“I don’t know. I didn’t look. I just took aim.” He checked the display and winced. He hadn’t meant to knock Wyatt out for that long. “Sorry. It’s on the new maximum of forty-five minutes. In my defense, I’ve never used it before. That’s the setting it was on when Cam issued it to me.”
Valene started crying. “But forty-five minutes was before we even—” His sister sniffled and didn’t finish her sentence.
Lucy gave him a sharp look of reproach and kneeled beside his sister, patting her comfortingly on the back.
Axel hated to see his sister cry. He hated seeing Lucy’s accusatory stare worse, but there were rules. If he had to follow the stupid rules about his arranged marriage, then so did everyone else regardingtheirlove lives. Humans couldneverknow about Alpha-Prime, aliens roaming the Earth in plain sight and especially not illegal sand-claw beasts running loose in the area.
“I’m sorry, Valene, but you know Wyatt can’t find out what that animal really is, nor should he even remember seeing it at all.” Lucy looked across the clearing at the beast. From this distance it looked once more like a large rock formation.
“I know.” His sister checked at her wristwatch and moaned. “Come on. We have to get him back into his squad car before he wakes up. I already have some big, fat explaining to do.”
Axel thought so, too, but she probably meant something very different. He loved his little sister dearly, and he was always going be her older brother with specific ideas on her dating, well, anyone. Even though he liked Wyatt and could certainly think of worse guys for his sister to date, the man was human.
Axel waved the women away from the sheriff’s limp form. He shoved his hands beneath Wyatt’s arms and lifted his shoulders so he could drag him back to his cruiser. Axel might be stronger than a human male his size, but Wyatt was a very big man. Valene went ahead to open the driver’s side door. He stopped when he thought he heard a car approaching, but dismissed it as stray noise from the highway.
Axel wrestled Wyatt behind the wheel, trying not to leave bruises. He slapped the accumulated dirt off the heels of Wyatt’s boots before shoving them into the footwell.
Valene put his seat belt on, and lovingly brushed a lock of hair off his forehead before closing the door with a gentle slam. She turned, resting one hip against the side of his car.
“Are you planning on explaininganythingto me?” Axel asked.
Valene pushed out a long sigh. “You need to leave before he wakes up,” was her only response as she studiously focused her gaze on the ground.
“Why is your shirt buttoned up wrong?”
Valene sucked in a shocked breath, uncrossed her arms and looked down at the perfectly-aligned buttons on her shirt. She shot a puzzled look his way. “Nothing’s wrong with my shirt buttons.”
“Made you look,” he said, with a satisfied smile, unsure of his feelings regarding his sister’s secret relationship with the human sheriff of Skeeter Bite.
Valene frowned, opened her mouth, then closed it without saying anything. She settled for shooting him a petulantly wary glare.
Axel liked Wyatt. He was a really good guy, for a human, but he didn’t think his parents, especially his father, would ever allow their only daughter to marry a human and move to Alpha-Prime. Axel would miss Valene if she had to leave.
“As soon as Wyatt comes to, I’ll tell him we need to leave. You wait out of sight down the road and call Cam as soon as we’re gone to come and get the sand-claw beast.”
“How am I supposed to explain whatI’mdoing out here at the bauxite pit’s lovers’ lane with Lucy?”
His sister looked at Lucy and then at Axel. After a few seconds, she shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. Just like I will also have to do some quick explaining.” She gestured at Wyatt.
“We’ll talk later, right?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Oh, it’s necessary.”
Valene made a face. “If you insist.”
“I do.”
“You’re not going to pull that stupid, ‘I’m an older, wiser brother’ hooey on me, are you?”Maybe.
“Well, not anymore. Don’t get me wrong, Valene. I like Wyatt. I just don’t know how I feel aboutanyguy dating my little sister, let alone a human, given all the rules regarding a relationship like that.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“Do you?”
“Drop it, Axel.” She looked into his eyes and her beseeching gaze turned hard. “You aren’t my mother.”
