Chapter Three
Lucy:
The entire house is quiet, but I can’t sleep. Instead, I stare at the ceiling, the same thought running through my head.
Isabel’s leaving me.
Oh, I should be happy for her, but she’s my only friend in the world and I’ve missed her. I know she’s not leaving me, exactly. She’s doing what’s best for her. But am I really doomed to spend a lifetime alone? Everyone leaves me eventually.
A shadow in the shape of a person passes across the covered windows of my bedroom. My heart pounds, just like it does every night I think I hear something outside. But this time, I take a deep breath, reminding myself there are others in the house. I’m not alone.
Quiet as a mouse, I slide out of bed and nudge aside the curtains to peek outside. In the streetlamp, I can see the faint outline of a huge man… no, not a man. He almost floats weightlessly, but then I notice it’s roving tentacles. One of them… the Pimeon-aliens. Just like Maman.
My heart races—until the sprinklers turn on. The alien yelps, spinning around like someone sprays him with a hose, and then realizes it’s an automated system.
All the fear snaps out of me. A low chuckle escapes me. As far as surveillance goes, he really sucks.
He slinks onto the back porch, leaving a trail of wet like a humongous snail, and blocking my view.
I slip from my room and hear Isabel softly snore from the sofa. They’re so tired from the portal traveling to Earth. This person in the yard must be River’s mate, or even the boyfriend that Isabel has, spying on the girls. I’ll just open the sliding doors a crack and tell him to come back in the morning.
By the time he comes to the glass doors to peer in, I’m standing there with my arms crossed over my nightgown. I hadn’t even thought to throw on a robe since the house was all girls. It makes me a little grumpy to be caught in my nightgown, but I imagine their mates aren’t going to stare too hard.
He peers into the glass and sees me standing there.
He’s massive—enormous, rounded shoulders that look too bulky to be real, cut from hard muscles like he’s made of stone. He has a powerful, broad chest, a lean waist and he wears a black leather shirt. He’s full of tattoos and his lip is pierced.
But his coloring. While Maman is a shade of purple, he’s the same color but somehow enhanced by all the black tatts. He’s fascinating.
I’ve been staring at Maman all night, so he doesn’t look as strange as if I hadn’t seen another. I’m used to the odd eyes, the whites more of a mustard shade. The long, horizontal pupils.
What I’m not used to is the facial tattoo. Sure, River has it, but on her it looks delicate and feminine. And it was done to cover a vicious scar—a six carved into her cheek the day of the whipping. Rumor has it the alien broke her father’s wrist before he could carve the other two sixes.
This guy is rough and brawny and dangerous. And he’s checking me out.
He starts when he sees me staring right back at him.
“Oh, sorry. I thought you were my reflection.”
I raise my brows, able to hear him through the paned glass. We’re totally different colors, he’s male and I’m female, I have two legs and he has eight… but he seriously thought I was his reflection?
“You can get arrested for peeping into windows,” I whisper-shout.
“My apologies, lady of the house.” He takes a bow. “I merely wished to make sure my maman and River and Bella are here and safe.”
“They are.”
“Well, but if you could let me in, that spray of water is getting closer.”
“Yes. In just a few minutes, it ought to spray the back porch.”
He blinks. “Grumpy little miss, aren’t you? Do I really need to sneak around the entire house to look in every window? Can’t you just let me in and see that they’re okay so I can go back home to report to my brothers?”
“Trust me. Just leave and tell them they’re all fine.”
He raises his hairless brow and holds a hand up to where his ear should be. “What?”
Frustrating alien. I know he can hear me.
I open the door the barest amount, enough so we can see each other face to face. “Go away.”
He slides a tentacle into the door and skims it along my ankle.
“Hey!” I jump back and he quickly inserts two more tentacles in the door.
I slam the door on them, which makes him yelp.
Across the street, a dog barks.
He opens the glass door from the outside, and I try to close it. A tentacle winds around my waist and yanks me against him.
