Chapter 17
DADDY
As Twink played the video for me, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
The object tearing toward Earth, that could’ve been my spaceship during the crash, but what I saw in the gas station was something far worse. Something that made goose bumps prick across my human flesh.
Standing in the living room Twink had created in the Kaylog, I audibly gulped. This was truly the last thing I could have expected when Twink told me he had something important to talk to me about after work.
“Do you know what that thing is?” Twink asked.
“Yeah… That’s my ex.”
His eyes bulged. “Wait, huh? What is she doing in Harmony Springs?”
“That’s the billion-black-holes question. What day was that costume store robbed?”
“About two days after you got here.”
Just as I feared. “I assumed she’d just sabotaged the Kaylog, but she must’ve put a tracker on it too, so she could find me and force me to keep mating with her. We must find her.”
Twink’s brow creased. “It sounds like we need to keep you away from her.”
“No, Twink. She’s a monster. She won’t care about humans. She only cares about her needs.”
“A trait both our exes share,” he said playfully. “Sorry, weird time to make a joke.”
“This is very serious. She’ll do whatever she must. Kill anyone who stands in her way.
” I said the words without really considering how they may weigh on Twink’s conscience, but as I felt the shift in his temperament, I quickly worked to mitigate his response.
“She can be stopped, but I have to find her immediately, before she has a chance to hurt anyone.”
“Can’t she hurt you, though?”
“Yes, she can kill me. Easily. She’s a very powerful creature.
She has certain hypnotic abilities as well.
She can put creatures in a trance. It’s how she kept me under for so long.
After I managed to escape it, I programmed my cuff to prevent it from working on me again, but it’s bound to work on others she encounters.
It’s probably why she hasn’t been detected yet. ”
“That explains how she’s been able to get away with walking around in a really fake-ass costume without being caught.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t come out much. She likely has already found a few drones to do her bidding, searching around town to find out where I am.”
“You’ve been around town, though, and she hasn’t—Oh, that’s right. You don’t look like your Furker self…or…would you have looked like a Furker with her?”
“I would have taken the form of her species, the Vorcons, when we first met, but she didn’t mind me in my Furker form either, so she would know both. I’m sorry. This is all my fault. If I hadn’t left…”
“Your fault? That you escaped a psychotic, manipulative creature who was keeping you just so she could breed babies that wanted to kill you?”
“Please don’t bring our kids into this,” I said, perhaps more defensively than I should have, but I would never hold her actions against them. Not when I didn’t even hold their desire to kill me against them.
He shook his head. “Sorry. That was wrong. I meant, you had every reason to escape, and it’s not your fault you landed here. She’s the one who damaged your ship. This is all her fault.”
I couldn’t argue with him there, but… “If only I hadn’t been so blinded by her beauty.”
“Hey, trust me. I know what it’s like to get lured in by an asshole. And she sounds like a real big one.”
“She would seem very big to a human, I guess. I imagine she would be nine feet.”
“Um…that wasn’t what I…never mind. Now’s not the time.”
Judging by his confusion, it seemed there’d been another misunderstanding, but I had too many things to consider to fixate on correcting it. “Sheila is here, and I must find a way to track her down and keep you safe.”
It was one of the more concerning parts of this, and as I said the words, Twink’s eyes widened. “What do you mean, keep me safe?”
“If she realizes what I feel for you, her kind do things to their rivals…”
This intensified his concern. “What kind of things?”
“It seems cruel to mention it.”
“You can’t say something like that and expect me not to want to know.”
I gritted my teeth. This was one of those instances when I should have said less.
Although, the last thing in the universe I would have wanted was to deceive Twink.
And now that he was demanding the truth, I had to share…
as much as I could. “Vorcons tend to tear off the heads of their rivals and use them as trophies. She had several she kept in the chamber with me—the other females who had attempted to mate with me.”
Twink’s face went whiter than I’d ever seen it, which given everything we’d experienced in the short time we’d known each other, was alarming. He stumbled, and I rushed to him, putting my arms around him. “Here, come, sit down. I’ll get you some water.” I guided Twink to the sofa.
“She’ll want to tear my head off?”
“No, that’s not what I said. She will want to tear your head off once she discovers you’re the one I want to mate with.”
This only intensified his emotions, so clearly, that didn’t help much.
I lifted him and laid him on the sofa before fetching some water. He was still unusually pale as he sat up, sipping.
“I won’t let her hurt you,” I assured him.
“I don’t feel like that’s something you can promise.”
I couldn’t refute it, which earned a furrowed brow, one of the many frustrated looks I’d learned from him.
“Okay, I know you’re new to humans, but one of the things you should know is that if you say an alien could kill me and then promise not to let it hurt me, if I say that you can’t promise me that, you need to tell me how you’re going to stop it.
” He shook his head. “I can’t believe I just said all that with a straight face. ”
I settled on the sofa beside him. “Sheila doesn’t know where I am yet, and if we locate her first, then I can stop her before she has a chance to harm anyone, especially you.”
