Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Lydia
An awkward silence falls over the kitchen as Killan puts me down and busies himself with ordering lunch.
I recognize the signs of procrastination, as someone who recently used the same technique on Harlee and Roan.
I’m getting the uncomfortable feeling that maybe Killan and I are more alike than we’ve acknowledged.
I take a seat on the far side of the table and cross my legs.
I’m embarrassingly damp between my thighs, and for some unknowable reason a herd of heavy-winged butterflies has taken up residence in my stomach.
What had Killan meant by confessing to not not liking my company?
Had he basically admitted to almost enjoying spending time with me?
Which, let’s face facts, can’t be true. We argue all the time.
We can never agree on anything. And we antagonize each other just by being in the same room.
Only cowards use double negatives, I decide. Cowards who want to infuriate their houseguest with ever-more confusing mixed signals.
Kicking off my shoes, I rest my feet on the seat of the chair and hug my knees.
Killan is the king of mixed signals. That’s why he’s got a crown. He doesn’t want to touch me. But he does want to carry me. And he doesn’t not enjoy my company.
My only consolation is that I know he’s feeling as weird as I am about this situation, because he’s still banging around in the kitchen cupboards even though his robot has finished prepping our lunch.
All he need do is carry the plates to the table, but he’s got his back to me, acting like he’s busy and shit.
I open my mouth to say so, but the butterflies take flight again, and I snap it shut.
How’s a girl to respond when the focus of her ire admits to not hating her?
Being angry with Killan has fueled my desire to return to Earth.
Loathing that I have to ask his permission whenever I want to surf the alien web and needing his help to climb down the ladder has kept the fire of discontentment burning strong within me.
I rest my forehead on my knees, pressing my eyes tightly closed.
It’s bad enough that my bitchy clitoris suddenly has the hots for Killan’s scales.
Killan can’t just start saying stuff like that.
He can’t change the way our relationship works.
It’s too confusing, and I don’t have time to spend worrying about his feelings.
I should be focusing on escaping, and not on his feelings.
It's all Chloe’s fault.
It’s so obvious that Killan doesn’t want you to leave, she said. He wants to keep you all to himself.
Urgh! I can’t wait for the day when I finally discover how I’m going to get home. I can’t wait to get off this horrible planet, with its stupid gale-force wind and its…its…annoyingly beautiful underground lakes and picturesque caves.
“Do you like it here? On this planet?” I ask, and I watch Killan’s shoulders stiffen.
There’s another long pause. I can’t tell if he’s insulted by the question or trying to decide how to answer.
My shoulders and back ache, and now we’ve left the caves, my sweat-damp T-shirt is getting uncomfortably cold. I should go downstairs and get changed, except that we’ve got hours of work ahead of us this afternoon. Besides, I find myself wanting to know how he’ll answer—if he ever does answer.
At last, he brings our lunch to the table (unrecognizable alien food that tastes kind of like a battered and fried banana but that has the consistency of granola) and clears his throat.
“Yes.”
“Yes?” That’s all he’s going to say? Alright then.
He shoots me an annoyed look, one I’m infinitely familiar with.
It’s his why can’t I be left in peace? look.
Although…thinking about it, maybe I’ve misinterpreted that look—if it’s true that he doesn’t hate my company.
Maybe that frown means something else entirely, and I’ve been getting it wrong this whole time.
The thought has my butterflies leaping into action, and I shovel food into my mouth to avoid thinking too closely about why I have butterflies at all.
“Yes, I do,” Killan says in a stilted voice. “I like that I can see the shape of my life.”
“You mean, er, your future? You like knowing what you’re going to be doing tomorrow?”
He nods. “Mayhaps some things will change as the years pass. We might add more lakes to the farm. We might expand the reach of our charity beyond Ril I to other planets. My brothers might father younglings with their Mates—” He gives me a sidelong look, as if he has predicted how I’ll react and wants to check he’s right.
I pick at my food, avoiding his gaze and determinedly keeping my expression neutral.
Sure, it’s occurred to me that Briar and Harlee might have kids. And, yes, Killan’s silent assumption that the thought annoys me is also correct. It’s another reminder, when another reminder is not needed, that Briar and Harlee are happily letting go of their old lives.
“But, essentially,” he continues, “my life in ten years’ time, or in twenty or thirty or forty years’ time, will be the same as it is today. We will seed the lakes, and then we will harvest the lakes. Seed, harvest. Seed, harvest.”
“That isn’t—”
He must guess what I’m asking before I’ve finished saying it.
“You might look at the unwavering line of my life and see nothing remarkable,” he grumbles.
“But when I look at my future, I see my sister’s legacy.
She died, and I will work every single day in her name so that no other Ril’os family has to suffer the same pain my family suffered. ”
I still. This is the first time I’ve heard him mention Roa. “You don’t ever talk about your sister.”
“You don’t ever talk about your family,” he grumbles.
“Touché.”
“Too shay?”
“It means you made a good point.”
