by Stella Casey
Her eyes got wide and her jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, I’m serious,” I said, insulted. “What, do you think I’m making this up?”
“No, it’s just…”
“What?” I said, glowering down at her.
“It’s just…” She hesitated, and looked more like the female who had been my girlfriend, and less like the tough police officer I had come to expect in my interactions with her.
“It’s just what, Vora?”
She dropped her eyes. “It’s just that I’ve never seen you in love before.”
I frowned. “I loved you, Vora,” I said, softening my tone.
She looked up, her expression rueful. “Not like that, you didn’t.”
I held on to my composure. It didn’t make any difference whether or not I loved Lyssa more than life itself. What was important was making sure she was taken care of when I went back to jail.
I knew it was over between us. And that I would never forget my little primitive. But I didn’t expect a human to wait for me till I got out. There was just no way. Voran’zi hadn’t even waited, and she had a five-hundred-year lifespan. Alyssa probably wouldn’t even be alive when I got out of prison.
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I think it does matter,” she said, but I ignored her.
“Look, I’ll surrender, okay? And you’ll honor the deal that you offered her,” I went on, though my heart was breaking. “You’ll help. Right?”
Voran’zi didn’t answer, but only looked troubled. I stalked back onto the bridge, not wanting to waste any more of these last precious minutes I had with them. I took Alyssa, who was holding Zoe, into my arms and hugged them both.
Voran’zi followed me and looked first at Alyssa, whose eyes were full of tears again, and then at the baby. Then she met my gaze.
“Yes, I’ll help,” Voran’zi said.
I gave one sharp nod and stepped away from Alyssa. Voran’zi turned and spoke quietly into her comm unit on her forearm, then tapped and swiped for a minute. I held out my hands, wrists together in pairs, as she turned around — ready for her to put the cuffs on me.
She glanced down at my hands, then looked away at the view screen. I watched, perplexed, as the other ships winked out of sight. The only explanation for their disappearance was that they were making the leap to faster-than-light speed.
That was strange.
I gave Voran’zi a quizzical look. She pulled up a screen that showed a picture of me. It listed my history, and I quickly scanned it, scrolling till I got to the bottom.
“Where are the new charges?”
“Which new charges?” Voran’zi said as I stared at the screen, trying to understand.
“Violation of parole, interfering with a primitive planet, consorting with a primitive…” I gave Alyssa an apologetic look.
“Did you do that?” Voran’zi said, sounding confused. She pulled up a new screen. “It says here that you reported in for your last parole meeting and were approved for release.”
She looked away from the screen and up at me, a bittersweet look on her face. “Seems as though you’re a free man, Lii’thoou.”
I was speechless, I was so surprised. She gave me a smile and then stepped forward to kiss me on the cheek.
“Thank you,” I said, still unable to comprehend the magnitude of what she was doing for me.
“This is your very last chance, Lii’thoou. Don’t fuck it up.”
As she strode off the bridge she suddenly stopped, looked over her shoulder, and added one last comment.
“And by the way, I don’t ever want to see you again.”
A moment later, her ship uncoupled from ours and disappeared, too.
Alyssa looked as stunned as I felt. “Did she just cover for you?”
“I think she did,” I said, bringing up my file. There was a diagonal line across the whole thing that said in big green letters,Released.
“You’re free?” Alyssa said. “And we can go wherever we want?”
“I’m free, Lyss. I can’t believe it.”
“Fee, fee, fee,” Zoe said, making it into a little song.
“Yeah, we’re free, baby,” I said, kissing her and then Alyssa. “And we’re going to be a family.”
For the first time in what felt like forever, I was going to be free, I was going to have a family again, and I was finally going to get a chance to start over.
And this time I wasn’t going to mess it up. This time I would get it right.
Because Alyssa and Zoe were worth it. I was worth it.
I knew I couldn’t necessarily always keep them safe. But I would do everything in my power to love them the best that I could.
And that was going to have to be enough.
Alyssa
Two years later…
Zoe came running to the front of the ship in her nightgown as we took off. She sat down in the Captain’s chair and spun in circles, till she finally stopped and begged in her clear, sweet voice. “I want to see home, Mommy, I want to see.”
I swiped at the console, and a view of our little cabin in the jungle showed in the bottom left quadrant. “When will we come back?” she said, gazing at the lush green of the vegetation of our home on the moon of Balcarae.
I memorized the beautiful purple of the sky as we cleared the atmosphere, already feeling homesick. We would all miss the minimalist cabin where we had been living for the past two years, but Lii’thoou had finally made all the arrangements to get my mother, and I wouldn’t miss this trip for the world.
