My Alien King (Paranormal Romance Aliens) (7 page)

It took them a while to get moving after that. There was kissing to be done, and Mia was apparently very affectionate after sex, and there was no way that Asher was going to try to persuade her not to be, when she had her head tucked against his chest and her fingers threaded through his.

He had never shared a bed like this before. With someone he had just been inside of, someone who even smelled like him, and he sort of loved it. Loved it enough that there was no way he was going to ask her to move just yet.

They had time. Abon had been gone for ages, making his way back to Quantari and apparently taking the scenic route to get there. He could wait a little longer for them to show up.

He carded his fingers through her hair, relishing the softness of it and the way he could feel her warmth seeping through to him. Neither of them had bothered to get dressed after they’d finished, and Asher had expected laying there sweaty and sticky to be uncomfortable, but it was sort of amazing.

"What are you thinking about?" Mia asked, lifting her head enough so that she could see him. She laughed a second later. "Listen to me."

"What?" Asher asked.

"That was like. One of the biggest cliché girl things to ask," she said. "What are you thinking about? Especially after sex. But I wanted to know. You looked like you were thinking very hard about something."

"Oh." Asher smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "I dunno. A lot of things. How nice this is. How we’re definitely going to do this in space. Maybe on the way to Quantari. The transporter has autopilot."

Mia laughed and stretched. "Good to know. Are we leaving soon then?"

"As soon as we pack if you want," Asher replied. Now that he knew what he needed to know, he was ready to get back to his home and find his uncle. There were still so many questions he wanted to ask him and so much he needed to know, especially if Abon had it in his head that Asher could be king.

"That’s really soon," Mia said, but to Asher’s relief, she didn’t sound afraid or even worried. She actually sounded excited, and that made him excited, too.

"Yeah, it is. I mean, I know there’s probably things you want to do first. People you want to say goodbye to?"

That seemed to bring her up short and she actually thought about it for a minute. The fact was that once she left, it was very unlikely that she would be back. Maybe a visit here or there, but it would be dangerous with the Shaddoc looming and looking for her. Asher waited patiently for her answer, though. Part of him wouldn’t believe that she was actually coming with him until she was on the transporter and they were leaving Earth, and part of him thought maybe that was okay.

If she didn’t want to come, he couldn’t force her, and her decision earlier had been pretty spur of the moment.

"I’m going," Mia said firmly after a moment. "I’ve said all I needed to say to my parents, and that’s as much goodbye as they deserve honestly. Cass...well. I don’t think she has anything to say that I want to hear. Other than that, there’s no one who will really even notice I’m gone."

Her voice was soft, and Asher could tell that she was trying to be cheerful about it, but he could hear the sadness in her voice. The loneliness. It never would have occurred to him that someone as wonderful and giving as Mia could be lonely like that, but apparently he was wrong.

"Okay, then," Asher said with a smile. "Well, then whenever you’re ready. You should pack whatever you want to take with you and then we’ll go back to my place and I’ll get my stuff and we can go."

That got her moving, and after a shower and something to eat, Mia pulled out three duffel bags and started filling them while Asher watched, fascinated. She seemed to have a process with which she went through her things, putting them into three piles. Quickly, he figured out that one pile was yes, one was no, and one was maybe. Clothes were instantly rolled up and put into one bag, and Asher was impressed at the way she crammed several things into one bag neatly.

It was almost like she had planned this, making an escape. Already she didn’t have much to go through, clothes seemed to be the bulk of it, and Asher answered her questions about the weather and what she would need to bring to keep warm or dry with an amused expression on his face.

Mia nodded at each answer like it was a matter of serious importance and arranged her packing around what he said. She packed few trinkets, clearly things she didn’t want to be without, and the rest she seemed to have no problems leaving behind.

"I should write a note or something," she muttered under her breath, seeming for a second to forget Asher was even there. "So they don’t think I was kidnapped or abducted. Although…" she smirked. "Maybe I won’t. I have been trying to tell them something’s going on for years. Maybe now they’ll believe me."

He didn’t think she was serious, but just in case… "But then they would be sad. And they’d worry and try to find you," Asher pointed out. He knew her parents hadn’t treated her well, but that seemed too mean to even think about.

Mia sighed. "I know. I wouldn’t really do that. It’s too cruel to make them think I was dead or something. I’ll just tell them that I left to find better things. That’ll have to be good enough."

She sat down and wrote a note, tongue poking out of her mouth while she debated over what to say. In the end, she seemed to get down what she wanted because she nodded decisively and put the note on her bed.

"I’m ready."

Things moved at an almost breakneck pace from there. Mia walked through her house slowly, collecting any other little things that she wanted to take with her, and then they were loading up Asher’s car and heading back to his apartment.

"What’s going to happen to your stuff that you can’t take with you?" she wanted to know.

"We have friends here who will take care of all of it. They know what’s been happening, and I’ll send them all a message saying I’m leaving finally. I can ask them to take care of your things, too, you know. Just in case you decide you want to come back one day."

Maybe she’d hate his planet. Maybe she’d realize that she didn’t want to be with him after all and that she should have stayed on Earth. He wouldn’t try to make her stay.

"You worry too much," Mia said, leaning up to kiss his cheek as they walked into his apartment. "It’ll be fine. But having someone make sure all my other stuff doesn’t get repossessed or whatever sounds like a good idea." And then she was moving through his apartment like she belonged there, humming under his breath.

