Andrea dropped off her things at her desk, before walking toward Dom’s door, yet when she pulled the door open, the entire room was completely dark.
The light of the outside filtered in weakly, as if muted by something strange. Andrea didn’t realize what was off until she noticed that there was no hum of machines, no blue glow of the technology. It was all terribly silent.
“Dom?” She called out, and her voice echoed back.
Digging into her pocket, Andrea pressed on the flashlight button of her phone, gasping when she saw the walls completely bare of all technology and that the only thing in the room that remained was Dom’s massive desk, alone and bare.
Something cold settled into her stomach and she began to panic. Rushing towards her desk, Andrea dropped the coffees on the wood, her finger dialing Dom’s number instantly. She had never called him before, only texted him as it was the only method of communication the exercised during work.
To her horror, she heard the operator say, this line is disconnected, please check the number and dial again.
No.
Andrea turned and ran.
Her feet carried her without care toward the elevators, ignoring the alarmed looks of other employees as she hurried down. When the elevators didn’t move fast enough, she hurried toward the staircase and began to sprint down the stairs until she found herself on Level 5.
Sweating and gasping and trying not to cry, Andrea pushed through the doors and hurried until she found Athena’s office.
She was in the exact same spot that Andrea had left her.
“Athena,” Andrea gasped, hands trembling at her sides.
“Where is he? Where’d he go?”
“Home.” Athena replied enigmatically. Andrea scowled.
“No, he isn’t. Otherwise he would answer, or he would talk to me. Please, tell me, where is he? Is he in trouble?”
“No,” Athena said.
“Then what?!” Andrea exclaimed, feeling tears burn her eyes.
“Can you please just answer me?!”
After a long moment of tense silence, Athena looked away from the window to look back into Andrea’s wild expression.
“I warned you, Andrea. I warned you to be careful. That you didn’t know what he is.”
“What does that even mean?” Andrea asked lowly, hissing through her teeth.
“Think about it, Andrea,” Athena said, her voice cold and distant.
“Think real hard. Think about where you’re working in, the field that these scientists have been working within. Think… real… hard.”
Andrea scowled, shaking her head as she tried to understand what Athena was implying. When she couldn’t understand Athena sighed.
“Has he ever talked to you about his work?”
Andrea shook her head.
“Talked to you about what he really does, what he’s been working for?”
Again, she shook her head.
“When you speak together, does he ever mention the stars, or about space?”
This, Andrea could not deny. She stilled, freezing as Athena took a step away from the window toward her.
“Whenever he talked about the stars… did it ever feel like he was talking about a fond place, a place he knows closely… as if it were where he belonged?”
There was dread building in her stomach along with the lack of understanding in her mind.
Finally, her frustration leaked out, exposing her. “What the hell are you trying to tell me, Athena?!”
“He’s not from here, Andrea.” Athena said, and her arms were crossing over her chest, making her look strangely vulnerable.
“He’s not from this planet.”
The answer didn’t make any sense until it finally seemed to click in her mind.
“Wait, what—are you saying he’s… Dom’s an… alien?”
The very idea seemed ludicrous, laughable even. Yet, Athena’s expression didn’t contort into one of amusement, she didn’t start laughing and say how it was all just a joke and that he was back in Milan or something. Instead, her expression remained like stone, unbreakable and steady.
Andrea shook her head, “That’s crazy. He’s not an alien, Athena, what the hell?”
“Because you know him so well?” Athena remarked severely, eyes narrowing.
“Because he clearly tells you everything about himself?”
Andrea stopped, not wanting to believe.
“He’s from a system outside our Galaxy. A planet called Rusneon. They are not unlike us, in appearance, only that their ability to perceive and understand is much higher than us. They can experience mental understanding of one another in ways we cannot begin to comprehend. You probably experienced at some point, a different connection to him than you have ever experienced with anyone… a connection that felt out of this world, bizarre, alien.”
Andrea felt her insides freeze up, shocked.
“How… did you…?”
Athena gave her a half-smirk, sad and sullen.
“You’re not the only one to fall in love with him, Andrea. The only difference is that he brought you in closer, he only chose not to tell you the things he told me.”
The revelation was like a knife to her stomach. Andrea felt a betrayal unlike any other.
“Where…?” She whispered.
“I told you,” Athena said, turning back to look out the window and toward the sky.
“He’s gone home.”
Chapter 11
Six weeks later, Andrea was still receiving paychecks from her work despite not having shown up once again.
A letter from Athena explained that Dom had left behind his estate and money in her charge and that she would continue to take care of the company in his stead, one of the last things he wanted was for Andrea to continue receiving money as a way to make sure she didn’t have to rely on anyone else.
Andrea had thrown the letter away and merely tossed each check home to collect dust on the other side of her mail. She began to search for another job, not caring that she hadn’t filed for a two weeks’ notice, but considering the circumstance, she doubted it would show up in any future interviews.