“Well, hello, beautiful.”
“Let go of me or I’ll scream.”
As if he hears me, the dog barks louder, and then a second one takes up the same racket.
“No, don’t do that.”
I open my mouth and his pupils flare before his mouth drops to mine.
I freeze and suck in a breath.
To my surprise, the strange man laughs. “Don’t scream for them. This is a covert operation.”
What operation?
My mouth is hovering right below his lips, our breaths mingling like we’re way too familiar.
He smells delicious, like mint.
“I will scream,” I threaten, just as I try to shut the door on all his appendages flailing inside, where he’s trying to pull me out.
A noise from the living room makes us both freeze and before I know it, I’m flipped through the air and under him. His mouth is on mine and he’s kissing me like his life depends on it.
And it’s crazy hot and sensual and I’m not sure if I should be appalled or offended, but in this moment, everything fades away and it’s just us enjoying each other. His lips nibble on mine until a moan escapes me and then he uses the moment to sweep his tongue into my mouth. He’s demanding and giving and this… this is kissing. Well, there was that one boy in the home, but that felt nothing like this.
There was that other boy in school, but that felt nothing like this.
This is a complete stranger, a total alien species, and it’s absolute magic.
Somehow my left leg wraps around his waist and locks him to me—it’s the only way I can, since his strong arms have mine held above my head as he kisses me within an inch of my life.
“Skiden? Get off Lucy!” Isabel’s voice is a shrill whisper.
His mouth lifts from mine and he looks down at me… and smiles.
“Sorry. I didn’t want you to scream,” he says.
Oh, horror of horrors, behind Isabel is River and Maman, both snickering over his actions, while my heart is pounding a mile a minute and I’m panting like I ran a marathon.
“Ick,” I say, wiping his kiss from my mouth with the back of my hand.
“You have eight tentacles and you thought you’d use your mouth to shut her up?” Isabel asks.
Behind me, River giggles some more as she and Maman peek over Isabel’s shoulder to see the commotion.
“To be fair, she trapped all my tentacles in the sliding glass, so I was forced to use unconventional methods.”
“He was spying on you!” I say, glaring at him in case he thinks I enjoyed the kiss.
“What are you doing here?” Maman demands.
“Spying on you,” he says, unapologetically.
“Worst spy ever,” River giggles. “You don’t just admit to it. Shall we torture him for answers, ladies?”
“Yes!” I say quickly.
The focus is off me as Isabel yanks his arm, pulling him into the kitchen. She grabs an apron as she pushes him into a chair.
“Into the interrogation chair,” she says, tying him with the apron strings.
“Aww, Bel. You know human chairs are uncomfortable. Can’t you tie me to the cushiony couch?”
“No comfort for you.” She waggles a finger. “Besides, the couch is my bed right now. My little house wasn’t equipped to handle so many visitors, which is why we didn’t invite any guys.”
Maman closes the blinds on the sliding doors, looking around like she expects others. “How did you know we were here?” she asks the stranger over her shoulder.
“Mikhail.”
“I’m not sure he understands the ‘being tortured for information’ part,” River mouths.
“He is a little forthcoming,” Isabel says.
Skiden scowls at both of them. “It’s torture sitting in this chair. I’m all wet. You know the sprinklers come on in the park at night? It’s weird how a planet wastes water.”
Oh, God. I’m wet too. So wet, albeit in a different way. Guilt makes me snap a dishtowel at his tentacles that are roving dangerously close. “Explain why your tongue was in my mouth, traitor!”
“You could still scream with my lips locked to yours. But my tongue was distracting.” Skiden waggles his brow at me.
“Disgusting is more like it.”
He uses a tentacle to clutch at his heart.
Maman bops him on top of his head. “You know better than to go kissing strange girls without permission. You could pick up a disease”—she looks over at me— “Sorry. No offense.”
“None taken.” I narrow my eyes, wondering how often he does it.
“I apologize! It was a spur of the moment decision. I’m sorry, Maman.”
