Page 29 of Ensnared By the Rabbit Genius
Lenore was beaming. “That’s really awesome! I had no idea.”
While she went to post that all over her socials, I took a hard look at what I actually wanted to keep from the stuff I’d somehow accumulated over the past few years of living here. When I turned to look at my upright dresser, Seiwa was standing beside it with a smirk on his face as he pointed to the battered white rabbit stuffy sitting on top.
I snorted. “My aunt gave that to me when I was six.”
“So you’ve wanted me for your whole life then?”
I rolled my eyes but went over and pulled him down for a kiss. He looked very smug as he dropped Hoppy into the box with the wind chime he apparently also wanted me to keep.
Adding some favorite paperbacks and clothes to the box, I decided to broach the subject of giving humans something else to keep the peace. “So I heard that the ship’s fuel is made from saltwater.”
“It is.” He was looking out the window, his pink eyes tracking something down below.
“Earth has a lot of that.”
Seiwa looked over at me. “It does.”
I folded a t-shirt very nonchalantly. “What if you gave humans the ability to make fuel like that?”
“While I wouldn’t mind disrupting your reliance on dwindling natural resources, among other things, I’ve already decided what to do about giving humans what they want without actually giving them anything.”
“You have?” I stopped pretending and gave him my full attention. “What is it? Because I’ve been learning all kinds of things and was totally prepared to debate you all day.”
He huffed a laugh. “I’m going to take scientists to Nor so that they can learn there. I just need to determine which ones to take.”
“Wow. Okay, that’s huge. So you want to recruit the best candidates?”
“Yes.”
“And it’ll be like a scientific exchange program.”
He gave me a very sarcastic look. Ah, yes, it would be aone-sidedexchange since humans were so very dumb compared to my genius bunny boyfriend. I snorted at him, the snobby shit, and kept packing.
“I like that, though. They’ll lose their minds completely. I mean, yeah, they’ll have some catching up to do, but to see the thing you’ve been struggling to make happen for your whole life just right there and working is going to be a dream come true for all of them.”
“It will be much easier to teach them at our facilities.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, feeling like there was more to that. “I bet you just want to go home.”
“Yes.” He said it with such frustration that I had to laugh.
But then I also had to wonder… “And I can…go with you?”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“Okay.”
“Ellis?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you want to stay on Earth?”
“No! I just…” I shrugged, suddenly feeling vulnerable. “I’m still working on understanding everything now that we’re together. How things work, what’s supposed to happen next… Just, you know, that stuff.”
He walked over and pulled me against his chest, looping his arms around me. “How stuff works is up to us. If you aren’t ready to leave Earth, we’ll stay. If you want to go, we’ll go.”
“I want to see Nor, to have that adventure. I want to help my people by educating the scientists. I want you to be happy.”
