Married humans.
Abilities.
Agreement.
The world rocked under the couch like we were in the middle of an earthquake. “Families?” I squeaked.
“Twelve of them.”
Oh boy. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. There were twelve fucking families that came from another planet? And this son of a bitch was telling me I descended from one of them and that explained my Nostradamus stomachaches?
How the hell was that possible? Wasthisthe greatest secret of all time?
“One family died off soon after they arrived, four others have so much human DNA now in their lines that their abilities don’t exist or are mostly latent, six still have some, and then there is my family,” he explained, those purple eyes totally focused on me.
I could barely get the words out of my throat. “Mine is one of those?”
“One of the four with hardly any abilities. Your great-great-great-grandmother married a normal man. So did her daughter and her daughter. Your grandfather married a normal woman. Your mother the same.”
“How many Atraxians came here?”
“I’m not positive. I know your great-great-great-grandmother wasn’t married; she was the only member of your line that came here. She did tell me that.”
My ears started ringing. “I think I need to lie down.”
His snicker was soft. “You are lying down.”
“I need to lie down more,” I warned him, sinking back into the couch, tilting my head up to focus on the wood-paneled ceiling and not on the fact that I wanted to start panting but I might pass out for sure again if I did. “I don’t understand,” I told him in a tiny voice.
“I explained it as simply as I could. Need me to try again?”
Man, fuck this guy. Pushing my elbow into the couch, I knifed up to stare at him. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that if you don’t have anything nice to say not to say anything at all?” I asked him flatly, the room centering again as I focused on him and that pain-in-the-ass beautiful face.
“A few times.”
Really? He was joking now? I pressed my lips together and tried to focus on the important shit. “I just… I can’t… believe what you’re saying.” I pulled the pillow out from behind my back and hugged it. “Why are you telling me this? Why did you wait so long to tell me this? You knew all along?”
Those big hands went to his knees as he twisted his body even more to really watch me. “I already told you: because you’re going to find out eventually.”
“Why? From who?”
“When you meet the rest of my family.”
How many more of them were there?
But most importantly….
That same thought I’d been babying for weeks now came back ferociously. Whatwerethe chances that he would have landed in my yard of all places? That had to be… a one-in-seven-billion chance. Wouldn’t it?
It wouldn’t be a chance at all.
The expression on his face gave me the feeling he knew exactly what I was pondering and was telling me to hurry and catch up.
“Alex… ander.” I squeezed the pillow even tighter. “It wasn’t a coincidence, was it? That you landed in my yard?”
He shook his head.
The ground rocked under me again. “But how…? You didn’t…? You said someone or something did that to you. Did you make that up?” I hadn’t taken him to actually be a liar. He seemed too blunt for that. Secretive? Absolutely. But not untruthful. “You were so mad for weeks after you got there. After we met. Like I did something, and now you’re saying it didn’t ‘just’ happen.”
