Page 80 of Alien Wants A Wife

Clearly, Roan scanned it onto his tablet… for some reason.

“I don’t understand.” I wriggle up the bed a bit, until I’m lying level with Roan, our heads touching at our temples.

“I have been working on this for a while now,” he explains, “whenever you were in the shower, mainly. I cannot draw, but I tried anyway.”

I study the brochure more closely. “What to do when you find out…” I read the title aloud, but he’s removed the word ‘alien’, replacing it with a word in a language I can’t read.

“What to do when you find out Humans exist,” he says. “I had to invent the spelling of ‘Humans’. We do not have such a word, not even in the Common Tongue.”

“Step 1,” I continue reading. “Don’t panic.”

He’s altered the accompanying illustration. He’s colored the Human woman’s hair black, to match mine. And he has completely erased the alien, drawing a self-portrait in its place. At least… I’m guessing it’s a self-portrait. Roan wasn’t lying when he said he couldn’t draw.

“Step 2,” I read. “Watch for signs of… What does the last word say?” I point to the one word in that sentence that Roan has replaced with his own language. I think the original had read “Watch for signs of aggression.”

“Instant love.”

I laugh. “Watch for signs of instant love. And step 3?”

“You never read step 3 to me, so I did not know what it said.”

Sure enough, he has erased all the English writing after ‘step 3’ and has added his own.

“What is step 3?” I ask, absolutely loving that he made this for me.

“Step 3,” he says, but he’s quoting from memory, because he’s turned his head to look at me, the corners of his mouth turned up in the most smile-like smile he’s shared yet. “Live happily forever after.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Lydia

Something wakes me, but I’m too groggy to know what. Beside me, Killan is climbing out of bed before I’ve gotten my eyes all the way open. There’s theslapof his bare feet hitting the floor as he storms from the room. A second later my brain comes online, and I’m bolting out of bed after him.

It was the sound of the front door opening that woke me. Well, not the front door itself, but the shrieking wind outside. It had only lasted for a couple of seconds, but that had been long enough to disturb both of our sleep.

My feet catch in something, and I’ve got to grab the bed to keep from faceplanting.

It’s the fabric handles of my duffle bag, dumped in a pile in the middle of the floor because I know how much mess annoys clean-freak Killan. If he saw me, he’d snarl an unhelpfulItold you soin his most grumpy, gravelly, irritatingly-sexy voice.

Disentangling myself, I kick my bag under the bed and race to catch up. With his long legs, Killan is already at the top of thestairs. By the time I reach the ground-floor landing, he’s got the front door open and is staring outside, into the darkness.

I press forward, fighting against the wind, until I’m standing beside him. His eyes have a glassy look to them that tells me he’s got his inner eyelids closed. They protect his eyes, but they’re translucent so he can still see.

I’ve got no such luck, and the dust in the wind makes my eyes sting and water so I can’t see anything. Even with the collar of my sleep shirt pulled up over my nose and mouth and me peeking through my eyelashes I can’t see anything. It’s pitch-black outside. The only light is leaking out Killan’s open door.

There aren’t any stars because the wind is holding so much grit in the air that it’s basically blocking out the sky. It would be so fucking easy to get lost out there, and that thought has me thinking about how close Briar came to being abducted by Mr. Smith and Chloe for a second time and dumped on the planet’s surface, left for dead.

Killan says something, but I can’t hear him over the wind. Using a hand to keep my collar over my lower face, I cup my free hand around an ear, hoping he’ll get the idea. He must work out what I mean, because he presses the release button, and the front door slides closed again, locking the wind outside.

The walls are soundproof; with the door closed, the shrieking is suddenly cut off, leaving us in blissful silence.

“The ship is gone,” Killan says.

“Sorry, what?” I lean a fraction closer. Maybe I’m still half asleep because I swear he said?—

“The ship is gone.”

“No.” I shake my head.

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