“Oh, hello, Nova.” He put a flat hand up toward her face and said in a melodramatic tone, “I’m not the Fearless Leader you’re seeking. Because I’m not really here and, besides, you also can’t see me. And I’m a figment of your imagination.”
“Stop pretending to use mind control on me, Diesel. It will never work and it’s getting old.”
“Worth a try,” he mumbled. Louder, he asked, “Who wants to see me?”
“Daphne Charlene Dumont.”
Chapter Three
Valene spent the rest of her day cleaning chili from the grounds of the public park. By the time she got home, she barely had five minutes to change and get out the door for her date with Wyatt at the Smokin’ Hog Saloon.
Bone weary and sleepy, Valene still wouldn’t willingly pass up a chance to see the love of her life.
She dressed carefully, put a sedate scarf over her head so her blonde hair wasn’t instantly recognizable and left her childhood home. She took her parents’ sedan instead of her two-seater sports car to additionally ensure no one would recognize her or notice where she was going.
It was Saturday night. The rendezvous location was crowded with a multitude of motorcycles and cars, including the overflowing side parking lot. She ended up leaving the sedan illegally parked on the grass at the edge of the forest next to the bar. So be it.
If they left to go to the lovers’ lane at the bauxite pit, she’d insist on taking the ugly sedan. Perhaps it would remind her she didn’t have permission to continue this relationship, even though her parents had hit the road again in their beloved RV after Axel’s wedding.
Valene had tried to confide in her mother at the wedding, but could never get her alone without her father horning in on the conversation. Her mother, who might be sympathetic to her plight, likely wouldn’t tell her it was okay to date and marry a human and stay on Earth. Still, she wished she could have told the older woman about the problem she faced.
Aunt Dixie knew. Diesel, Cam and Axel knew. If any of her other brothers knew about her secret love, they hadn’t mentioned it. Dixie was the one who suggested Valene simply move in with Wyatt and not bother getting married. As she put it bluntly, “Just live in sin with your human. What are they going to do? It’s only against the rules to marry one and stay on Earth. Ergo, no marriage…”
That was yet another problem. Valene didn’t know what would happen if she moved in with a human without marriage. Beyond the distinct probability that her father would blow his stack or come after Wyatt with a shotgun. All six of her brothers might tag along, too. It was pointless even considering it. Wyatt wouldn’t do it. He was too honorable. He’d already asked her to marry him and pledged his love for her. The sweet memory made her misty.
She held him off, saying she wasn’t ready to get married, but also assuring him she loved him, because she really did. As the capstone, she said she couldn’t consider his proposal until he got permission from her father to even date her. She’d love nothing more than to marry Wyatt and spend the rest of her life in his capable arms.
If only he was an Alpha.
When her father, busy RVing around the country, hadn’t been available, Wyatt refused to be daunted. He went to Diesel for permission.
Just one more awkward conversation she would rather have avoided. Diesel was sympathetic, but unhelpful. Even the Fearless Leader had to follow the rules.
He’d been so lucky to discover his wife, Juliana, had a streak of Alpha blood running through her veins. Royal Alpha blood, to boot. The legend of the lost Alpha colony ship was a favorite story repeated in whispers, mostly by folks from Aunt Dixie’s generation. Aunt Dixie especially was enamored of those oft-told tales of Alpha-Prime’s first failed mission to colonize Earth a couple of centuries ago.
It was fortunate her brother, Wheeler, the artist in the family, also liked history and figuring things out. He found clues pointing to the lost ship while doing some online investigative work in the American northwest to discover if the humans knew anything about the ship that had crashed well before Alienn, Arkansas was established. Not that it was common knowledge, of course, or they would likely already have an alien-themed town there to rival Alienn. But perhaps there had been old stories or legends in the area about a fireball in the sky, or a crashed ship or rumors of aliens in the forest or something. Nothing concrete had been discovered as far as Valene knew, but a select few were searching quietly.
Wheeler was on the hunt to find the lost colonists. Her brother Gage, Mr. All About Science, was helping Wheeler using some sort of techie application she didn’t understand. The two of them would likely not rest until they discovered any and all details regarding what had happened to the lost ship. More power to them.
Aunt Dixie was a stalwart believer in what she referred to as the Lost Colony Legend. It started with the tale of a missing royal vessel from Alpha-Prime and grew after they met Miss Penny and she told them all about her life story. She was able to give them some information about whatreallyhappened to the Lost Colony ship, how it had crashed well away from the landing zone and the handful of survivors only made it by escaping in a life boat. She spoke about the death of the Alpha princess after the birth of her royal child, and how Miss Penny’s mother—the princess’s lady-in-waiting—took care of that baby. It became her own duty, with Miss Penny watching over Juliana, the princess’s great-granddaughter, now Diesel’s wife.
Miss Penny had been a young child aboard that fateful ship when they escaped in the life boat. As a member of Alpha-Prime’s rare shifter species, Miss Penny had lived a very long life, but said she had more fire in her belly and the will to carry on, especially after finding folks from Alpha-Prime living in Alienn, Arkansas.
Resurrecting the myth added new life to the many years of speculation about what had happened to the original craft en route to a landing zone somewhere north of Arkansas.
North America had been less inhabited all those years ago, but a later exploratory mission found the precious bauxite ore Alpha-Prime relied on for fuel was more plentiful in Arkansas. The decision was made to make Arkansas the site for the second colony trip to Earth many years after the doomed first ship.
Miss Penny’s mother, Paladin, did the best she could to raise Juliana’s mother when the only other adult survivor of the crash, a Royal Magistrate Guardsman, Lukas Marek, didn’t return from a scouting mission to find out how much off course they were from their original trajectory.
During the landing, the life boat’s navigational equipment had been smashed beyond all recognition.
Paladin had been forced to move the infant princess and Miss Penny away from the landing site after a storm destroyed their meager shelter, eventually making a life for them hidden among the humans. She’d left coded messages at the landing site in hopes Marek would find them, but he never had.
Valene snorted at herself for getting lost in thoughts about Miss Penny’s adventures. Clearly, Aunt Dixie wasn’t the only one intrigued by the Lost Colony Legend.
The loud, lively music that spilled out of the Smokin’ Hog Saloon as the door opened to admit two bikers shook Valene from her reverie about her alien ancestors, the Lost Colony ship and the Alphas’ intriguing past on Earth.
