She ran to the tree, dropping to her knees in front of it. The wooden ornaments. The clumsy, lopsided ones Grandpa had carved for Grandma every year. Her hands shook as she unhooked them one by one, wrapping them carefully in a dish towel. The carved moth went in too, nestled among Grandpa’s work like it belonged there.
The Christmas lights lay in a tangled heap nearby. The ones he’d used on her in front of this very tree. The ones that had bound them together in more ways than one.
She grabbed those too. Shoved everything into the bag.
They were all coming with her.
Delaney scrambled for the door, her fingers snagging her gloves just a second before she plunged out into the winter air.
And for the first time in her life, she didn’t look back at the little cabin.
Chapter Fourteen
Maelic
Theconnectioncrackledtolife. Katan’s face filled the display, and Maelic braced himself.
His captain looked furious. The fins at Katan’s face flared, and the usual pale orange of his skin flushed bright.
“You had better have avrekinggood explanation for this.”
“I do.”
“Three rotations, Maelic. Three rotations with no signal. I had to initiate emergency pulsing tech. You know how expensive that is on our budget with the Intergalactic Alliance! Where did all youryears of training go? I thought…” Katan’s jaw tightened. “I was preparing to recover your corpse. What happened?”
Maelic swallowed. “I was shot down. Crash-landed on a restricted planet.” He paused. “Earth.”
The silence stretched.
“Earth.” Katan repeated it like he wasn’t sure the word translated correctly. “You have been on Earth this entire time?”
“Yes.”
“And you did not think to contact us?”
Maelic’s antennae flattened against his skull. There was no way around this.
“The communication system was operational. I chose not to use it.”
Katan stared at him through the display. His eyes began to glow that light shade they did during intense emotion. Maelic had seen that look before—usually right before someone got assigned to sanitation duty for a full cycle.
“Why?”
“I found my mate.”
The anger drained from Katan’s face, replaced by something Maelic couldn’t quite read.
“Your luminance activated.” It wasn’t a question. “How could there be another Artaisan on an X-Zone planet?”
“There are no others. She is a native species here. Called a ‘human.’”
His captain exhaled slowly and dragged a hand over his face. When he looked back, the fury had softened into something that could loosely be called amused.
“Well. That certainly complicates things.”
“I am aware.”
Katan was quiet for a moment. Then he laughed—low and rough, the sound crackling through the connection.
