Page 15 of Alokar
Hannah wanted me. When she pulled back to gaze at me, her storm-gray eyes shimmering, desire written across every beautiful feature of her face. “I like you, Ewok. I really, really like you.”
I let my fingers trace along the silk of her cheek, marveling at how incredibly warm and soft her skin felt beneath my touch. “I really, really like you too, Hannah.”
A faint smile played over her lips, and she pressed another tender kiss to my mouth, soft as a butterfly’s wing. “I’m so glad we’re being honest with each other now,” she murmured with a contented sigh.
Honest.
The words hit me like a physical blow, driving the air from my lungs. My stomach twisted into knots as the bitter taste of guilt flooded my mouth.
Shit!
While I’d been perfectly real with Hannah as far as my feelings were concerned—every word, every touch had been genuine—she didn’t see me, not the real me. The me she knew was nothing more than a facade, an elaborate deception designed to keep the most basic truth from her. I was not human.
I was, in fact, the very type of creature who had killed her father while she watched helplessly.
Fuck!
I felt like absolute crap, like the lowest form of scum in the universe.
While my heart had soared at her words, it now felt twisted and blackened—darkened by the weight of my deception. How could her words be true when she didn’t know me? Not really. She was falling for a lie, a carefully crafted illusion.
The itching sensation crawling over my body increased tenfold, and for the first time, I wondered if it wasn’t just the static electricity of the cuddwisg device making my skin crawl, but the lie itself—the deception lying over my flesh like a blanket of shame.
I had to tell her the truth.
It was a monumental risk that could destroy everything. But my mom hadn’t freaked out when she first met my dad and he was an alien. Plus, the other females aboard theBardagafound love with alien males, so maybe—just maybe—Hannah might accept me too.
I stiffened involuntarily, my muscles coiling with tension, and she immediately frowned, confusion and disappointment flickering across her beautiful face.
“What’s the matter?” she murmured, her voice soft with concern. “Don’t you enjoy kissing me?”
“More than anything,” I groaned, the words torn from my throat. I shifted her carefully in my lap, creating some desperately needed separation. “But I need to tell you something. Something important.”
“Okay?” She didn’t even try to hide the worry that crept into her voice, her gray eyes searching my face for clues.
Gently, I cupped her face, letting my thumbs stroke along the velvet softness of her cheeks, memorizing the feel of her skin in case this was the last time I would ever be allowed to touch her. “No matter what happens, I need you to remember that nothing has changed between us. I’m still the same person you’ve gotten to know over the past few days. I will never hurt you. I will always protect you. That will never change.”
Hannah released a nervous laugh that didn’t quite mask the concern creeping into her eyes. “You’re starting to worry me, Ewok.”
I sighed heavily, my own worry a crushing weight in my chest as I prepared to potentially lose the most precious thing I’d ever found. “Please don’t freak out.”
“Ewok?” Hannah’s voice trembled as I reached into my pocket, fingers finding the smooth surface of the cuddwisg device. The moment I switched it off, I felt the familiar electric tingle cascade over my skin as the air around me shimmered and rippled, the carefully maintained illusion dissolving away.
Hannah’s scream pierced the air. It didn’t sound quite as terrified as I’d braced myself for, but enough to send a flock of startled birds erupting from the nearby trees. She threw herself off my lap with desperate, scrambling movements, her feet sliding on the dirt as she stumbled toward the boulder where her saddle rested. Her hands shook as she ripped the shotgun from its leather scabbard, her movements jerky and uncoordinated.
When she spun to face me, her storm-gray eyes were wild with terror and disbelief, so wide I could see the whites all around her irises. The weapon shook so violently in her grasp that I doubted she could have hit me had she fired. Every instinctscreamed at me to go to her, to gather her in my arms and soothe away the confusion and fear. Instead, I rose slowly, my hands raised in the universal gesture of surrender, palms open and visible.
“It was you,” she wheezed, her voice barely above a whisper, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she struggled to catch her breath. “You’re the one I shot.”
“Yes.” There was no point in denying the truth. I lifted one finger to poke through the hole in my shirt where the bullet found its mark days ago.
“Shit!” Her face contorted with a mixture of embarrassment and self-recrimination. “Why didn’t I notice that?”
“Because you trusted me,” I told her simply, the words carrying the weight of my guilt.
Hannah didn’t deny it, but neither did she lower the gun.
“Do you still want to shoot me?” I started to remind her that bullets wouldn’t do any actual damage unless she hit me in a soft spot like the eye or temple but held my tongue. While getting shot in the chest wouldn't truly injure me, it did sting like seven hells.
