Page 36 of Loved By the Alien King
“Pete was with me, Nera,” the Killian announced, his large green arms crossed tightly.
He looked dead ahead at her, not meeting my warning look at all.
Had he changed his mind? Would he tell? A bead of sweat slipped down the scales on my temple.
“We saw some Space Fleet officers coming out,” he continued, “so we decided to go in and explore.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Explore the air vents, you mean.”
The Killian rolled his bare shoulders in a shrug. “Naturally. Who doesn’t do that?”
Nera bobbed her head slowly. “You and Pete, together. So, you two just hang out now all of a sudden?”
“We’ve bonded over our love of sneaking into places we shouldn’t,” Pete told her, spearing his fingers through his bleached hair. “It’s our passion, our dream fulfilled, our shared—”
“Absolutely not,” the Killian said, drilling him with a look of disgust. “You ever string words together like that again, and I will dip you into a vat of boiling oil face-first.”
Pete seemed to sink into himself a little as he scratched the back of his neck and twisted his mouth into a wry smile. “Understood…but Nera?”
“Yes, Pete?” she said.
“What was it specifically about the air vents that you recognized as Earth Space Fleet’s? I’ll make sure whatever it is is blurred out before the episode is aired so no one else knows and my sweet ass doesn’t go to jail for trespassing.”
“It was the ESF engravings on every duct panel.”
“Okay, so that’s going to be a lot of blurring, but hopefully it won’t interfere with this smoke-show magic.” He gestured to himself from head to toe with wriggling fingers, his eyes far away like he’d forgotten we were here. “The viewers are going to love it. Thanks, Nera.”
He slapped a tent pole twice and then darted off into the twilight.
Bling leaned past Nera to gaze after him. “Is he…okay?”
“No,” the rest of us said in unison.
Had Nera bought any of that? Because some of it was true, minus a few very key details that involved me. Whether she believed it or not, she suddenly looked exhausted.
“Has this happened before?” I asked her, returning the focus back to where it should be. “You standing up too quickly and then falling down?”
“Um…well…” She bit her bottom lip rather than speak her mind, an uncharacteristic thing for her to do.
A crewmember rushed into the tent then, completely out of breath and carrying two full platters of food and drinks. “Someone’s dying but requested to be fed first?”
Nera raised her hand with a chuckle. “That’s me.”
“Here.” Bling whisked all of the makeup and brushes and styling products off of a short table with one sweep of her arm. “You can set it here.”
Oreo screeched and stalked off, Smitha struggling to keep up with her.
“What do you want to try first?” Bling asked Nera, perusing the selections on the trays. “Dead pig or dead… What is this?”
She held up a slimy disc that vaguely resembled meat but had no physical qualities to suggest it really was meat.
“Dead plastic?” the Killian asked.
“Humans call that lunchmeat,” I told them, plucking a piece of bacon from the tray and offering it to Nera. “Here. Eat.”
“Sometimes I feel so sorry for humans,” the Killian muttered.
Nera shook her head at the proffered bacon and sealed her lips. “I’d take some water though.”