“Don’t apologize to your mother.” River rolls her eyes. “Apologize to Lucy.”
He sighs. “But I’m not really sorry. It was my first interracial kiss, you know.”
Four women in the kitchen gasp. Was I… did the kiss mean nothing? I mean, of course it meant nothing.
“Was that awful to say? Interspecies, then.”
“Dear sir!” I mutter, appalled at his lack of apology. “I am not your social experiment.”
“You tell him, sister,” River says.
There’s a grin on his lips. He’s loving this attention. Oddly enough, Maman looks gleeful too.
Weird aliens.
“Who sent you?” Isabel barks, grabbing a rubber spatula and poking him in the rib with it.
“Ack! Bel, you wound me.”
She pokes him again.
He glares at River, my new buddy. “Tiran. The bully.”
“I knew it,” Isabel mutters, and River looks embarrassed. “Ack, I can’t believe he sent you—”
“And Bronan.”
Now it’s Isabel’s turn to flush. She recovers quickly and tries to point the blame at Maman. “Probably checking on his mother,” she says.
“And you,” Skiden insists. “You are the maman of his kish, you know.”
I can’t help the gasp that falls out of my mouth. Isabel’s a mother?
“They’re not here yet,” Isabel says to me, her hand fluttering to her midsection. “Geez, Sky.”
He’s still grinning goofily at me, staring at my mouth that still hangs open in shock. Ack, he’s making goofy love eyes. The others are going to notice.
I smack him with the dishtowel again.
“I cannot believe your brothers sent you,” Maman says. “They’re older and know better than to manipulate you, my sweet kish.”
So, this is the spoiled one.
“They did,” Skiden says, holding up his hands. “It was two against one. Your own fault, really. For having three. It’s an odd number of kishren, you see.”
He again speaks to Isabel, as if she’s frequently on his side.
“Well, it is,” she agrees.
He carries on, rather dramatically, if truth be known. “And they’ve always been jealous of the youngest.”
“Let’s not push it.” River takes the spatula from Isabel and smacks his chest.
“You know Bronan pulled his, ‘I am the leader of the entire peoples of the planet,’ routine and then Tiran, poor besotted little brother that he is, agreed with him. Fool can’t think on his own.”
“Hey,” River scowls, upset that he’s insulting her man.
“Sorry,” Skiden says, and yanks her to him with a tentacle. She lands on his lap, and he kisses her head while she hugs him briefly, and then jumps back up to stand with the women, facing him and brandishing the spatula again.
Aww, it’s kind of sweet. They really do love the annoying one. And because I’m embarrassed about the kiss, I interrupt the scene.
“Shouldn’t someone tie his tentacles?” I ask. I mean, he’s just reaching out for everyone everywhere, rubbing them across my ankles when he can.
Isabel shrugs. “There’s just so many of them.”
“Hey! I don’t make hurtful comments about your appalling lack of appendages,” Skiden says, eyeing her legs.
She grabs the spatula from River and pokes him again.
“Bel, you were my best friend,” he moans. “What happened to us?”
“Which is why I’m going to let you stay in my house instead of out in the backyard,” she says. “Where the sprinklers will come on.”
Wait, what? She’s already on the sofa, while the others take her room. Where will he go?
“We’re kind of tight,” I say. “You’re on the couch. River and Maman have your old bed.”
“And where do you sleep?” Skiden asks.
I gasp again. This male is completely appalling. “Why, my own bed, sir.”
“And what size do you have?”
Isabel gives an unladylike snort and River and Maman fail to hide their grins.
“Both of our beds are large enough to house a full-grown male and place pillows down the center to divide the mattress for another person. I brought them from my old house.” Isabel leans in as if confiding a secret. “And my ex wasn’t a small man.”
I can’t help but shudder when I recall the stories she’d told me.
“Eww,” Skiden says. “Now it makes sense why you’re interested in my ugly eldest kishling.”
Now that makes me giggle.
