Page 50 of The Alien Noble's Little Human

Even in the side streets surrounding the palace, there’s a stir. We take a longer way around to get through the throngs of traffic choking off the roads and walkways and to attempt to enter relatively unseen.

I don’t see any funeral clothes or weeping mourners. The atmosphere is one of agog curiosity as if someone has come back from the dead. Security outside the palace is twice the size that I’d seen before.

Has someone used the opportunity of Taurek’s absence to try to invade?

Taurek guides us into the royal entryway, and he dismounts from the chordata. His pensive, fearful look turns to one of rage.

There’s a beautiful Kiphian woman with dark hair and light eyes, the color of translucent amber. Her skin seems to reflect the light in a spectrum of color. Her ethereal beauty does nothing to soften the violence in his face.

“Kantha.”

“Taurek.”

“Why are you here? You’re not welcome.”

“I’m here to see my daughter.”

25

TAUREK

At that moment, I freeze. Time slows to a complete standstill. I’m arrested in place by shock at the sight of Kantha, her sudden appearance like a demon re-emerging from my past to haunt me.

She lifts her head, tilting it back to peer down her nose at me despite the fact I’m taller than her. For a split second, it’s as if she’s on a pedestal, staring down at me like I’m below her in status.

My frustration snaps me back to reality. I take a defiant step forward, challenging her stance. If it had been anyone else in her position, they’d be cowering in fear, but Kantha has always been a stubborn bitch.

“How dare you, Kantha?” I growl.

She recoils, crossing her brows at me.

“How dare I what exactly?” she hisses.

“Just show up here unannounced! Did you think you could come waltzing back so easily?”

“Ha! You wish. Besides, I don’t need your permission to come and see my daughter.”

“Your daughter?” I retort.

“Are you forgetting who carried her in the womb and birthed her?”

“Says the one who walked out of her life five years ago, and told her if she wouldn’t live in the Cloud Kingdom, she wouldn’t be your child any longer.”

She sneers, the corners of her mouth coiling into a sickly smile.

“Still hurt after all these years, are you? I would have thought that by now, you’d have come to terms with the fact I no longer wanted you.”

“I can see you left your brains up in the Cloud Kingdom. This isn’t about me, it’s about my daughter. The one you abandoned. The one you couldn’t visit. The one you refused to receive if it meant she wouldn’t live there forever.”

My comeback wipes the smirk from Kantha’s face.

I notice Zaya beside me, trying to shrink into the shadows, and I had completely forgotten she was there. I can’t believe she had to see that. I touch her on the arm as if acknowledging that none of this should be happening.

“And who the hell is this?” snaps my former mate.

“My name is Zaya, from the settlement of Tlisan.”

“She’s been on a mission with me, retrieving a rare medicinal treatment in the Ice-Charred Peaks.”

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