Chapter 78 Coming Home, Eve
COMING HOME, EVE
I wake wrapped in my alien husbands’ strong arms. Since they liberated me from their childhood home, they’ve not touched me beyond the comfort of their presence.
The silky sheets smell of Lorian’s incense mixed with Rafe’s cleaner scent of petrichor soap.
Outside our massive window, there is an unobstructed view of the galaxy, and I think about how far I am from Earth. And wonder if I will always be this content being away from my birthplace. Happy in this alien place with my alien husbands.
An ambient blue glow from the room's recessed lighting reflects off my husbands’ grey skin, making Rafe and Lorian look almost ethereal in sleep. And, in this moment, I can’t ever imagine not being content here.
My eye catches on the book Ambassador Tiro gave me on Rafe’s bedside table, and I quietly reach over and grab it.
It seems surreal to have such an old paperback book here in the Celestial Spire, on the other side of the galaxy.
But then again, I left with my e-reader.
Before e-readers were invented human women probably left with their favorite paperbacks.
So I can’t be too surprised that a copy of this is kicking around the galaxy.
I open the front cover. A name is written at the top in cursive. The pages are worn and yellow. It’s not a name a I recognize, and for a moment, I wonder what happened to that woman. Is she still alive? Out here in the galaxy too?
I turn the next page, the copyright.It’s odd that it looks almost exactly like the copy I had when I lived at St. Catherine’s. I turn the next page. The title page. I read it, and then almost drop the book from surprise when I see the handwritten note addressed to me, in English.