Not anymore,I thought with a surge of guilt.
The little human didn’t blink. He stared right back at me. “NowIthink you’re not telling the truth.”
“What?” I roared.
“I don’t think you’d keep two people around if, deep down, you didn’t like them a teeny, tiny bit.”
I stared at him incredulously. He was wrong.
“They are my underlings,” I ground out. “They live in my domain to do tasks. That is all.”
“They’re not yoursiblings?” Paz countered.
His statement jolted me. He said the word with a decent Maeleon accent, the way others referred to their fellow Maeleons. Others who weren’t me.
“How long have you lived in that village by the Sweetfields?” I asked, my tail twitching irritably.
Paz tilted his head. He made a gesture with his fingers. Was he counting?
“Hell, I dunno anymore,” he said eventually. “Maybe a little over half a year?”
Half of a full cycle. No wonder they’d affected him.
“Before the village, where did you come from?” I asked.
Paz tilted his head, like my sudden curiosity intrigued him. “I’m from Earth originally. New Earth, if you want to get technical about it.”
The word was difficult to pronounce. “Earth,” I said, trying out the weird sound on my tongue.
Paz grinned. “That’s it.”
His expression made my chest tingle again.
“Why did you come to Eukaria?” I asked.
Paz snorted and rolled his eyes. “Oh, boy. I love this story. Okay, so, we weren’tsupposedto land on Eukaria, but our captain seriously screwed up and crashed our ship here.”
What was a ship? I wanted to know, but didn’t want to ask.
I grunted. “He sounds like a fool.”
Paz grinned harder. “Oh, he is. But I like him anyway.”
I tried to imagine crashing a “ship,” whatever that meant. The act sounded unpleasant, even dangerous.
“Were you hurt?” I asked.
Paz’s eyes softened as he smiled at me. “No, but thanks for asking. That’s sweet of you.”
My stomach fluttered. I cleared my throat loudly to get rid of the sensation, but it didn’t work.
“You’re my pet. I don’t want you to get hurt,” I growled.
Paz chuckled and rubbed his cheek against my arm like a panthar demanding attention. I treated him the same way I’d treat Kookee if it did the same thing—by petting Paz’s head-fur. He made a small contented noise. Then he suddenly sat up. “Wait, I just realized something. Do you already know what a ship is?”
My mouth soured into a frown. “No.”
“Why didn’t you just ask?”
