Page 17 of The Alien's Little Sister

(Can I say wholesome and make myself believe they are?)

—lips. Her full, slightly shiny, scaly, and wholesome lips. “My mother feeds them too well, for one thing,” she gripes. “And they haven’t found mates yet. So they believe it’s their duty and their business to interfere withmyefforts to find a mate. I haven’t just been protected, Matt—”

My body shudders to hear her say my name. She’s nearly groaning it, such is her turmoil over this topic.

“I’ve beensmothered,”she finishes.

And I stop thinking sex-thoughts (finally, Thank God), because it genuinely guts me that she sounds so sad. “Aww, sweetheart, sounds like they just care about you—”

She tosses her little horns and her eyes go very wide. “Yes, they do, and yes, I know this—but you don’t know what it’s like.”

I can see she’s really firing up about this, and it won’t hurt me at all to agree, because she’s not wrong. “You’re right. Idon’tknow what that’s like.”

I happen to be on the other side of the fence in these situations. I should probably text my sisters with an apology. I wonder if they’ve griped about me doing this to them. Heck, they might have gripedtome about such things. Sounds familiar.

“I grasp that they care for me. They really do, and of course I love them for that. But after I was abducted—”

“Whoa.” My hand is up, giving her a halt motion that must be clear on any planet, or despite the unfamiliar sign, she’s still reading me loud and clear because she stops speaking and comes to a complete stop on her treadmill. So do I. “Come again?”

She frowns, her forehead scales tugging towards the center of her face. “What?”

I motion politely for her to back up. “You said you were abducted? I’m gonna need more information on that.”

She makes a scoffing, growling noise. It’s almost cute. My lip wants to twitch. But she just said she wasabducted.“I was.”

I drag my teeth over my lower lip. “Yeeeah, tell me about that. Was it here?” I try to imagine what humans would do if they got a hold of Inara. Since nothing blew up on the news, I’m guessing it must have been a secret facility. An underground clinic with grotesque experiments, those evilfuckers—

“No, not this planet.”

My movie-montage of humans in biohazard suits with a tray of torture instruments and test tubes dissipates. “Whew.”

“I was watching one of my brothers’ matches—”

“What kind of match?”

“A gladiator match. Many of my brothers are gladiators.”

My eyebrows go up. “Wow. Your brothers are starting to sound cool as fuck.” Then I add, “Cool means ‘awesome.’”

Pride flashes across her face and warms her eyes, even though she sighs. “They are. They all are.”

“What happened?”

Her wholesome (I’m sticking with it) lips purse. “While he was in the ring, I was taken.” She peeks at me out of the corner of her eye and speaks fast like she’s suddenly pleading with me to understand. “You see, I’d begged to ride along with him to this match because I wanted to be off-planet. I’d never been anywhere but home, and it should have been safe enough. I just wanted to see his game and cheer for him the loudest.”

It should have been safe enough.

Words that become a little terrifying in the context of a conversation where the speaker was taken against their will. Because obviously, it wasn’t safe. My brain runs through every abduction story I’ve ever heard, plays every horror that the survivors had to endure at the hands of their captors. A mental alarm blasts between my ears.

See, I was raised to protect women, to watch out for them. Think an ultra LGD (livestock guardian dog) versus a Pomeranian. A Kangal shepherd, a Karakachan, a Cão de Gado Transmontano—something with serious instincts for protection and defense—as opposed to the average, I don’t know, an Italian Greyhound, maybe.

And human predators are coyotes. To compare society’s depraved to coyotes is probably insulting to coyotes—which is saying a lot, if you’ve ever seen them eviscerate sheep for fun, or pick off a cat, or take off with a chihuahua—but it’s anaptcomparison, and my grandfather and my dad were like drill sergeants when it came to training me to watch out for my mom, my sisters, and women in general. I can’t just shake off all of their lessons.

Honestly, I dotryto tone it down. I’m trying it right now. I fire up my parasympathetic breathing system by inhaling deeply through my nose and releasing my breath calmly, signaling to my body that there’s no need to turn into the Hulk.

Even if Inara was snatched right from the bleachers as she cheered her brother on during his game.

Because she’s clearly fine now. But man, do I feel for her brother. The guilt must crush him. I mean, who wouldn’t think it was safe to leave their kid sister to scream their name just a few seats away as they played?Deep breath, Hulk. She’s obviously in one piece.“But you weren’t.”

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