Page 10 of Alien Knight Steals the Bride

The dark-haired man’s eyes narrowed. “You seem to know nothing of this moon you visited.”

“Visited the moon?” she asked, unable to stop parroting the large man as she was otherwise struck speechless. The moon? What the hell? Juliette shook her head, trying to clear the fog. “I never visited the moon. That would be crazy,” she coughed, scrambling to recover. “But. Uh. I met Bob on a ship.”

Both men crossed their arms over their chests and waited. The handsome blond grinned. “This should be good. Please. Enlighten us. You met the builder on a ship that wasnoton the moon?”

She nodded. “That’s right. He’s…ah…he’s in the navy. And we were on a ship. Bob just happened to be stationed on the moon, but he was on vacation when we met.”

“On a ship?”

“Yep,” she agreed. “On a ship.”

“And where exactly were you and ‘Bob’ headed in the ship?”

Juliette frowned. Scowled more like, at the men. This was totally getting out of hand. She didn’t want to say she was on Earth. What if they decided to go there looking for the fictitious Bob? Realizing too late that she needed to steer them away from her home, she said the first place that popped into her mind. “Mars.”

“Bob, who works for the navy on a military base on the moon, told you to come here to get maju water while he was on his way to a warm, balmy vacation spot on Mars?”

“Mmm hmm,” she agreed, her eyes the picture of innocence. “We dated. It didn’t work out.” She raised her hands, palm up, scrunching her nose in distaste. “He was a bit plastic, really, so if you wanted to go kick his ass for spilling the beans about you, be my guest.”

Maybe sheer bravado would help her pull this off. Her story was pathetic, but they didn’t need to know that. She was on Mora Five negotiating with aliens for some kind of magical healing water after being abducted by reptilians, was befriended by a giant blue creature, and ultimately saved by a large, good looking hunk of a man, wasn’t she? Talk about unbelievable. Moon bases and vacations on Mars were starting to seem pretty tame as stories went.

She stared.

They stared right back.

Your blood,” he finally offered. “We’ll trade for a small amount of your blood.”

Juliette looked at the tiny pipette he held up, her brows furrowing. “Are you kidding me? What about Bob? This is what you want? The dagger and a couple drops of my blood?”

“Two ‘drops’ and you can keep the dagger,” he offered. “You may need it to get back to your ‘friends’.”

“To sell on the blood market? I’ve heard of it. A few drops of my blood seems reasonable. You have a deal,” she agreed, holding out her finger to the larger man.

“I’m known as ‘Taegar’,” he introduced himself, nodding toward his friend. “This is Marcano. Ask for us by name if you run into trouble on the way back to your friend.”

“Taeger. Marcano,” Juliette scrambled for a fake name, settling for no name at all. She hated to lie. “Nice to meet you.”

In short order they’d completed the transaction. “You may use the maju paste to heal your finger,” Taegar offered.

She declined, tucking the two cylinders into the pockets of her oversized cloak. She turned to leave, nearly forgetting the strange symbols she’d been told to show the vendor. Turning back to the two men, she held up a finger. “One more thing. May I borrow something to write with? A pen and paper, perhaps?”

Taegar’s brows came together. “A scripter? A message maker?”

“Yes. That sounds fine.”

He reached under the counter pulling out a thumb sized, silver coin. As soon as he handed it to her, the coin expanded into a crisp sheet of silvery gray material, about the size of a small electronic tablet back on Earth, with a stylus attached. “Write your message here,” he pointed at the silver material. “It will hold your script until you press this button to erase. If it needs to be delivered off planet, we can negotiate a new trade.”

Juliette carefully drew out the symbols she’d memorized, then handed it back to Taegar. “Actually, I was told to give it toyou. Well, whoever I got the maju water from, that is. I hope you can read it.”

Taeger pulled the silvery sheet back around and stared at the symbols. He finally pushed the erase button, murmuring, “No. It’s meaningless.”

“Oh. Okay. I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t mess it up. I usually have a pretty good memory. Do you want me to try again?”

“No. Safe journey to you,” Taeger said, nodding his goodbye.

“Thank you. Nice meeting you.” Juliette waved, then made her way out, rushing back to the ship and Torrin, praying she wasn’t too late to save him.

Taegar turnedto Marcano and a third man who entered just moments after the human female left, dumping the pipettes with her blood into a hidden incinerator. “Greig, were you able to plant the tracking device on the dagger before she took it from you?”

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