Page 63 of Bred

“I know what he is. Beam. Him. Up.”

“This is an old man,” he says, confused. “Is he your father?”

“No. Drinking buddy. A man who deserves to see the stars.” I wrap my arms around Talon’s neck. “Do the thing. Push the button.”

“There are no returns. Once we take him, that’s final.”

“Yep. Good.”

Talon shakes his head and sends the order down to the transport bay. Seconds later, the transport officer’s voice is coming through the communicator.

“We have an elderly Earth man asking for whiskey,” the officer says. “We might have made an error.”

“No error. That’s him. Hey, Tom!” I shout into the intercom. “I’ll be there in a minute with a bottle and the best story you’re ever gonna hear.”

“You better, you damn Russian,” he curses back at me. I can already tell he’s completely unfazed by finding himself aboard an alien vessel. I can’t wait to show him around.

I am beaming brightly as I press a kiss to Talon’s face.

“Really,” he says. “Billions of people, and that’s who you choose?”

“He deserves it.”

“Why?”

“He designed everything that made my being on that shuttle that first crashed into you possible, and he kept me sane when I was down there. He’s the only reason I made it back.”

“Well,” Talon relents. “I guess we owe him a debt.”

“Damn straight we do.” I wrap my arms around Talon’s massive waist and gaze up at him adorably. “Now, let’s go fuck space.”

“Fuck space?”

“That’s what you do here, right? That’s what you’ve been telling me? You go around, making chimera species, seeding galaxies, you know, just generally fucking space.”

“I don’t know about fucking space,” Talon says, grabbing my ass in his great grip. “But I think it’s about time we fucked you again.”

We?

I like the sound of that.

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