Page 14 of Loved By the Alien King
At the same time, the Killian asked, “Why did you let me go up the hand wall in the escape room before you?”
“Oh.” Out of all the things to ask, that’s what he decided to go with? “Well, because Nera trusts you.”
“Uh, okay,” he said on a chuckle. “She trusts you too,morethan trusts you, and you decided to escape the shrinking room last.”
I shook my head because it seemed so obvious to me, and then I glanced up at Pete. The cooling unit now dangled from two ends, and Pete was hauling himself up inside the air duct with ease.
“She would’ve been upset if anything had happened to you,” I explained. “I couldn’t let that happen.”
“Well.” The Killian rocked back on his feet a little, his green eyebrows shooting up his forehead. “I shouldn’t be surprised by your honor toward her, but…thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
This exchange was as uncomfortable as silence. I shouldn’t have to explain anything to a Killian, or dive too deeply into the other reasons behind me sending him up the wall of hands before me. Other reasons like… I don’t know. He wasn’t terrible?
“I came to rescue you for the same reason,” he said. “Nera was upset, and I didn’t want her to be.” He gazed up at the dark hole in the ceiling Pete had disappeared inside. “He would never admit this in front of you, but I suspect that’s why Pete came too. He has feelings for Nera.”
A growl escaped as I flexed my hands and imagined ripping him to shreds. I started for the ladder, but the Killian stepped forward to block me.
“Not those feelings, idiot,” he said. “Sympathy. Empathy. He lost his only daughter too, some years ago. She was sick, but…he was never quite the same from what I’ve read and heard. Still annoying, still self-obsessed, but broken on the inside.”
And just like that, my whole opinionated vision of Pete collapsed. He’d been a father once, just like me, and had suffered the worst of parenthood. Just like Nera. No wonder he gravitated toward her, listened to her, told her about the bird poop on her shoulder when he didn’t really do things like that for anyone else.
I could only imagine what he’d gone through as a father, and just the thought of losing my Roxxanne was enough to tie me up into impossible knots.
“I had no idea,” I said, my throat suddenly too tight.
“Well, you’ve been a little preoccupied.”
So I had. Still, learning this had only reinforced how alike the Xenoxx and humans were when it came to love and grief and all the complicated emotions that made us who we are.
And the Killians…too…maybe? Goddess, that was a struggle to even think it. But…maybe.
“So.” The Killian narrowed his eyes at me. “Now that you’re in a talking mood, are you going to tell me why you’re really here?”
No, I wasn’t, because just then, Pete plummeted from the hole in the ceiling. He screamed as he crashed down through the top of the glass cage, and I was already running before I even knew what I was doing.
The rest of the cage exploded with the force of his fall. Glass hailed down around me as I pumped my legs faster toward Pete’s falling body. He was still screaming, which meant he was alive, but if he smashed to the floor from that height, or if the falling glass hit his human skin just right…
From above, guns fired. Pete must’ve brought company with him through the air duct.
My feet slid over the broken glass, and I dropped into a crouch for balance. Seconds before Pete hit the ground, I caught him and curled my body over his for protection.
The bullet echoes faded into silence. I risked a glance upward and found two Space Fleet bodies dangling from the air duct with arrows through their heads. To my left, the Killian stood with broken glass shimmering in his long green hair and another arrow nocked in his bow, his face a mask of deadly precision.
“Okay?” he asked.
I looked down at Pete, who didn’t seem to have a single scratch on him.
He grinned and waved his phone at me. “Got it all on film.”
“Yeah,” I rasped and hauled Pete upright. “We’re okay.”
The Killian glanced toward the door, nervous energy coiling around him. “I’m afraid that was a little too loud to continue our escape so smoothly.”
“So epically, you mean.” Pete handed me my communicator bracelet. “For you, Your Highness.”
Not only did I take it, but I did something so unexpected, so fuxxing implausible for a Xenoxx warrior king Faid clone—I hugged a human who wasn’t named Nera.