For days, Andrea had hoped that Dom would return, that he would appear at her doorstep or message one of her countless texts about his whereabouts and that it was all just one sick, sad, joke.
Instead, time passed and her messages kept receiving failure notifications and eventually, after three weeks, Andrea stopped sending them.
She had remained in her apartment for a long time, remaining in bed and watching reruns of old TV programs, half-heartedly playing with Linus and ignoring the cat’s worried meows with an occasional pat on the head and secure check that he was still eating and going outside.
Stephanie had arrived for a few days, visiting and making sure Andrea was at least making an effort to go outside and get back in the dating pool. But it was awfully shallow expecting Andrea to go looking for someone else when she had already believed she had found exactly who she needed to be with.
Eventually, Stephanie had to go back to work and she had pressed a reassuring kiss to her best friend’s forehead. Her words didn’t really make it home, but Andrea was grateful for her friend’s concern.
Eventually, she was left to sit in her apartment and cry, or just stare into the computer screen of her laptop or glare at the history of messages between her and Dom.
Six weeks turned to eight. Eight weeks turned to three months. Fall came and went and winter eventually invaded and pressed its frigid fingers deep beneath doors and to sting between toes.
Andrea managed to find a job as barista in a coffee shop, and she paid off her bills with her own money, the pile of uncashed checks from the Dom’s company growing in size.
She never threw them away though, not because it was money, but because in some way, it was nice to see that there was evidence of that one reality where everything had been perfect for a little while and that it wasn’t just a dream.
It
was all terribly depressing.
Christmas was coming along when one day, in the middle of the snow and staring up into the stars with a vacant expression, that Andrea heard a chirp from her phone.
Bringing it out from her pocket, Andrea expected it to be from Stephanie, yet everything came to a halting stop when she saw that it wasn’t from Stephanie… but from Dom.
If you had a chance to travel the stars… would you take it?
Andrea’s thumbs jumped toward the screen, prepared to write out a message. Instead, nothing came out and the letters teasing her within the gadget began to burn into her eyes and make her feel as though her heart hadn’t just jumped into her throat and was pounding blood through her system.
Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore.
Who is this?
A moment later, there was another chirp and a new message appeared beneath hers.
Would you come travel the stars with me?
Something in her snapped, and suddenly the tears that she had been hoping would come—tears of disbelief, or joy, or elation—were falling from her eyes to icy trails over her cheeks. Still her mind refused.
This is a trick. A joke. It can’t be him.
Where are you? Her thumbs typed out, shaking profusely.
Top of the building.
Andrea ran.
She ran until her lungs were aching with the chill and her limbs were on fire. Andrea ran until she nearly slipped on ice four times and her body nearly slammed into passersby on her way to the metro.
The ride to the downtown area was tense as she cried freely, yet she ignored the concerned expressions of other passengers and when she arrived at her stop, she was running once more. She ran until she was no longer running but merely putting one foot in front of the other trying to hurry as much as she could. Yet her wind came back when she felt her gloved hands find the door of her old work, found them open, and she rushed in.
The building was dark, way past closing time yet she rushed toward the elevators, feeling warm memories rush into her as she punched in the number of the highest level and the machine whirred to life and the blood rushed to her feet.
She was panting and swallowing thickly, her heart slamming into her ears until the elevator stopped. The doors parted, pushing in a drastically freezing gust of air inside. Andrea had never been to the top floor of the building and so she wasn’t expecting the elevator to stop on the very roof of the building.
She had imagined a space ship, something ridiculous, but instead she only saw a single figure on the other side of the roof, staring over the edge and watching the lights of the city below.
Andrea pushed into the stone, freezing with the cold chill and the sight of snow swirling around her like galaxies in motion.
She took a few steps closer, “Dom?”
The figure turned around and in the full blown Technicolor of the city lights below, she could see the familiar curve of his jaw, the unruly pull of his chestnut hair, the familiar shade of his violet eyes.
It’s him.
“Andrea,” he said and his voice was just as beautiful as the last time she had heard it.
Andrea sprinted toward him, throwing her arms around his figure and hoping above all else that this was real. When their bodies collided, she felt the air get knocked clean from her lungs in a desperate cry.
“Dom!”
His arms were around her immediately, crushing her to his figure—impossibly warm for this weather—and digging his fingers into her hair and body.
Their embrace was deep and overdue and after crying, Andrea pulled away, reaching her hands to grasp his cheeks between her palms.
“You disappeared,” she sobbed.
“You just disappeared. You didn’t tell me anything… you just left. How could you do this to me?”
Dom gave her a sad smile, “Athena explained it then.”
“Only that you’re not from here? From a planet called Rusneon? That you’re an alien… is it true?”
After a moment he nodded.
“Yes. It’s all true.”
Andrea gasped, pulling away slightly. Sniffling, she glared at him.
“Explain.”
“I’m from a line of warriors, a word that cannot be translated or even uttered in your tongue,” Dom began, acquiescing easily enough.