We had told my mother that we were on an expedition in Africa, and would only be able to call her a couple of times a year. That explanation had both pissed her off and appeased her.
In the meantime, we given the house to Callie, and she had sold it and all my stuff. With the money, she had bought a huge penthouse apartment and also learned how to invest. Last we’d heard, she had hit her first million.
So now we were going in person to pick up my mother, who thought she was going to come visit us in Africa. I wanted to explain everything in person. And I was hoping that she would agree to come with us. I missed her so much.
“We’ll be back as soon as we get Granny and visit Aunt Callie,” I told her.
“We’re not visiting Callie,” Lii’thoou said, striding onto the bridge. “And we also have to help my cousin, Dann’thoou, out of some trouble he’s in.”
I frowned at my partner. “It can’t hurt to visit Callie. I really need to see her.”
“No,” Lii’thoou said, his voice firm. “Getting your mother off of Earth is bad enough. We can’t visit your friend.”
“Okay.” I changed my scowl to a smile, and he narrowed his eyes at me, clearly suspicious — as he should be. I would find a way to see Callie, somehow, with or without his permission. He was being paranoid.
“Deevo,” Zoe said, calling Lii’thoou dad in K’nythian. She ran to him and threw herself into his many arms.
Zoe spoke both English and Lii’s language fluently. She also had a pretty good grasp of Omnis, the common language of the galaxy.
“And what’s this about Dann’thoou?” I said, trying to remember if he had told me. “I thought we were picking Mom up from Earth, and then coming straight back here?”
“That was the plan, until I got a distress call from him,” Lii’thoou said, giving me an apologetic look. “He needs me, Lyss. He’s the only family I have left.”
I sighed. “Okay. But I wasn’t very impressed with him that one time he visited.”
Lii’thoou nodded. “Dann is a billionaire, a party boy, an entrepreneur, and a brilliant coder. He’s a pain in the ass. But he’s not a badass.
“He’s got himself into some trouble with some business associates, and he needs me to help him out. It should only take a couple days, tops. Just a quick little detour.”
“Right,” I said, relenting. “Of course. He’s family.”
Maybe the gu
y wasn’t cocky, arrogant, and completely full of himself. Maybe he would grow on me.
Lii’thoou gave me a brilliant smile as Zoe ran around the bridge, singing some song in K’nythian. He was so damn happy to have a family again after all those years alone.
“Bedtime, Zo,” I said, knowing that the crazier she acted, the more tired she was.
“‘Kay, Mommy,” she said, giving us both hugs.
“I’ll come tuck you in.”
I got her settled and then came back on the bridge. As soon as I was through the door, Lii’thoou stepped over to me.
“And speaking of family,” he said, picking up the conversation where we had left off — a talent most parents of small children have, since they are constantly being interrupted. “How is our little addition to the family doing?”
He put his hand on my small round belly.
“Pretty good, considering she shouldn’t exist.”
He grimaced. “I was sure I typed in Human/K’nythian hybrid, and it came up incompatible. I am never going to live this down, am I?”
“Human is not Duran, Lii. Durans and K’nythians are genetically incompatible. Human’s and K’nythians are very very genetically compatible.”
“I know,” he said, pulling me into his arms. “Now I know. And I’m pretty sure I’m not sorry about that mistake.”
I let my grumpy expression soften. “Me neither. But what if we had got pregnant sooner? That wouldn’t have been good. Or we could have planned things better with this baby.” I pouted. “Plus, now we have to use birth control.”
“Not for another five months,” he whispered, sliding one hand under my shirt. Another went around to cup my butt, while the other pair of hands got busy on my breasts, and the final pair grasped my face and kissed me thoroughly. I couldn’t keep track of all those hands, and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to.
He pulled away from my lips to kiss my neck.
“I love you so much, my little primitive,” he said, against my skin. And at that moment, feeling some pretty primal urges, I didn’t take offense at the nickname at all.
“Love you, too, Lii,” I whispered. “We’re a family now. And nothing is ever going to tear us apart.”
End of Book – Please Read This
Get your free Bonus Content for Love From Above book, just Click here!
Love From Above
Love From Above(Yearning: Book 1)
Stella Casey
© 2018
Disclaimer
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and events are all fictitious for the reader’s pleasure. Any similarities to real people, places, events, living or dead are all coincidental.
This book contains sexually explicit content that is intended for ADULTS ONLY (+18).
