Page 98 of Galaxy Circus Act One

He leaves, and Cas whirls me around in his arms, kisses me hard on the lips, and pulls away, taking my hand and leading me to the door. “When we land, we have to do the reverse process of takeoff. We can’t very well just appear all of a sudden. Peoplewould panic if they saw a ship coming out of the sky. Granted, it usually doesn’t matter in Nevada because we’re typically in the desert, but this year is different. We’ll send down an advance party with the teleporter, and they’ll set up holo emitters which show the scene of the circus being erected. It’s why there is always a fence around, so that people can’t just wander in. Then, at night, we land under a cloak and take the place of the hologram.”

He told me this as we moved through the ship, and now we’re at the teleporting room. When we enter, Officer Kirk, one of the teleporting operators, is sitting at the desk, and he smiles at us.

“Hey, Lila, Cas. You’re here right on time.” He gets up and moves to a cupboard, pulling out the holo emitters I remember from my first time before handing them to me. “Here you go. I’ll transport you into a nearby alleyway, and then you’ll have to walk a few hundred yards to where we need to set them up.”

“Are you coming with me?” I ask Caspian, a little unsure because he’s still wearing his natural purple and blue form.

He shakes his head, but before he can answer, a voice does it for him. “No, that would be me again,phoeall. I had so much fun the first time, I couldn’t help but volunteer again.” Xavier’s silky timbre sounds in my ear and I jump, startled at the unexpected voice. He chuckles as I spin, trying to see his misty, shrouded form, but he’s invisible.

“Okay, I’ll leave you in Xavier’s capable hands,” Caspian tells me, smothering a smile like he knows something I don’t. “Instead of coming back to the ship, why don’t you book that hotel room and call Susie? Once we land, we can sort out what’s going to happen after that. I’ll let your grandpas know what the plan is.”

I throw my arms around Caspian. “God, I love you,” I exclaim, and I feel him stiffen up and think about what I said.

Oh, I said the words.

Is that the first time I’ve told him? It must be, even though I’ve felt it basically from the start. Maybe it’s the mating bond, but I really don’t care. He’s done nothing but cherish and care for me since our beginnings in that pod, and I know it’s only been just over a week, but it’s enough.

His body seems to melt into mine as he wraps his arms around me and whispers in my ear. “I love you too, baby, so much.” Everything seems to fade away while we just live in this perfect moment.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Xavier

Idistract Officer Kirk from Caspian and Lila’s private moment by making my misty form appear next to him. It works, and he instantly recoils but quickly recovers.

“Jesus, warlock, you scared the shit out of me,” he snaps, holding a hand against his chest like his heart is about to fall out.

I chuckle. I do like to get a reaction out of people, and normally his fear would be tempting, but now that I know Lila is my intimate, I don’t want to feed off anyone else. Feeding from her anger earlier in the week was enough to sustain me much longer than anything my harem has ever provided, but it’s wearing off, and I’ll need to feed again soon. With Saxon out of commission, I either need to ask Lila again or absorb some of the residual feelings and emotions around me. If I stand in the circus tent during the show, the humans’ excitement and joy should temporarily sustain me.

I slap my mist-shrouded hand on Officer Kirk’s back. “I do like you. I admire your bravery for talking to me like that.” My words must remind him who I am, because he pales slightly.“No, none of that crap now. I appreciate when people treat me like I’m a normal person, thank you. Now, if I might ask a favor. Would it be possible for you to drop Lila and me a little farther away from the site? I have a few things I need to talk to her about, and I don’t want her distracted by the job we are there to do.”

He looks a little unsure and opens his mouth to argue with me.

“Don’t worry, I have received approval from the boss men, and I assure you the holo emitters will be in place and ready to go when the ship needs to land. And even if the program isn’t quite where it needs to be, you just stay cloaked until it is.”

“Yeah, okay. As long as the boss men approved it, who am I to argue?” He fiddles with a few buttons on the console. “How about I drop you two blocks over? Is that far enough?” he asks, and even though he can’t see it, I smile widely.

“Perfect, thank you. I owe you one,” I reply, and he beams. Having a favor owed by the warlock prince is no small thing, and I rarely give out favors.

Lila and Caspian peel themselves apart. I don’t know how he does it. If she just declared she loved me, I would whisk her back to my quarters and fuck her into oblivion. With one last kiss, Cas waves to me and heads off to finish his preparations for reentry.

I hold out my misty hand for Lila to proceed with me onto the teleporting platform. She bites her lip in that cute nervous way she does. “It’s okay,phoeall. It will feel just like when I teleported you on Earth,” I reassure her, and a little wrinkle forms between her eyes.

“Why aren’t you doing it this time?” she asks.

“While I can teleport long distances, and traveling across a planet is no challenge for me, the distance we need to cross now is beyond my capabilities.” I’m loath to admit there are limits to my power, but it is no secret. I don’t know of any being that canteleport across space like that. We all rely on mechanical means to help us.

Lila’s mouth forms a surprised O as I wrap my mist around her and pull her into my arms. I make it so we’re both shrouded in the mist, but she can see me now. Her eyes widen in surprise as I appear, but before she can say anything, I give the order, “Okay, Officer Kirk, beam us down.”

This time her mouth drops open, and I wink at her. “I like Earth movies, and let’s face it, I had to watch it to compare it to real life, and I just couldn’t help myself considering the officer’s name.”

Before she can answer, the humming sound of the teleporter indicates Kirk has started it. Between one breath and the next, we leave the ship and appear on the pavement in a Las Vegas alley. I wrinkle my nose at the smell, but Lila is still too busy staring at my face to react to the fact we’ve even moved, let alone what it smells like.

She reaches up and runs her fingers over my face. “You look human,” she comments as her fingertips brush over my cheeks and up to my now curved ears.

“Well, it wouldn’t do for me to show up looking like an alien, would it?” I tease, but she continues her perusal of me.

“Not alien, they’d probably think you were fae,” she murmurs as she steps away, and I let the mist dissolve. She looks me up and down, studying my favorite glamour. “You look like a punk rock star. I love the way your eyes appear like they are rimmed in kohl, and while this look is great, I much prefer the real you,” she tells me when she finishes her inspection, and I practically preen like a jaxa bird.