“I was sent here several hundred years ago for the purpose of studying the growth of this planet… to see whether or not it was a threat. If it ever became so, my job was to ensure that it would never become a big enough threat. Yet… after I stayed here, I became transfixed by this planet, its simple beauty, its complex people, its conflicting nature that has continued to surprise and astound me for years…” He trailed off for a moment.
“I was scheduled to return to Rusneon two hundred years ago, yet I endured severe malfunctions of my craft and from my vehicles. I had to stay, try to fix the malfunctions with the aid of this planet’s science. Unfortunately, the technology here got nowhere near close enough to handle my systems until this very decade, and even then it is supremely primeval. It took several decades… but I was finally able to make my ship work enough for me to escape the atmosphere and send out a message to the nearest fleet. That’s why I had to leave… I had to make sure the message was received…
“Yet, when I received the message, I was ordered to leave. To return home. I found that I couldn’t do that. Not yet… not without you.” Then he smiled at her.
“I never believed I would fall in love here… but I did, Andrea. I fell in love. I fell in love with you.”
Andrea stared into his eyes, overwhelmed with all this information, overwhelmed by his confession, overwhelmed by the feelings in her heart as she took it all in.
Yet, no matter how hard the logic in her mind insisted that she couldn’t do this, that she should return to her home, and return to her little job where things made sense, she couldn’t.
Because…
She fell in love too.
She was in love with Dom. And whether or not he came from this place or not, whether or not he outlived her by several hundred years, she loved him.
She loved him.
“I’m so sorry,” Dom said after a moment.
“For not telling you everything, for not being honest about who I am, for what I am.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Andrea said, shaking her head and sniffling.
“You’re here now…you came back. That’s what matters. I love you, Dom. I love you. You.”
Dom’s expression became like that of a child’s, vulnerable and open, awed and small all at once, and before either of them knew it, their lips were crashing together in a surge or desperate desire that left them both clinging to each other in ways she had never experienced before, and she had a feeling that Dom could agree.
“Don’t think you’re off the hook though,” Andrea said minutes later, scowling.
“You’re in big trouble.”
Dom chuckled, “So long as I’m with you,” he said before pressing his forehead to hers.
“I think I can handle it.”
Chapter 11
The Milky Way had always appeared in curious stain of lights in the night sky, always partially hidden by city lights or some other distraction.
This time, however, Andrea stared into the night sky and saw nothing but unfiltered space, black and deep and profoundly humbling. Above her, though, was a long stretch of stars so bright and impressive, she couldn’t help but stare in awe and feel so very tiny.
Her body felt light and weightless. Floating in the air as she stared into the sight above. For a long time, Andrea drank in the splendor of stars and constellations, curious about the secrets they harbored on their side of the universe.
Once, long ago, she had believed that she would only guess as to their secrets… now it felt as though she actually had a chance to find out.
Warm hands cradled up and around her bare stomach, pulling her close against a warm body as a pair of lips pr
essed against the tender spot of her neck and throat.
“You’ve been staring for quite some time now,” Dom whispered.
“Are you sure you don’t want to do anything else?”
“Not yet,” Andrea sighed, tilting her head back, her eyes still working over every star above.
“It’s amazing.”
“I suppose,” Dom replied.
“Then again, your kind is always so easily astounded.”
She nudged an elbow into his ribs, before another thought appeared to her.
“That reminds me, why do our species look so far alike?”
She turned so that she could behold his expression, see the fullness of his violet gaze unguarded beneath hers.
Dom smiled, “Believe it or not, but we share a common ancestor.”
“Monkeys?” Andrea grinned. Dom rolled his eyes.
“Another species.” He said, shaking his head.
“There was a vast empire once, a huge galactic empire renown as Ma’uranians, or rather that’s what old tales say. They had colonies as far as your galaxy and mine. The galaxy you call Andromeda, is actually known as Sa’ahkul in my planet. It is said that the Ma’uranians were so prosperous in their conquest that they were able to usher an era of great peace. However, something happened to them, and they ceased to exist.”
“We’re not so different however, your species does believe in them somehow. I believe you called them the Greek/Roman Gods, only you named them to the closest your language could translate their names. Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, they’re known as Ju’paekter, Ju’kno, and Min’arqnoa in mine. It’s curious, but I believe it does propose an answer to our riddle.”
“So you’re saying, we’re distantly related?” Andrea asked, pursing her lips.
Dom snorted, “As related as my star is to yours.”
Andrea smiled, and she took in his lips against hers.
“I like that… my star to your star… we’re together regardless of how far apart we’ve come from.”
“I guess it is sort of romantic,” Dom said, smiling to her before pulling her close toward another section of the room.
The ship was vast enough that they could see space above through the xenoglass—as he called it—and when they arrived at his bedchamber, she could feel a thrum of energy within the room, as if the spaceship itself was alive and was pleased to feel them nearby.
Alien Romance: Desired By The Alien Boss: A Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Alien Romance, Alien Invasion Romance, BBW) (Rusneon Mates Book 2) Page 5
