They’ve been friends since childhood, but when you saw them talking...that is, when the old Gro saw them talking, jealousy drove him to cut off Arael’s hair.”

“Why?”

“So that she wouldn’t be pretty, I think. Or maybe to teach her a lesson.”

I clapped a hand over my face and groaned.

I am branded a villain no matter where I go. At least Gro earned his evil reputation. All I did was some scientific research for Blue Dawn. It’s not like I ever hurt anyone…

A phantom scream tore from the vestiges of memory and ripped through my conscious mind. I thrust my fingers into my ears.

“Stop. Stop. Stop.”

I grew aware of someone tugging on my arm. I looked down to Lo as he squinted into the morning sun. The screaming stopped. I wasn’t at the Blue Dawn facility any longer. I was in the present. In an alien’s body, on a world circling a distant star, but at least there were no screams.

“Gro, are you alright? Stop what?”

I shook my head.

“I must go.”

I took off at a dead run. Gro’s body ate up the terrain with long, athletic strides. I moved at speeds beyond even Olympian standards on Earth. Yet it didn’t feel fast enough.

I raced back to Gro’s dwelling, and found it empty. No sign of Arael.

My nostrils flared. Her scent hung heavy in the air. I could almost taste her fear, her despair.

These aliens have keen olfactory senses. I can probably track Arael.

Following her proved easy until I reached the center of town. The village roads converged like the spokes of a wheel in the town square. Nearly everyone who lived there would pass through the square at one point or another.

I looked about, but didn’t see her. I found a stall filled with feathered lizards on thong strings, apparent talismans of some sort. The man sitting behind the merchandise shrank back as I leaned in close.

“Arael. Have you seen her?”

He nodded, then pointed toward the spoke which led toward the southern edge of the village.

“Thank you.”

Relief and guilt battled across his features. Perhaps he feared that I was looking for Arael so I could lay another beating on her. My intentions were quite the opposite.

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