Page 12 of Holiday with the Aliens

He just needed to use the rest of their time together to prove that there was something between them that could grow beyond this trip. He just needed to make Ro want to keep him.

“Are you okay?” she asked, entwining their fingers and rubbing her thumb back and forth over his palm.

His smile wasn’t fake, even if it wasn’t as broad as it had been. “Hungry. Let’s eat.”

Dash took her to his favorite food stall on Lunar Base Alpha and barely noticed the taste of his own food as he watched Ro devour the wrap she’d ordered, her expression almost identical to one she’d been wearing while he thrust into her. His cock twitched, and he had to look away or risk taking her over the table. That wasdefinitelynot what he should be doing at the moment.

Once they were done, they still had an hour until the ship was scheduled for pickup, so Dash took her to the souvenir shops. There wasn’t much on Alpha, since it was meant for research rather than vacation, but one of the shops was practically a museum to the science that happened on the moon, with information going back all the way to the first human landing on the lunar surface.

“It’s crazy how after a few trips to the moon humans stopped sending people fordecades,” Ro observed, reading a plaque next to a bin of toys wearing old-fashioned astronaut suits. “They just stayed in their little station and orbited. And people thought space travel was awaste. I can’t imagine. And they thought aliens didn’t exist. I’ve heard those stories of first contact.” She shuddered. “I’m happy to be a modern Mars girl.”

“Do you really think of yourself as from Mars now?” He wondered if he should admit that he wasn’t exactly human. Yes, he’d been born on Earth and he’d never left the solar system, but Dash’s ancestors had a more… celestial past than most humans, and the fact that he could shift into a beast would mark him asdifferent to anyone who cared to look. He glanced around the store but decided to hold his confession back. He could tell her once they were in private. No need to spill his secrets for all of the moon to hear.

Ro shrugged. “No, I guess not. But it’s where I live now. And in some ways it feels more like home than anywhere else.” She picked up a toy and then frowned. “If May heard me, she’d think I was my dad.” She put the toy back and shook her head.

Should Dash let her leave it? Her mood was clearly shifting towards the dark and he wanted to cheer her up, but happiness couldn’t cloud out old sorrow. Sometimes the darkness had to be worked through. “Would that be so bad?”

“Is abandoning your family for a better life on a different planet bad? Letting them think you were dead and gone?” She picked the toy back up. “Something for Lee, I think.” She walked towards a cashier bot, leaving Dash behind.

Letting them think…Was her father dead or not? Now Dash was curious, but this time he did let the subject drop. Ro clearly didn’t want to talk about it and it wasn’t his place to pry. Not yet.

When she had the toy in a little gift box it was time to head back to the ship. They weaved through the crowds who were both arriving and departing, and Dash sent Kiki one last happy thought, hoping she had the best holiday ever.

But when they got to their dock, Dash could sense something was wrong. For one, the main hatch was open and a large collection of cables were still plugged in. And for another, a technician was pounding at a panel and muttering quiet swears to himself. Dash left him to it and found his co-worker entering data into a tablet.

“Has there been a delay?” Dash asked her. “We need to do pre-flight checks.”

The tech snorted. “You’re not getting off the moon for at least a week, bud.” She didn’t even look up while delivering the news.“You’ve got six engine components on the verge of blow out and I’ve only got three in stock. We’re having the rest shipped in, but with the holiday things are a bit slow. You know how it goes.”

“What?” It tore out of Ro as she stepped up beside him. “What do you mean a week? We don’t have a week.”

Thatgot the tech to look up. She raised one bushy eyebrow and stared Ro down. “If you leave, I can’t guarantee you make it halfway to Earth. Frankly, you’re lucky you managed to dock.” She turned back to Dash. “Were there any issues on the flight over? Any alerts?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary.” Dash kept his ship in good order. He had to be careful, he wasn’t going to risk his passengers. He wanted to tear the tablet out of the tech’s hands and read through everything she’d found. But he forced himself to remain calm. “Can you patch it? I just need to run to Earth, surely there’s a dock down there that can fix me up.”

“No.”

Ro breathed deep, and Dash feared she was about to launch herself at the tech. But she just took half a step forward and looked at her for a moment. “Hi,” her tone took on a false brightness, “I realize we might have gotten off on the wrong foot, but I’d like to remedy any misunderstanding. You see, my nephew is down on Earth,” she held up the gift box as if it represented him, “and I haven’t seen him in a few years. IpromisedI’d be back for the holidays. So is there anything you can do to make that happen?”

The tech blinked at her and pursed her lips before saying, “No.”

Dash stepped in front of Ro before she could do serious damage to the tech. “Thanks. I’ll pick the ship up when she’s ready.”

The tech shrugged. Dash turned around and shepherded Ro down the hall, his mind reeling, trying to figure out how to fixthis. He was sure that Ro would leave, would try to find another way to Earth, and now that they were on the moon it would be much easier than back on Mars. There were dozens of daily shuttles. She’d be better off taking one of those. If there were any seats.

But he couldn’t let her go so easily.

He placed his hands on both of her shoulders and held on until she faced him. “Give me an hour.” He tried not to beg, but he was sure a thread of desperation came through. “I’ll find us a way to Earth. But I need to ask around.”

Ro straightened, and he could see the refusal sitting in her eyes, but she nodded. “One hour.”

Dash left her there and took off at a run. He needed to find a way off the moon before his mate abandoned him. He wasn’t going to let a broken ship get in the way of the rest of his life.

Chapter Six

At a certain point, Ro was going to have to admit defeat. Right now she was pretty sure the universe was laughing at her. She’d overcome the obstacle back home and met the hottest man she’d ever encountered to boot, but now they were withinsightof her home planet and their ship couldn’t fly.

Had she angered someone with magic powers? Was she being punished?

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