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“Well, that was fun. Half the people died and no one ended up happy.” Her eyes clear and she frowns at me. “Are all your stories so upbeat?”
I laugh at her sarcasm. “Most are, some aren’t. We’re a mixed bag.”
She shifts her body to face me instead of cuddling. “So, now that I’m done, let’s talk.”
I give her the side eye. “Since when, in the history of the universe, has anyone ever wanted to hear those words from their mate?”
Jessica laughs, giving me a playful punch on my arm. “Probably never. Still, I want to discuss you and your planet.”
Setting aside the datapad because anything else is impossible with her voice’s current tone, I face her, too. “All right. What would you like to say?”
“First of all, I need to tell you how sorry I am at trying to pry you from the surface.” Her expression is so earnest and serious, I can’t laugh at the image I have of her literally trying to peel me from the ground outside. “It’s your home, you own it, and it isn’t up to me what you do with it.”
“Isn’t it, though?” I counter, giving her earnest little face a caress with my hand. “You’ll own this sun and the planets as well when you accept our match.”
She presses into my caress, her eyes still serious. “And if you’re unable to accept?”
“I already have, even if it’s only in my heart,” I reply with nothing but truth. “All this has been yours, too, since my system found you.”
Jessica leans away from me with a hand covering her eyes. “Oh my God, I can’t stand how sweet you are. I mean, really.” She peeks at me from between her fingers before revealing her face. “I swear, if some guy bounced onto my world and said get in, bitch, we’re leaving, I’d tell him where to go.” She points at my chest before putting her palm over my heart. “But you? Nope. You’re all adorable and loving.”
“And that’s bad?” I ask, not sure of why she seems a little unhappy.
“Not at all. It’s just not what I’m used to.” Jessica lets her hand slide down my arm before intertwining her fingers with mine. “Look, I just want what will make you happy, too. I thought you’d been thrown here, left to die by the emperor. I honestly didn’t know you owned the place.”
“I know.” I hesitate, vacillating on telling her the truth or a near truth. “Part of my silence is how I took all this for granted. The other part? I didn’t know how you’d react.”
She squeezes my fingers. “I don’t blame you. I was just some Earther dropped on your back yard. Since we’re being honest, I can’t imagine being so blithe about owning an entire planet, but okay. Your family is wealthy beyond anyone on Earth.” Looking around us, she adds, “I just expected someone like you to live a better life than your average mole.”
“Mole?”
She chuckles, settling in against me again. “A small burrowing rodent who wrecks people’s lawns where I live.”
The word “burrowing” tells me everything. “Ah. Almost. The inactive volcano helped.”
She laughs and I can’t help but grin at the sound. “Fair enough.” Getting up, she stretches before going over to the others. “Who’s winning?”
Quin nods at Nilt. “He is, oddly enough.”
“Stop. I don’t lose all the time,” Nilt grumbles.
Quin doesn’t argue, just grins at Jessica. She sits, watching the board while I’m watching her. I miss her warmth and everything else already. I go back to my datapad, listening in on how Nilt mentions his archeology crew and how Quin could join up with them. He’d make a great lookout.
Moving the piece around on his turn, Quin says, “Maybe. If I’m not tethered to anything, I’ll think about it.”
“What?” Nilt snorts, now moving his own game piece. “Pless, no. I’ll hurt whoever tries to trap you again. You’ve had enough of that shit.”
I glance up and see Jessica’s eyebrows go up. “I didn’t know shit was a common word.”
All of us chuckle as Nilt says, “What else would you call it? Flowers?”
“No, nutso, but still. I didn’t expect the word to translate so well.”
We wait as Nilt’s hand hovers over the board in the middle of his move. He’s frozen in place, his mouth slightly open. Jessica waves in front of his eyes. “Nilt? Wakey wakey and stop scaring me.”
I get up and go over to the table. “Yeah, buddy, this isn’t funny.”
He snaps out of it, his eyes wide with fear. “Urgent message,” he says as my datapad dings.
I look and he’s right. Opening the notification sets off my anti-intruder protocols. “Holy plessing tunsa,” I hiss as my pad fights off the virus. “This isn’t good.” I glance up at Nilt. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t think so.” Only his mouth moves when he adds, “My system is shutting down and taking my biological functionality with it—”