Asher didn’t know enough about love to be able to say with any confidence that it was what he was feeling, but by the creators, he was feeling something.

It was easy for him to pack his things. Mostly he’d been in some state of ready to go since Abon had disappeared. He’d known that at any moment he was going to have to be ready to follow him, or flee because the Shaddoc were getting too close, and so a good number of his things were already packed and loaded in the transporter.

He got more clothes, though, and a few of the personal items he’d collected in his time there. There were shells and beads and all manner of little trinkets that he’d found interesting and beautiful, and he kept them in a box that he wrapped delicately in cloth and then tucked into his pack.

"Is there going to be food on the transporter?" Mia called, and Asher could hear her rummaging around in his kitchen.

He swore under his breath because he’d forgotten that bit. "Uh...no?"

"So you mean for us to starve for however long it takes to get there?"

"No. I just...forgot."

She sighed, but there was a hint of fondness to it. "I’m raiding your refrigerator then. I don’t suppose there are things to cook with on the transporter."

"There are!" Asher replied, pleased to be able to provide some kind of positive answer. "Bring all the food, and I’ll show you when we get there."

By the time the car was loaded with all the food and their belongings, Asher was practically vibrating with excitement. As much as he had enjoyed his time on earth, more than anything he wanted to go home. It had been years since he'd been there, but there was always a part of him that knew he didn't belong on Earth among the humans with their sometimes quite primitive ways of thinking and looking at things. That part longed for the lush, green land he had once called home, and his heart soared at the knowledge that he would soon be there again.

It was enough to eclipse his nervousness for the moment as he drove them into a thick patch of woods not far from his apartment. It was roped off, a neon yellow sign warning that trespassing was illegal and would be punished with a fine or jail time.

The woods were so thick that no one ever really disturbed them, since it was nearly impossible to tell what might be lurking in the trees and brambles.

Asher knew that the only thing in there that was out of the ordinary was the transporter that he and Abon had come to Earth on. Even after all this time, he'd kept it in good repair, making sure that it would still run when he needed it to.

It had been equipped with enough fuel to get them back to Quantari, as all transporters were before they left the planet.

"Are we supposed to be here?" Mia asked, looking around when they reached the KEEP out sign. The big bold letters didn't leave much room for argument unless you knew why it was there.

"Yes," Asher replied. "This is where Abon hid the transporter when we came here."

"You brought it all the way from Maryland?"

He nodded with a smile. "We couldn't just leave it there. This was actually our version of a moving van when we came here. It can be shielded so no one else can see it. And these woods aren't really illegal to be in. We just had a friend put that sign up so curious humans wouldn't go hunting around in there. It's worked well so far," Asher explained.

He got out of the car and moved the rope, and then got back in, driving the car as far into the trees as he could before he had to stop. The trees were too thick to get the car in much further, and they would have a bit of a walk to get their things loaded into the transporter, but Asher knew from experience that it wasn’t that bad, and that it would go much faster with two of them.

But it was far enough, and up ahead, there was the transporter.

Asher saw it regularly enough, so he looked at Mia, wanting to see her reaction to it. Her mouth was hanging open, and her eyes were wide, so he had to assume that she had never seen anything like it in real life.

For some reason, that send a surge of pride through him, and he smiled to himself, opening his car door and stepping on.

"Come on," he said softly. "Let me show it to your properly."

Even though Asher had grown up around technology like this and had spent plenty of time going over every inch of this transporter, he had been on Earth long enough to be able to imagine what it looked like to a human who had never seen something like it before.

It wasn't anything like what they showed on the movies or TV shows, and Asher remembered being amused when he'd first seen the way "space ships" were portrayed in the media.

His transporter was large and shaped more like a triangle than a saucer or a rocket. It was sleek and silver, and was larger on the inside than it looked.

There were windows on the side of it, which would allow them to look out as they traveled. The nose of it was the point of the triangle, sharp and aerodynamic, perfect for reaching the speeds necessary to pierced through the veil between this solar system and the one where Quantari was located.

The Nalyi and many other clans and species have devoted much of their time and energy to making sure that they understood and knew how the vast and expansive pockets of space worked to the best of their abilities. Their crafts were designed with all of the things they learned in mind and had a very high success rate for getting to where they needed to go with no problems.

Asher didn’t even remember most of the trip to Earth the first time because he’d been crying for his mother and then sleeping for the rest of it, but it had been smooth, and they’d landed with no problems.

Granted, he’d barely ever flown a transporter before, and never into space, but this one had autopilot and easy enough controls, so he figured it would be fine. Mia was trusting him to get them there safely, and the last thing he wanted to do was give her some reason not to trust him.

"What do you think?" Asher asked as they walked up to the craft. He pressed a button on the side when dropped down a panel for him to scan his fingerprints.

"It’s...like nothing I’ve ever seen before," Mia replied. Her eyes were still wide as she took it all in. "I thought they all looked like flying saucers."

Asher laughed. "Most humans think that. But no, they have different shapes. According to my uncle, they were once saucer shaped, but those weren’t actually the best shape for moving quickly through space, so they were retired quickly."

"Wow," Mia breathed. "That’s cool. I don’t know why I assumed you guys would be behind us in technology."

"Human arrogance," Asher replied, only half kidding. He’d learned in his time there that humans thought they’d done everything first and the best, but most of the things they had on Quantari were much more advanced than anything he’d seen on Earth.