Page 25 of Bound to the Alien King
Sighing, I rose from the table to first gather our weapons, then check on very hungry caterpillar number one in my royal suite, and then rescue Miekil from a donut sugar high.He was still in the kitchen, politely listening to one of Roxxanne’s crazy stories about her favorite baking show and how many meatballs the alien chef could fit between his gills before he passed out.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Miekil said between bursts of laughter, waving his hands in the air.“Why would anyone willingly do something like that?”
“Ratings, of course,” Roxxanne explained with a tilt of her head that suggested he was dense.“Haven’t you been paying attention on your own reality TV show?”
“I thought there might be some deeper meaning, is all,” Miekil said.“EvenAlien Love Island’spurpose is based in science.Chemistry, to be more specific.”
Roxxanne went quiet at that, staring at him, but I wasn’t sure why since I couldn’t see his face.Usually, she was full of light and energy, so to see her struck speechless and standing so still surprised me, especially since what Miekil said wasn’t all that crazy.
She ticked her gaze to me and gasped.“Dad!I didn’t know you were hovering there eavesdropping.”
Miekil whirled, something I couldn’t name flickering across his face.“Maxx, we were just—“
“Let’s go explore the grounds,” I said with a jerk of my head.
With a sharp nod, he rushed to follow me.
“I guess I’m not invited,” Roxxanne called.
“Not this time, my beautiful flower,” I told her, handing Miekil his bow and arrows.
She grumbled something under her breath as we walked away from the kitchen, and I thought I heard the words “prisoner” and “patriarchy.”A pang speared through my chest that she felt that way, but I would never let anyone else with ill intent within a single light-year of her ever again.
“Transportation off and on Xenoxx is carefully monitored,” I explained to Miekil as we crossed through the castle to the back door.“There’s a record of everything on every incoming and outgoing ship, right down to each particle of dust.There is no record of any Pelikrs named Jorran, and no one remembers seeing one.”
We exited the castle and started for the gates and the field of bright-red elixxir poppies where Roxxanne had been attacked.
“Are the Xenoxx you talked to telling the truth?”Miekil asked.
I fixed him with a warning glare.“I’m not sure I’ll invite you back here if that hole in your face keeps making noise.”
He rolled his eyes imploringly at the purple-tinged sky.“Seems kind of naïve not to suspect everybody, though, doesn’t it?So, what?We’re looking for a wormhole he dropped out of the sky from?”
“Or anything out of the ordinary.Do you still have that scanner you used to track me down at Earth Space Fleet headquarters on Klio-3?”
Since his pants appeared to not have any pockets, he reached down the front of them for the device and handed it to me.“You mean this scanner?”
“I’m not touching anything that’s been down your pants,” I told him.“How did you find me with that thing?”
“Easy.It tracks Xenoxx DNA, whether it’s been cloned or not, apparently.”
“Fingerprints too?”
He scoffed like that was obvious.“Yeah, fingerprints too.”
“Can you program it so it detects everything that doesn’t have Xenoxx DNA, whether on or in it?”
Xenoxx had handled everything on this planet for thousands of years, and the goddess herself had birthed the Xenoxx in her own image thousands of years before that.Our very essence made up everything here.
He shrugged.“Never tried, but there’s only one way to find out.”
After several minutes of tinkering, he aimed the device around him slowly in a circle.Nothing happened.
“Well,” he said with a long sigh, “it was a good ide—“
The device beeped.
“What?What is it?”I asked, leaning in to see.
