Page 38 of Whisked Away By the Alien

“He’s an alien!”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” Golda’s voice drips with sarcasm and anger, but not fear. My female is fine. This is nothing more than a few humans avoiding me.

The door opens and there stands my beautiful female, still in her coat, the snow on her hat melted, and ire in her eyes. Until she sees me. Then her expression softens.

“Shut the door, Golda!” the male yells at her.

I don’t like him yelling at my female. I enter and walk past Golda until she’s safely behind me. “You will not scream at Golda.”

Both the male and the blonde female who’s holding the youngling step back. The male reaches for a three-foot-long piece of iron. A deadly weapon… if he reaches me, which he won’t. I have all my knives on me, but there are females and a youngling here. I need to de-escalate this situation. Before I can speak again, Golda pushes past me.

“Put the poker down, Eli. Sten is with me. He’s staying at Mom and Dad’s. In fact, he babysat Sadie all morning because Mom’s not feeling well.”

The blonde’s mouth drops open, and the male doesn’t surrender the weapon.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Golda says as she marches over to him and yanks the weapon out of his hands. With a clank, she sets it against the fireplace. “Enough already. You’re both acting like you’ve never seen an alien before. Sten’s nothing like the Coalition.”

“I didn’t know any good aliens existed,” the female says.

“Sten, this is my sister Rachel. Supposedly the smart one of the family. And that’s her husband Eli. Just as dumb as my sister, but otherwise a good guy.”

“Hey!” Eli objects.

“I said you’re a good guy.”

I love this female’s biting humor, not to mention the way she takes charge. She’s fierce, like a warrior. Except incredibly soft and adorable.

“You let him babysit Sadie?” Rachel clutches the youngling to her chest so hard the infant cries. “See, he scares her. What else did he do to her? Oh, god…” Rachel runs to lay Sadie on the sofa and begins undressing her.

“I fed her one bottle of milk from the cooler, then put her on my shoulder and patted her back until she burped. I mimicked how Mrs. Gertie-She’s-A-Lovely-Though-Somewhat-Crazy-Woman Birnbaum fed the youngling yesterday.”

Rachel stops her inspection of the youngling and stares at me, while Golda laughs so hard tears leak from her eyes.

“Oh, Rach, you should see the look on your face! I told him not to call Mom that, but I guess I should have been clear not to refer to her by that name to anyone else, too.”

Rachel breaks into laughter and in that moment looks very much like Golda, though not as beautiful. Golda has an openness to her that her sister lacks. Perhaps that is why I’m falling for her.

“It’s not a bad description,” Rachel says, looking at me now with a little less fear in her eyes.

“It’s rather apt,” the male—Eli—says. His shoulders ease but he still watches me closely. This is his home. I’m the intruder here. I cannot fault him for defending his family.

Golda takes my hand and pulls me with her into the center of the room. “Sten’s a zyanthan warrior working for Galactic Intelligence on Earth.”

“So you’re a zyanthan,” Eli says as he cradles his youngling in his arms. “Zyan has an embassy on the west coast. I always figured your people prefer warm weather which is why I’ve never seen one of you here in New York. You’re rather different from the banth and og’dals who occupied Earth.”

“Dal is part of the alliance that makes up Galactic Intelligence, not the Coalition. They are not responsible for the occupation of Earth. Some of their people, however, were and still are involved with the Coalition.”

“Those four-armed bastards stole a lot of women from Earth.”

“Galactic Intelligence tasked Sector 5 with bringing og’dal slavers to justice as well as rescuing any Earth females still trapped in coalition space. I’m part of GI7. Witness protection.”

“Why are you staying at our parents’ house?” Rachel asks.

“My commander believes I need to improve my understanding of humans and their ways so I can better ensure the safety of our witnesses on Earth.”

“I can see where learning our norms would be helpful. Like, you don’t show up on a man’s doorstep holding his baby without an explanation,” Eli says, glaring at Golda.

Golda crosses her arms over her chest. “What did you want me to do, Eli? Have Sten hide in the bushes while I told you there’s a blue alien with horns waiting to come in? You would have taken Sadie and slammed the door in my face. Oh, wait, you did that anyway. Except this way, I didn’t have to make him feel like a second-class citizen.”

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