Page 40 of Surrender
“Close your eyes, little one.”
Her eyes fluttered shut. He carried her past the dead bodies and into the hovercar, where he placed her on the long backseat and covered her with a thick blanket. He sank down next to her and placed a hand atop her head, stroking her hair with gentle motions.
“Shh,” he said, even though she wasn’t crying. “Shh, everything will be all right.”
* * *
Shouldn’tshe be afraid of him?
Fiona felt shaken, but the more she searched her heart, the more she realized she wasn’t fearful of Merokk, even though he’d just killed three men before her very eyes.
Instead, when she thought of her husband, she felt immense warmth and tenderness.
He had protected her.
If the human males had succeeded in murdering him, she had no doubt they would’ve harmed her, maybe even killed her.But he kept me safe, and no harm came to him either. Oh God, if the men had managed to hurt him…she couldn’t complete the thought.
She finally knew what love felt like.
It was aching tenderness, sweet possession, warmth and light, and so many other emotions rolled together that she had a difficult time differentiating between them. But she knew, she absolutelyknew, that somewhere along the way, long before tonight, Merokk had stolen her heart.
But maybe stolen was the wrong word, because she’d given it to him freely. She’d resisted and resisted, trying to build up her walls, trying to ignore her growing affection for the enemy. Yet in the end, she’d surrendered, and there was a certain peace in the forfeiture of one’s heart. Now she was done fighting. Now she could give herself fully to her husband.
Would he give himself to her? Or had he already done so?
You have become my whole world.
She decided that if there was any difference between love and becoming a person’s whole world, she would always choose the latter. She would choose Merokk and his special way of caring for her. She snuggled closer to him, tucking an arm around his waist, seeking his warmth.
He leaned down and pressed a kiss atop her head.
She melted and emitted a soft sigh.
Chapter 23
Merokk fell into a comfortable routine,successfully juggling his duties as ambassador while still helping to train fellow warriors at the military base in Virginia.
He enjoyed flying down to Virginia for the day to train with his fellow warriors. It kept his body and mind sharp, and the daylong absences from Betsy seemed to strengthen their growing relationship. Her excitement at seeing him after hours away warmed his heart. She usually ran up to him and wrapped her arms around his neck in greeting upon his return.
Even Earth grew on Merokk. The winter in DC wasn’t as brutal as in his district back home, and the heated greenhouse behind his mansion flourished with vegetation native to his planet, so on the days he found himself missing planet Kall, he could simply take a stroll through the greenhouse. Many of his friends remained as ambassadors or as warriors on the military base, and he had plenty of company among his own kind.
An era of peace had settled upon Earth as Kall and humans worked together side by side to rebuild. There were still uprisings on occasion, but whenever a foolish group of humans tried to attack the Kall, they always failed. The attacks became fewer and fewer as time went on, and the Kall prevented the media around the world from reporting on the attacks, which meant most of humanity believed true peace had fallen.
Betsy seemed happy except for when she visited with her father, so Merokk often declined invitations to the White House and invited the president over less and less. Other than that, his new wife thrived. She got along fabulously with the servants and he’d even caught her helping them a few times. She was always polite to his friends and had become close with some of their wives—Kall and humans alike. Even his father seemed smitten with her. Layla, one of her father’s aides, also stopped by regularly. Betsy claimed they were good friends before the war.
But despite how happy he was with his wife, little things kept popping up between them, causing him to wonder if he would ever truly know the real Betsy. He’d read in her biography that she’d played piano quite well, so he had one brought to the house as a gift—only for her to claim it had been too many years since she’d practiced and she couldn’t remember one simple song.
When he asked about her late mother, she stiffened and refused to discuss the woman who’d died of cancer during her husband’s first term as president. Merokk’s mother had died when he was a child too, and his assumption that this commonality would bring them closer had been wrong.
February bled into March, and March bled into April. Spring came early, and the warm weather was a welcome respite. Rebuilding during the winter months hadn’t been easy, especially when it snowed and the white stuff lay on the ground for days. But by the end of April, Washington, DC, no longer resembled a war-torn city.
It was on a particularly beautiful spring day that Merokk received an unannounced visit from his father. A servant brought the older Kall into the study where Merokk had been answering personal messages from their homeworld.
“Father.” Merokk stood and gestured at the chair facing his desk. Once they were both seated, it became obvious this wasn’t a pleasant social call. His father looked angry, disturbed, and deep in thought. It was a while before he finally spoke.
“We have a situation to deal with, son.” Penka narrowed his thick brows and met Merokk’s questioning eyes. “There is no easy way to say this, but I have just learned that your wife is an imposter.”
“What do you mean, animposter?” Merokk tensed and a sick feeling rolled through him.
