Page 82 of Alien's Eternal Mate

“I suppose I prefer Gro. Will I see my lifemate again?”

“Oh, yes. Absolutely. It might not be in the way you expect, not at first, but it will happen.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

My father turned to me and smiled.

“I suppose you’ll find out, if you live long enough.”

I laughed, hard enough it set off a coughing fit. I struggled to drag air into my lungs, as darkness edged in on my vision.

For a time, it seemed as if I didn’t breathe at all. I didn’t breathe because there was no air, and I had no lungs to breathe it with if there had been. My conscious mind existed as a tiny spark in endless, ineffable blackness.

Then, I felt something punch me in the chest, or so I thought. All I knew was I could breathe again.

“He’s back. And he’s awake.”

The voice sounded strange to my ears. Not a deep, resonant Masari voice. A thin, reedy…human voice.

I focused my eyes on the wizened face of a bespectacled doctor. He didn’t look too thrilled to see me.

“Do you know who you are?” he asked.

“Gro, Chief of Starlost village.”

The doctor frowned.

“What language is he speaking?”

“I don’t know. The translators can’t make heads or tails of it.”

The doctor turned back to me, looking more concerned than ever.

“Can you tell me your name, son?”

Son? I was many times his elder…only I was not. I was young again. Human again.

I was dreaming again, and I wished that I could wake back up into my real, Masari life.

“Carter Reed. That's what you think my name is, so let’s go with that.”

TWENTY-THREE

CARTER

Chapter 23

"Nothing matters anymore," I say.

"Excuse me, Mr. Reed?" a young technician asks me. "What doesn't matter anymore?"

"Anything," I say. "I've lost everything. Everything I ever cared about is gone."

"You were only unconscious for a brief amount of time."

I blink, trying to focus on the technician's face. My head throbs, and the stark white walls of the hospital room seem to pulse with each beat of my heart. "No, you don't understand," I mutter, my voice hoarse. "I lived a lifetime. I had a family, children, grandchildren..."

The technician exchanges a worried glance with someone out of my line of sight. "Mr. Reed, you've only awake for a while since we brought you back from the station. Perhaps you're experiencing some confusion from the coma?"

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