He cocks his head, clearly surprised.
I’m surprised, too, by how much that had sounded like me complimenting him. “I’m guessing you’re a typical type A personality,” I diagnose. “Like me.” Which is the opposite of a compliment and makes me feel a fraction better. A fraction more in control of myself.
“Akh…type A?”
“We love a good plan,” I extrapolate. “It gives us a sense of control over our otherwise uncontrollable lives.”
“I see.” He nods, watching me too closely for comfort, and I feel like I’ve accidentally shared something of myself with him, despite my best efforts not to. Suddenly not hungry, I push the rest of my lunch around my plate.
Arguing with Killan is so much easier than whatever this mess of a conversation is.
We’re not supposed to be getting along. I need him to be annoyed by me.
Because if he doesn’t find me annoying, how am I supposed to find him annoying?
And if I don’t find him annoying, what’s to stop me from inadvertently getting comfortable living in his house and working on his farm?
Before I know it, a year will have passed.
I’ll have forfeited the lease on my bakery and started a new life here, on a planet devoid of croissants and sour cherry pies.
I hunt around for something rude to say, determined to turn the conversation around to a more comfortable subject, and settle on a brutal, “I never talk about my family because you’ve never bothered asking about them.”
There’s a tight silence, during which my butterflies disintegrate into a hard ball of guilt.
But I’ve had a lot more practice dealing with guilt than with nervous anticipation.
If being annoyed by Killan is what keeps me motivated on Ril II, then guilt is what keeps me motivated on Earth—guilt and a hearty slice of ambition pie.
“Do you miss your family?” Killan asks through gritted teeth.
I jump, honestly not having expected him to take the bait. Suddenly, the question hangs over my head, and I’m the idiot who put it there.
Karma’s a bitch.
“Umm…yes.” I clear my throat.
He gives me the exact look I’d given him not ten minutes ago. Is that all you’re going to say?
“Actually…” Fuck. “No. My family is about the only thing I don’t miss.” I stand, a clear let’s get back to work signal. A signal Killan doesn’t understand, because he remains seated.
“Why do you not miss them?”
I’m forced to slowly lower myself back onto my chair. I can’t even be mad at him for asking, not when I pushed him into this conversation. “We don’t get along. It’s not a big deal.”
He continues watching me, and it’s the least angry I’ve seen him. He isn’t scowling. He isn’t frowning. And he isn’t issuing orders, acting like he expects his every demand to be instantly obeyed.
It’s highly disconcerting, even more so than him admitting to not hating my company. Which, of course, is the cue for the return of my butterflies, and what little lunch I’ve eaten sits uneasily in my stomach.
Madness, I repeat to myself. I’ve gone completely and utterly mad. Stress has finally killed my common sense.
“My dad has never been in my life much, and Mum has always been obsessed with me falling in love and finding a nice man to settle down with. I suppose because that’s the life she missed out on.”
After my dad, there’d been a series of men in Mum’s life, each one worse than the previous one.
She sure knew how to pick the rotten apples—the lazy bastards who wanted to spend her paychecks on beer.
The ugly brutes who expected her to do all the cleaning and cooking and to wait on their every demand.
And the handsome sleazebags, who promised her the world and always failed to deliver, even on the most basic of stuff, like respect and kindness.
Lucas must have been a prince in comparison. And he was, in his own way. But he and I didn’t suit. He wanted comfort and safety. I wanted my shop.
It should never have been such a big deal. Probably, a better person would have worked out how she could’ve kept her man and gotten her bakery. But that better person wasn’t me.
And, as it turned out, it wasn’t Lucas either. Because when I broke off the engagement, he cried about how I’d broken his heart, but he never once suggested we try a compromise.
“When Lucas and I got engaged, it was like all my mum’s dreams had come true.
But then I realized I wasn’t ready to get married, not when it would probably mean me giving up on my dream to run my bakery, so I broke off the engagement.
” I broke my mum’s heart that day, as well as Lucas’s.
And I turned his entire family against me.
All in a single afternoon’s work. “Mum hasn’t spoken to me since. ”
She and I are too much alike. When she decides to make an enemy of someone, she doesn’t let a little self-doubt or guilt get in her way.
“Akh.” Killan growls, deep in his throat.
“What?” I demand, seizing on the spark of anger that ignites at the sound of his grunt.
Akh seems to be the brothers’ all-purpose word. Sometimes it sounds like a question. Other times it’s a sign of agreement. Or confusion. Or, in this case, discontent.
“Don’t tell me that you’re pissed at me, too. I don’t have to get married if I don’t want to.” I cross my arms, using forced anger to once again kill my unwanted butterflies.
God, I’m exhausting.
“Loo-cuss,” Killan says, speaking slowly, as if he’s testing the name to see if he likes it or not. “Lucas was your fee-on-say.”
“My…what? Oh, my fiancé.” Probably another Human word Killan’s heard from Roan and Harlee. “Yep, he was.” I shrug dismissively. Aggressively. “His loss.”