The blonde straightened.“Do you want to live in a tent?Most of the humans have rooms set up inside the stores.Taz likes living rough because she’s crazy, but the rest of us appreciate a solid roof.”
“You don’t want Dargo and I living anywhere near you, we’re too loud,” Taz chuckled.
Hope made a face at her, “Pervert.”
“Happily mated pervert,” Taz corrected.“Very happily mated, it's not my fault you have a boring sex life.”
“It’s not boring!”Hope tossed a packaged tarp at her friend.“We’re just not destroying furniture or turning sparring sessions into live porn.”
“Potato, potahto.”
“How long have you guys known each other?”I asked.Lots of my clients had come in with close friends and you could always spot the people who’d known each other forever.
“Years,” Hope sighed.“So many years of putting up with her insane antics.Did you know she knocked Dargo out and tied him up when they met?”She shook her head.“This one was born for an alien invasion.”
“An alien certainly invaded my-”
“Taz!”Hope cut her off with a laugh.
“You knocked him out?”I gaped at the wiry red head.“Why?”
The woman turned to look at me.
“Where did Tovis find you?”Taz asked.
“Uh,” I shifted uncomfortably.“I worked in a spa, and I hid there when everything went down.”
“You’ve been in one place this whole time?Alone?”Hope asked.“How’d you manage that?We ran out of food in the first week and had to leave to look for supplies and we were hiding in a restaurant.”
Taz gagged dramatically.“I still have nightmares about that bucket.”
“Don’t remind me,” Hope groaned.“I volunteered to scout around just to get some fresh air and not have to listen to you rant for five minutes.”
“Hey!”
“The spa had a whole health supplement side thing,” I said awkwardly as I tried to keep Sal from climbing out of my arms.“I lived on protein bars and smoothie powder.”
“This whole time?”Taz was aghast.“That's it, we’re hitting the fire and getting you some meat.”
“How long have you guys been here?”I asked, my stomach pinched at the offer of meat, but I was too curious about how the other humans had fared to interrupt the conversation.
“At this camp, about six months, but we were with the turochs after the first week.Have you met Amy?”Hope asked.
I shook my head.“Tovis borrowed these clothes from her, though.”
Hope cocked her head to the side.“Amy has been mated the longest, she actually got taken by the sytos at the very beginning of the invasion and met Kes on one of their ships.”
“She was in space?”I clutched Sal tighter.I’d thought being trapped and alone for months had been bad, but actually being taken off Earth sounded so much worse.
“So was Penny,” Taz offered.“She and Adak got snatched on a supply run and had to fight their way back down here.”
“That’s how we got Uriish,” Hope said.“Actually, that’s kind of how we ended up with Gigi, too.”
“The other sytos?”
“Yup,” Taz turned to scan the parking lot.“Gigi!”she bellowed.“Get over here!”
A second later a slim blue form trotted out of the crowd, and I gaped at the syto male.He was wearing nothing but a loincloth, just like a turoch, and a big straw hat.His eyes lit up when he neared us and he grinned.
