Page 40 of Alien in the Attic

“That same afternoon, a man followed us for an hour while you were in your meeting.” She paused to see his response.

He continued eating.

“If we hadn’t ducked down a passage leading back to the annex, he may have hurt us,” she said.

“Where was this?” Arccoo asked. “We can review security footage, and I’ll have him arrested.”

“That’s not going to work!” Carmen shrieked. She had no idea she was this close to losing it. But spending the last few days as a prop in his misguided campaign against anti-human behavior was dehumanizing. She didn’t feel like his lover. She was exactly what Rocco called her when she arrived—a pet.

“I’m not here to be put on fucking display,” she yelled. “I’m not a weapon to use against your father. Stop treating me like a tool and see me as a partner. Please.”

A tear she was oblivious to dripped from her chin. She wiped its wet trail from her cheek with a napkin. “Never mind,” she said, her lips trembling. “What I have to say obviously doesn’t matter.”

Arccoo got out of his chair. Two long steps later, he was at her side. He crouched and wrapped her up in his tree-trunk arms. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “You’re right. I’m not helping you if I won’t listen to what kind of help you even want.”

She cried against his chest. He was still and calm. This was her time to let her guard down, to be vulnerable, to show him just how used she felt. He did not argue. He did not fight. He supported her.

When the troubled waters of her emotions passed, they talked. They had an actual conversation. She suggested holding an event where people could come and learn about Earth. Nothing fancy, just a safe space for the curious to come and satisfy their curiosity.

“Outreach can do amazing things,” she said. “We may change some minds and have the start of a genuine movement on our hands. I can plan it with Sofia, if you could facilitate it.”

“Of course,” he said. “Anything.”

When dinner was done, an unspoken spark ignited between them—a pull to reconnect in a way they hadn’t since she arrived. They went into a guest room. The only light came from the moon outside.

Arccoo unbuttoned his vest as Carmen began to lift off her dress. He stopped her. “Not yet.”

He guided her to the bed and asked her to sit on the edge. She did. He stood in the lunar spotlight and undressed. She watched as he strategically revealed his body to her, warmth building in her abdomen.

Once he was nude, every contour of his impossible physique outlined in silver light, he walked over to her and leaned down for a long, deep kiss.

“Close your eyes and relax,” he said. “This night is for you.”

He laid her back on the bed. Then he raised her dress up over her waist, knelt on his knees, and lowered his head between her thighs. It wasn’t long before she was gripping handfuls of his hair and losing control of herself in mind-bending ecstasy.

They slept on top of the covers, a warm breeze coming in from the window. Before falling asleep, Carmen gave herself permission to let go and trust that he would hold her like this for the rest of their lives.

Chapter 17

Arccoo

“We have a signal!” Elena exclaimed. Arccoo joined her at her computer monitor, studying the coordinates over her shoulder. His treacherous brother seemed to be in the middle of a desert. If there was a massive spike from the relic’s energy signature, that meant he was probably testing the parantaa’s capabilities as a weapon.

He patted Elena’s shoulder. “Good work. May I?”

She scooted her chair aside. “Be my guest.”

Punching the coordinates into the nearest satellite, he pulled up the image from below…and immediately wished he hadn’t. The Grel Desert was largely uninhabited. The high temperatures and lack of water made it hostile to just about every form of life. But now, nothing could live there.

He must have fired the parantaa from above, because the blast radius was perfectly circular and about a mile wide. The whole area had been reduced to nothing but shards of sand melted into glass.

“Holy shit,” Elena breathed.

“Well, at least we know it works.” He began cross-referencing the coordinates with the nearest military forts.

One immediately stood out. It had been used to store some of the planet’s deadliest weapons but had been abandoned almost a century ago in favor of more modern technology. If he had to guess, Rocco was hiding out there.

He punched in the coordinates and smiled. There had been a rise in energy signatures over the past week or so, something unusual for an abandoned fort in the middle of a desert. “Found you.”

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