“What? But I’m not—” she stops talking suddenly, as if unwilling to lie.
That’s telling.
“We can still kick you out,” River threatens him.
“And you’re interested in the other ugly one.”
“I think I know why your brothers sent you,” I say. “They wanted a night off, didn’t they?”
“Lucibel, you wound me.”
I freeze. His words hit too close to home. “My name isn’t Lucibel,” I mutter. In fact, we haven’t been introduced at all, despite sharing a rather intimate moment.
That no one knows was enjoyable.
Isabel turns to me. “I can assure you, he will be an utter gentleman. We’ll heap the extra pillows from my bed into the middle. Make a wall. He’ll keep his place.”
“I am a perfect gentle-male,” Skiden assures me.
“He is,” Maman says. “For despite that teasing tongue, the Goddess blessed him with a most flexible—”
River cuts her off with a hand over her mouth.
Methinks they’re all crazy. But yet, all four of them are blinking at me innocently.
I give a huge sigh, because like it or not, I’m at Isabel’s mercy. “It’s technically not my bed, or my home, so I guess I don’t have much choice…”
“Luce, of course it’s your home. I’m staying on Pimeon full time. I’d sign it over to you, but well…”
“We can’t,” I say softly, and we smile at each other. No one in the commune knew she was shunned just like no one knows I’m pretending to be her. It’s the perfect situation, really. I have a job without anyone who looks for me knowing where I am.
“What’s going on?” River asks, looking from me to Isabel.
“I’m fallen,” Isabel says simply. “Everyone knew what happened to me the summer I turned fourteen. I was wedded despite that, but my father refused to overturn the conviction when Trevor died. So, I have to remain veiled and wear dark clothing with a scarlet letter when I leave the commune grounds. Which works out great when I wanted to escape to Pimeon because Lucy can wear the veil and pretend to be me—”
“So, you didn’t lose your job,” River finishes.
“Exactly. I wasn’t sure if Bronan would let me stay or not. I needed a backup plan.”
“Well, you can give Lucy the house now, can you not?” Maman asks. “Now that you know you will not come back here?”
“No,” she and I say together. I can’t have my name on any paperwork.
“I-I don’t have a job and even with the house, I would need to work for the bills, so it works out well to just keep cleaning the church and answering as Isabel,” I say.
“The only way for us to get caught is if my father walks through the church while she’s working, and I doubt that’ll ever happen.” Isabel rolls her eyes. “Besides, there’s no laws against pretending to be shunned.”
There’s an awkward silence.
“Well, that’s that, then,” Skiden says, clapping his hands together, which have conveniently come loose from the apron strings. He gazes adoringly at me. “Which side of the bed do you want?”
My jaw drops.
The other three ladies begin whispering and moving toward the door, ready for their own safe rooms.
“Breathe. It’ll be okay. We’re just sleeping in the same bed. That’s all.” His smile is soft, gentle, not at all cocky and teasing like he’d been with all the other women in the kitchen—who have now left to get Isabel’s extra pillows. They’re in my bedroom, making a wall in the middle of the bed, before each one yells a goodnight and heads off for their own peaceful slumber.
Isabel’s still in her bedroom with River and Maman when the alien and I make our way from the kitchen to my bedroom.
“Well, um… this is my room. Oh, I guess we haven’t been formally introduced. I’m Lucy. I’m prickly and suspicious and I toss and turn at night.” Awkwardly, I hold out my hand. “I check the windows for strangers who lurk around in the dark and have even found one.”
He doesn’t hesitate. He reaches out and clasps mine in his and all at once I notice how warm he is. How his hand engulfs mine because it’s much larger. How appalling I thought he looked at first but now that we’ve kissed? He’s not quite as strange as I thought.
“Pleasure to meet you, Lucy. I’m Skiden. I joke when I’m uncomfortable, but I’m seriously working on that. So, I’ll be honest and tell you I really enjoyed kissing you and won’t make you uncomfortable again.”
Wait… he enjoyed it? My cheeks flame.