Page 47 of Alien Mine

She nodded slowly, set the spatula down, turned reluctantly toward the hallway and her daughters’ bedrooms.

“Rach?” he said.

She paused and half turned toward him. “Yeah?”

“Keep an open mind. Promise me.”

She nodded stiffly and continued on, and he stood there watching her, his heart a heavy thud among the loss already growing inside him.

Chapter Thirteen

They gathered in the living room around Dyuvad. He held his hands out to them. Rachel latched on hard, then tucked Kelly and Tiny between her and Fate, on Dyuvad’s left side holding the other man’s shoulder.

Sick anticipation swirled through Rachel’s gut. Whatever Dyuvad had planned, she hadn’t a clue. His expression had closed off half an hour ago, right after he told her to get her family, and he’d barely spoken a terse word since.

It couldn’t be that bad, could it?

He sucked in a sharp breath, let it out nice and slow, and fingered a small, button-like device snapped onto the waistband of his shorts. “You must all trust me now.”

“We do, Mr. Dyuvad,” Kelly said, though her young voice quavered and shook like a sapling braving the wind.

Dyuvad smiled down at her and his hand tightened in Rachel’s. “Take a deep breath, sweet, and exhale.”

They all did, one after the other, Fate and the girls and Rachel, and Dyuvad last. He glanced at her and his midnight blue eyes grew and grew, filling her vision, crowding out everything else, the fear of discovering what he really was, the recent chaos of their lives, everything.

“It’s time,” he said softly, and in a flash, the world shifted around her, the same way it had the day he’d rescued her from Miguel Ramirez’ men. This time, she was aware of Dyuvad’s hand in hers and of the kaleidoscope surrounding them where herliving room had been. Between one breath and the next, her heart flipped over, and when it finally settled into her chest where it was supposed to be, her living room was gone, replaced by a stark, empty cavern.

“Lights.” Dyuvad’s voice echoed, slapping against metal before returning to them. “Breathe through it, Rachel. Fate’s passed out and the girls need your care.”

She staggered into him, too stunned to react to the change in location. A soft hiss drew her attention to Fate and Kelly slumped on the spongy gray floor and to Tiny clutching Dyuvad’s leg, her eyes as big as saucers in her pale face. Rachel reached out to her youngest daughter, missed Tiny’s fist by a mile. “Sorry,” she mumbled, but the word came out all wrong, slurred and distorted as if she’d dived into the lake and tried to speak under water.

Dyuvad shifted his hand out of her grasp and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Kneel while your body adjusts to the jump, beauty. It won’t take long.”

Rachel collapsed gratefully onto the floor next to her eldest daughter, checked Kelly’s pulse with a shaky hand, and sighed. Her breath came out ragged and harsh. She cleared her throat and tried again, and was as surprised at what she said as she was in the change of scenery. “Where are we?”

Dyuvad pried Tiny off his leg, swung the toddler into his arms, then knelt beside Rachel. “My ship.”

Tiny burrowed her face into his neck and mumbled, “Abyw, Dooda?”

“No, baby. We’re still in orbit near Earth.”

“Orbit?” Rachel choked out. “What do you mean,orbit?”

“It’s better if I show you,” he said softly, “but not until the others awaken.”

It took a while for Fate and Kelly to come ‘round, and even longer for them to harken on to where they were. At last, Dyuvad judged them ready and led them out of the cavern into a wide corridor through enough twists and turns to jumble the journey into a mess inside Rachel’s memory.

But the room he led them to stuck there and good, and sodid the view. She stood stock still in the middle of an arched doorway, one hand on the frame, and gaped. The room was smallish, about the size of her living room and kitchen combined, and held a variety of consoles and chairs.

What took her breath were the windows arrayed along the opposite curved wall, and the planet framed within them, a blue ball coated with swirling white clouds. “Earth,” Rachel murmured. “That’s Earth.”

Kelly raced right up to the window and pressed her face and hands against it. “I never seen nothing so pretty in my life, Mr. Dyuvad. How’d you get Earth inside the picture frame?”

“That ain’t no picture,” Fate said. He swiveled a narrow-eyed gaze at Dyuvad. “Is it?”

“No,” Dyuvad confirmed. “We’re on a spacecraft orbiting Earth in the shadow of the moon, where Earth authorities are least likely to look for it.”

Rachel sank onto the floor right where she was, blocking the exit out of the room. “A spacecraft?”

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