Page 10 of Alien Wants A Wife

“No.” Harlee shakes her head. “No!” She frowns. “Surely not. It’s… I mean…” Her hands are shaking, and her eyes widen as what little color is in her face drains away.

Chapter Four

Harlee

Fuck. Aliens are real. Aliens are fuckingreal!

For a second, all I can hear is white noise buzzing through my head. My vision clouds over, and I swear I’m swaying, as my entire understanding of the world gets ripped out from under my feet.

I mean, I always knew there’d be intelligent life on other planets. It would be ridiculously egotistical to believe otherwise, when the universe is constantly expanding. But there’s a massive difference between knowing academically that aliens exist and sitting across the table from two.

Beside me, Lydia inhales a sharp breath. And then her hand is on my knee, squeezing so tightly her fingers bite into my muscle. I flinch away from the pain, my body jerking. The response is enough to kick-start my vision again, and I blink, my gaze focusing on aliens.

Aliens!

And not the green little blob men that science-fiction novels advertise. There’s nothinglittleabout these guys. They’ve got to be seven feet tall. Or more.

They are green, though.

They’re also covered in scales and have four arms and horns that curl back from their faces. And… are those fangs? Despite myself, I lean forward a fraction, all the better to see.

The alien sitting directly opposite stares back at me. He’s got what I can only describe as an open, honest expression, as if he’s genuinely pleased to meet me and is completely oblivious to how much Lydia and I are currently freaking the fuck out.

Roan,he’d said his name was.

He’s clearly not surprised by Lydia and me, just curious about our differences. So I’m guessing this isn’t his first day finding out about intelligent life on other planets. It’s like he knew Lydia and I were going to be aliens, only he didn’t know what type of aliens.

“Were we…” I can’t finish the sentence. It’s as though my mouth has forgotten how to form words, because the words I’d been about to speak are so utterly absurd that I shouldn’t even be thinking them.

Were we abducted by aliens?

I inhale, but my lungs don’t want to accept air. My head’s swimming. My headache has returned in full force, and I can barely hear my own thoughts over the blood rushing through my ears.

For all that, I’m not suffocating. Merely panicking. Which has to mean that there’s breathable air on this planet.

This planet!

Nobody of my generation should be able to say that they’ve visited a planet that isn’t Earth. This shouldn’t be possible. This shouldn’t be happening.

Ril II. That’s not any name I’ve heard before. It isn’t Mars or Venus. It isn’t even that crappy little rock at the edge of the solar system that scientists have been arguing mightn’t be a real planet after all—Pluto.

We’re in a whole new solar system.

A whole new galaxy!

I grope under the table, searching for Lydia’s hand, which is still squeezing my knee in a death grip. I catch her wrist, holding onto her like she’s my lifeline. Like there’s an infinitesimal chance she isn’t as frickin’terrified of what’s happening as I am and might actually know how to get us out of here.

Roan’s watching us with an intense look of excited concentration, giving the impression he’s trying to work out why our perfectly normal conversation derailed so abruptly or why Lydia and I don’t know the answers to the most basic of questions.

Like: What planet are we on?

What star are we orbiting?

“Whose house is this?” Lydia asks, voice gravelly, barely louder than a whisper.

That wouldn’t have been my first question, but I’ll give credit where credit is due: at least she can form complete sentences. That’s more than I can manage.

“Our house,” Roan answers.

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