Page 5 of Secretly Mated To My Monster Alien Boss
Deryg felt her gaze boring into the back of his neck.
“Yeah, it is pretty heavy,” Kevin played along even as his muscles trembled. “Wonder what’s in it.”
Deryg laughed low in his throat as they neared the hallway elevator, where two of his Deruzians waited in the shadows, away from prying eyes. He knew it sounded menacing.
Deryg stopped and turned toward the man, towering over him. Kevin’s shoulders bunched up some more.
“You and I both know what’s in that crate,” Deryg murmured. Kevin’s eyes glistened with fear. “And I’m going to find out how you got your hands on it.”
“Look, man, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I am not a man.” Deryg smirked. “And you’re a bad liar.”
Before Kevin could reply, the Deruzians flanked him. Each placed a hand on his shoulders right as the elevator doors opened. They yanked Kevin inside. The doors slid closed just as he screamed. The sound was too faint to be heard by the humans around them.
But Deryg heard his panic. Good. That meant he would tell them everything they needed to know.
But first, he had to dispose of the crate and its dangerous contents. This could be a disaster if any other Deruzian got a whiff of it.
Ifhe could get Kiara away from the box.
She stood next to it, arms crossed, a storm in her eyes.
“What the hell is going on?” she whispered furiously as he approached.
“I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “But this could not only ruin your party, but Deruzians’ future on Earth.”
3
KIARA
“Whatisthat?” Kiara whispered urgently as the door to her office slid shut behind her and Deryg. The sound bounced off the few black and white photographs she’d hung up on her bare walls.
Her office was frighteningly small; Kiara hated tight, closed spaces. Luckily, her office made up for it with huge windows that let in enough light for the one plant she’d managed to squeeze in to shine and thrive.
Deryg carried the big dusty crate as if it weighed less than a sheet of paper. The scrawny dude who’d brought it inside was probably sweating up a storm down in the basement offices–Deryg’s shadowy domain that very few entered apart from the security team. Kiara hadn’t been there even once.
Deryg deposited the crate onto her desk, careful not to jostle her flimsy begonia pot. “A warning.”
Kiara approached the desk slowly, her muscles tensing. Deryg looked concerned. Not mad, not furious. Concerned. Sharp jaw clenched, shoulders tense, eyes like lasers.
“From who?” she asked.
“We’ll find out.”
With his bare hands, he ripped the top of the crate, wood, nails, and all. A soft cloud of dust billowed into the air. It smelled curiously sweet. Kiara took a step closer.
Inside the nondescript crate was a box–and that didn’t feel human in the slightest.
It was made out of dark wood, so precise and shiny, it almost looked like chiseled stone. It had a weird shape, too. Bulging at the bottom, and thinning toward its round top.
“Deruzia.” Deryg’s top lip curled, as it always did when he mentioned his home planet.
Kiara didn’t know why he loathed his birth place. Zaryn, Nazyn, and Rynar, the other three Deruzian bosses Kiara had interacted with most, talked fondly–about as much as any Deruzian could–about their planet.
Kiara had only once asked Deryg why he seemed to hate it.
“I don’t hate it, I just don’t understand it. And it definitely doesn’t understand me,” he’d said on one of those nights when they’d planned the Christmas office party. “Though it’s much warmer.”
