Page 9 of Bound to the Alien King
“You’re welcome,” he said, his smile nothing but genuine.“So.Without Bling and Nera, that leaves only June and Nacket on the female side of things.We’ll have to do some creative editing to make it look right, so just be sure to act natural when it doesn’t look right.”
“Natural like Maxx punching you in the face?”Miekil asked.
Chuckling, Pete felt around the eye I’d once bruised.“Maybe not that natural.”
A crewmember stuck her head inside the door, jerked back when she saw who was inside the room, turned as red as her curls, crouched low like she wanted to sink through the floor of the ship, and then whisper-shouted, “Pete!”
Without even looking, he backed toward her as though this was all completely normal.“Anyway, we kinda wanted to start filming later today if you’re up to it, Miekil.Think you’ll be up to it?”
Miekil rolled his eyes.“So you’re saying you want me to heal faster.”
“I mean,yousaid it, but…” He shrugged on his way out the door.
“You think he knows?”I asked Miekil once the door closed.
“About you?Yes, he knows, but he doesn’t understand it, and he wants you to explain how you’re a Faid and a Xenoxx at the same time to him like he’s five, without asking you to explain it.”
“How do you know all that?”
He hiked up one green brow.“Because I’m not as stupid as I look?”
“Obviously, Killian.Seriously, how did you know all that about Pete?”
“I read people.I read situations.”He tried to bring one arm out from underneath the starched sheet but then seemed to think better of it when he winced in pain.“And unlike some, I read books other thanTwilight.”
I rolled my eyes at that unnecessary dig.I read plenty of books other thanTwilight.“And Nera?Can you read her too?”
“In this situation?With you?”He shook his head.“It’s complicated.”
“Yeah,” I sighed.“I should’ve just told her and have her hate me from the start.That would’ve been so much easier for her.”
He shot me a withering look.“Since when is something easy worth it?Think about yourself for a second, Maxx.Was deciding to clone yourself easy?Or turning yourself into a Faid so that the clone would function without knowing if that would work because it’s never been done before?Was any of that easy?”
“Of course not.”
“But it was worth it, wasn’t it?The Xenoxx still have their king, as grumpy and stubborn as he might be, and unless someone finds your off switch, they’ll have their king for a long, long time, even if you are a thorn in most Killians’ sides.”
I sank back into the chair, suddenly exhausted.“There is no off switch.”
“Well, see, there you go.Worth it, not easy, just like most everything important in life.”
We fell quiet for a moment, both of us lost to our own thoughts, and the silence was neither strained nor uncomfortable like it sometimes was with him.Both of us had too much on our mental plates to feel self-conscious about anything.
While the both of us stewed, a spaceship hit me right in the face.Figuratively, of course.I gasped and leaped up from the chair as I dug in my pants pocket.I’d put Nera’s very hungry caterpillar number one, as she called it, there before our ocean escape and after Miekil had been shot.Still there.Still alive though?
Carefully, I brought it and the soggy leaf I’d wrapped it in out.It wriggled its red furry body over the edge of the leaf and onto my palm, and I drew a relieved breath from deep within my lungs.Yes, still alive.At least I’d have some good news for Nera, if she ever talked to me again.
I scooped both the leaf and the caterpillar into Miekil’s empty water glass, set it on his bedside table, and sat back down again.
“If I’m a thorn in your side, why try to cheer up a grumpy and stubborn Xenoxx king?”I finally asked.
“I never said you were a thorn inmyside.And I don’t know.I guess, like everyone, you deserve happiness too, and Nera made you a lot less grumpy.”
“That, she did,” I muttered.
My hearts ached to have that kind of happiness again with her, but realistically, there was no hope for us.I wouldn’t blame her if she never wanted to speak to me again.Why would she after that kind of detonation of a truth bomb?She’d been hurt by it.Devastated.All because of me.
Pete stumbled back inside then, an uncharacteristically unscripted move that made me take notice.When he lifted his gaze from the floor, revealing his stark-white face and the worry pinching his features, my stomach coiled into infinite knots.