“But if she’s looking for you, aren’t you just going right to her?”
“One of the perks of being with her, if you can call it that, is that I know her strengths and weaknesses. As I said, I can keep her from controlling me again. I just have to figure out where to start looking.”
Twink took another sip of water before setting it on the coffee table.
“I think I can help in that department. Roger said there’s a Reddit where they discuss the sightings.
” He pulled it up on his phone, scrolling through before reading through the entries.
“Looks like she was first seen at that gas station on Ponny Boulevard. Then there was another sighting a few nights later, at two a.m., on Carson Avenue.”
“She’ll prefer a dark space. My last home with her was in a dark, damp cave. That’s what she’ll gravitate to. But I can’t imagine anything like that around here.”
Twink’s expression came to life. “Like a sewer?”
I angled my head, trying to remember any information I’d encountered about sewers.
“Under the city,” he said, “there’s a network of tunnels where water flows. Sewage water. It’s gross, but if she likes that kind of environment, she could find it underground.”
“That sounds right.”
“She definitely wouldn’t have to worry about anyone bothering her there. Maybe that’s how she’s kept from being discovered.”
“I should start searching the area where she was last seen. See if she found her way there. How big is this sewer system?”
“It’s massive, spanning the whole city. If she decided to go down there, she could be anywhere, really.”
This would be a problem. “I’ll take a look tomorrow during the day. She needs twelve hours of rest and can only do so in darkness. She’ll use that time to rest underground. By now, as I said, she likely already has a few drones at her disposal.”
A new sensation rose up within Twink, drawing my attention. It was all tension and shaking… It made me hate myself for burdening him with this.
“She’s not gonna hurt them, is she? Her drones?”
I wished I could have been more confident, but when I didn’t respond right away, he pressed.
“Daddy, you’re saying she could go around killing innocent people?”
“She will be reluctant to do this. From my own experience as a parasite, I can say that doing anything so dramatic captures the attention of the native species, especially a social one like yourselves. It’s more likely she would use them to procure food.
” I stopped there, deciding against sharing that, if she discovered he was whom I wanted to bond and mate with, on top of losing his head, he would likely be on the menu.
Didn’t seem like helpful information to divulge just then.
Twink chewed his bottom lip. I took his hand, gripping gently, in the way I knew reassured him, but it didn’t do as much good as it had in the past.
“If I can get on top of this, there’s a good chance we can stop her before she does any real harm.”
“And by stop her, you mean…?”
My gut twisted up. “I haven’t really thought that through.”
“Are you going to kill her? I mean, I know she did terrible things, much worse than anything Carter did to me, but you said you loved her at one time. I can’t imagine that’ll be easy.
” He placed his free hand on top of mine, concern all over his expression.
This was one of the most beautiful things about Twink—the compassion.
I wondered if most humans shared this trait, but regardless, it was beautiful to witness.
“I don’t know that it’s something I could do even if I wanted to,” I admitted. “As much as I despise her, once a Furker has bonded to a mate, there is always going to be some connection that can’t be severed.”
“Then what?”
“I’m still working on a plan. I’m close to fixing my communications panel. Maybe I can send a signal out to the Intergalactic Justice Department, and they could send someone to arrest her.”
“And where would you keep her until they got here?”
“The Kaylog can accommodate a prisoner, but that’s assuming I’ll even be able to capture her. Sheila isn’t foolish, and she’s far smarter than me.”
“You’re very smart.”
“This wasn’t meant to evoke an unearned compliment, as your species sometimes desires. I’m aware I’m intelligent, but I’m also aware of my limitations, and Sheila’s brain is perfectly suited for critical thinking and strategy. It will make her exceptionally difficult to catch.”
“Oh…well, you’re still very smart.”
Seeing his cute little dimples again set me at ease somewhat, but it couldn’t completely quiet the discomfort and anxiety I’ve been experiencing since discovering that Sheila was running around Harmony Springs, searching for me. Which brought with it other considerations.
“While I’m looking for her, I don’t want you by yourself. I think it’ll be safe if you go to work, but I would prefer you come back here when you’re finished. I don’t like the thought of you being out there while she’s lurking around.”
His cheeks pinkened. “I like when you get protective like this, Daddy.” He scooted across the sofa and put his hands on my biceps, surely not realizing how inferior these muscles were compared to the ones of my real form.
“And I’m not gonna fight you on it,” he added, “because I’d rather keep my head on for as long as I possibly can… which is always.”
I trailed my finger under his chin, tugging it up so his lips were inches from mine.
Leaning close, I took a kiss, which he accepted with ease, igniting that chemistry that had the power to settle some of the nerves that had been worked up since he’d revealed this news.
Our kiss reactivated the connection that was steadily intensifying between us, pulling at all those primal impulses to guard my mate.
When I finally pulled away, I tried to reassure him. “I told you what happens when Furkers bond with someone. Sheila can have you over my dead body.” I felt his visceral relief at my words, but at the same time, I knew in my heart that her intention might be to do just that.