Page 6 of All I Want For Christmas Is An Alien
“You said he broke you out and didn’t give you a choice,” Ruby says.
“He tried to convince me that he was your friend. Told me you had red hair and green eyes, as if that was proof. I still refused to go with him. Then he said, and this is verbatim, ‘We’re out of time, female. If I return without you, Ruby will cut off my cocks, and I’d like to keep them.’”
Ruby smiles. “I can’t believe he actually told you that.”
“Those words were all you, Ruby. It’s the only reason I went with him. I didn’t trust him. I didn’t trust anyone back then.”
But I trust him now, with all my being. Faith. That’s what I’ve been missing.
Ruby pats my leg. “Only the best for my sister. Although I never thought he’d take to Clem the way he did.”
“I think he fell in love with her and only tolerated me when we first met.”
“Doubtful. Then again, she was a cute baby. Even cuter as a kid.”
I peer out the window. My seven-year-old is playing hide and seek with the eeshone children who live at the Center for Eeshone, a building we can see from our home. I fill in as a mom to the abandoned kids on this world. Kids born with light blue skin, white hair, and white horns, as opposed to dark blue skin, black hair, and black horns.
My Havok lived here as a child, unwanted by family and society alike until he found me. All I could see of the male rescuing me from that prison on Earth was a huge blue alien with horns. My little Clementine had seen beyond Havok’s exterior, to the male beneath, as kids tend to do. If not for the bond my baby formed with the hulking Zyanthan Warrior, I might never have given him a chance… givenmyselfa chance, to see the wonderful man beneath.
“We need to decorate the tree,” I say decisively. “I want this place to be perfect for when he gets home.”
“And you’re okay with him missing out on the decorating?”
“Torin can put the star on.”
“Drekk.” He taps on the comm on his wrist.
“What are you doing?”
“Sending Havok a message that if he doesn’t get his ass here soon and I’m stuck doing the drekking star, I’m putting him on cleaning out the fusion lines onThe Relentlessfor Melikk.
My heart sails with his words. Havok really is okay. Just late.
“When Havok gets home, I have other plans for him.”
Ruby bouncesher eyebrows.
“Get your mind out of the gutter,” I scold, then add. “Precisely.”
I suspect Torin’s message won’t reach Havok, or we would have heard from him, but Torin would not be here if Havok were in true trouble.
I close my eyes and picture the way Havok’s face lights anytime he sees me, how the pride for me and our children makes his horns rise high. Joy and love fill me, and that tingle that I associate with him, the unseen connection, is as strong as ever. Maybe it’s the mating bond or renewed faith, but for the first time in days, I can breathe. My mate is alive.
CHAPTER FOUR
HAVOK
Drekking Tekklans. They’ll do anything for money, but this time they went too far. Building a defense shield for the Grud was one thing, but casting a net in Galactic Alliance space that disables ships and pulls them into the gravity of the nearest Coalition planet pushes all acceptable boundaries of neutrality. They’ve chosen sides, clearly. The Alliance will retaliate.
If I can escape and warn them.
Drekk. Stuck in a cell in the underground caverns on Grudan is not where I planned to be this week. I promised my sweet sholani and younglings that I’d be home for Christmas. I still don’t understand all the nuances of the holidays that Jade and her sister insist we celebrate, but celebrating them makes my sholani happy, and that’s all that matters. That, and the younglings, both ours and the eeshone orphans. We are the only family they have, and Jade makes sure every one of them knows they’re loved.
It’s my job, my honor, to make sure she knowsshe’sloved.
Just thinking of her, my Little Citrus, Crispin, and the other younglings makes me dig faster, harder, but the cave floor is more rock than dirt. It could take weeks or months to tunnel beneath the laser bars that keep me in this cell.
Unacceptable.
