Page 54 of Santa Has Tentacles

Picking up the food, Saint looked thoughtful as he carried the snacks and stuff over to the counter. “We were highly territorial and that led to stronger aggression than is found in humans. You are more cooperative by nature. We had to learn ways of working together. Our evolutionary process seems to have been longer than yours.”

“Seems to?” Taking my work clothes over to the half-empty closet, I hung up the shirts and pants I’d need for the next couple of days. “Don’t we know that?”

“There are questions.” Saint was taking organizing the new food supplies very seriously and frowned as he rearranged them for the third time. “Your planet has been significantly damaged through a variety of ecological disasters. It has made it hard to accurately document a timeline.”

Well, between the shit we’d done to ourselves, stuff like volcanos, and falling crap from space, it probably wasn’t a surprise that we didn’t have good records.

“Are you guys working to help with that?” It seemed like stuff they’d be willing to research since we couldn’t kill ourselves with it.

“We must rebuild that science first.” Saint’s wiggly shrug didn’t make sense until I thought about the words.

“You guys don’t have the scientists that look at the archeological record and stuff like that? I have no idea what the right titles are but I know there are lists of them running around trying to figure out what happened in the past.” I thought I’d misunderstood until he shook his head, making a clear human gesture for me.

“We reached a point where we understood our planet.” Giving me another shrug, he came over and picked me up. When my legs were wrapped around his torso and he had me snuggled up tight, he rubbed my back like he thought I was stressed. “When we understood, we moved on to new science andreached for the starsas humans have said.”

Wow.

“You always know everything, so it’s kind of weird to hear that you have to go backward for us.” It definitely wasn’t the first time they’d had to do that, though. “I haven’t heard about that on the news. I need to pay more attention.”

Shifting me to the side, he picked up the stack of T-shirts I’d been folding and put them in a drawer under the bed. “Humans have not asked about those plans.”

We didn’t ask, so they hadn’t volunteered.

Someone needed to fix that.

“How did you hear about it?” The conversation was more interesting than where my underwear was going, so I let himkeep putting things away. “Are there newsletters I need to sign up for?”

That had Saint pausing mid-sock sorting and his head cocked. He was so cute when he played human, but I tried not to let it distract me. “We have organized what humans call message boards and have established a variety of websites devoted to what might be called news. It is species specific, however, and is not written in English.”

“Oh, that sucks. You’ll have to read it to me.” That’d be just as much fun as the dirty book plan, just in different ways. “Is that okay? Is it secret? What kind of news is on there? I couldn’t learn French so I don’t think I can learn your language but you won’t mind reading it to me. I’m yours.”

The head pat he gave me said I was back to looking cute again, but I was just glad his worries seemed to be fading because he even put me down. “Yes, my human. I will read our news and information segments to you. There is nothing secret. Humans do not ask.”

Probably because they didn’t think they needed to.

Hmm.

“You know how curious we are.” This was getting suspicious. “I think you guys have just been careful to make sure the humans didn’t ask.”

Bingo.

He shrugged.

“Human scientists and political figures were hesitant to release information on human domination-based relationships. They were also very hesitant to explain the phenomenon calledkinks.” His shrug was believable that time. “We had a need to gather information. Then the information simply increased.”

“So you started figuring out kinky stuff with your new human mates and then it just got bigger from there.” I went back to sorting my stuff as he nodded again. “That’s a really human problem you have there.”

“It was careful information at the beginning of our journey with humans.” Saint’s frown said they just didn’t know what to do with it now. “Humans find secrets where there is privacy.”

“They’re going to think you’re hiding something because it’s private…and you guys kind of like private when it comes to stuff like that.” Information gathering…not the sexy bits. “I think you just need to act confused when it finally comes out and ask if the humans learned to read your language. It’s not lying as long as the information wasn’t hidden. Just making sure they couldn’t read it isn’t lying.”

“Have you become political, my human?” He sounded disappointed about that, so I shook my head and stepped closer to make sure he’d pick me up again.

“No, Sir.” Giving him a quick kiss, I made sure I was focused on the question and thinking about him so he wouldn’t get mixed signals from me. “I’m thinking like a human who wants other humans to like their…their mate.”

Ugh.

Saint’s smile peeked out. “That is a desirable trait in a human mate, my Colby.”

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