Page 9 of Alien in the Attic

After their encounter under the moon, he had trouble untethering his mind from the warmth of her full lips. They were softer than Maresian silk, and he wanted nothing more than to feel them again.

Kissing a human was a singular experience. Of course, on Thryal, a kiss was a statement, a reminder of a connection between individuals.

Not so with Carmen. Life passed through her skin. She was sharing some of her essence with him and the intimacy energized his desire. He didn’t think it was possible to connect with such power. The only word he could think of to describe it was intoxicating.

No wonder humans feared death. They were bursting with life.

The following day was treacherous. For one thing, he assumed Carmen would not want Sofia and Elena to know she had been embracing an alien lifeform. Most species were reluctant to accept a culture that was not their own, but humanity took their phobia to such an extreme that they went to war based on skinpigmentation. How would they feel about someone with gray skin?

The other problem was his duty. He had a responsibility to his people. Romantic entanglements were frowned upon for royals. Marriages were strictly conveniences. Love got in the way of serving the people. They were who mattered now. Not his silly obsession with a human.

She wore away at his resolve, however. He noticed a bit of awkwardness around him at first, especially when her sisters were present. Her statements were clipped. She never looked at him. Her body language was stiff and closed off.

This made him anxious. Had he done something wrong? Was she ashamed?

Toward the end of the day, both Elena and Sofia announced they had plans and would be gone for the rest of the night. Upon hearing this, he noticed Carmen glance at him from the corner of her eye.

When they were alone, he cleared his throat. “I will get some work done,” he said, the formality in his voice making his skin crawl.

Her eyebrows arched in surprise. “Oh,” she said. “Okay.”

He sensed reluctance, which kept his legs in place.

“Um…” She pulled at her fingers. She wanted to say something. He could tell by the way her expression changed. Finally, with a big sigh, she spoke. “Do you want some dinner?”

They cooked together. She was a maestro, conducting a symphony of flavors, and instructing him on temperatures, boiling times, and seasoning mixtures. She was comfortable with him and showed it. The way she spoke and swayed told him that the shell she’d been trapped in all day had been cast off.

“We can’t cook without music,” she said after a few minutes. She chose a song with the kind of rhythm that even made him want to move. She was possessed by it. Even while explaining something, her legs shimmied and her hips glided from side to side.

The effect was captivating. Her shape was so different from the women back home, he thought again. They were appealing in their way, but the way her body flowed in graceful peaks and valleys kept his eyes drawn to every curve as they evolved with each movement.

At one point, she raised her hands above her head, lifting her shirt just enough for him to catch a glimpse of what waited beneath. The preview was subtle, barely anything, but it set his mind ablaze. The urge to take Carmen in his arms threatened to consume him. It took all of his etiquette training to smother the fire and maintain his composure.

As they ate, Carmen told him all about her family, about the happiest holidays she could remember, the embarrassingmoments that still made her blush, and the regret she felt for not making more of her life.

Then she turned the conversation around. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“I’m blabbing about a bunch of boring stuff you don’t care about.” She laughed. “You’re from space! Tell me about that.”

He wiped the side of his mouth. “I don’t have any interesting stories,” he told her. “I find your life much more interesting.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “There’s no way hearing about the time I sneezed on the back of Brian Fleck’s shoulder during chorus in third grade is anywhere as interesting asliterallytraveling through space.”

“You’d be surprised,” Arccoo told her.

She wasn’t having it. “I don’t buy it,” she said, giving him a mischievous glare.

He held up his hands in defeat. “Okay,” he said. “Why don’t we do it this way? Ask me anything you like. I will do my best to answer.”

Adopting a comically exaggerated thinking face, she tapped her chin and squinted. “Where’s your favorite place to visit back home?”

That was easy. “The falls,” he said.

“Is that like Niagara Falls?” Carmen asked.

Arccoo shrugged. He’d never heard of the place. “The falls are a series of cliffs that look out over an immense valley,” he explained. “You can see all the way down to the shimmering layer far below the crust of the world. On the way down, there are plateaus with wide fields where all manner of beasts run.” Once he started talking about it, he found himself struggling to stop. “It’s almost like seeing into the past.”

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