Or attempt to take Pedro away from us…
The visceral protectiveness that shot through me at the thought of these creatures attempting to harm the Trol surprised me. Then, I remembered the karnilian—how the stone hadn’t stopped calling to me since I’d come in contact with it days ago.
“Micah…” I put the ship in standby and turned to face my entire universe. “About Pedro…”
How am I going to explain this?
“It’s okay, Space Daddy—I’ve already activated Pedro’s shields.” His smile was nearly as bright as the lava’s glow reflecting off his face. “And I know to letyoutake the lead on explaining how we got the egg, but otherwise, not tell the Ekianythingabout our little bundle of joy.”
As usual, Micah talking about Pedro as if they wereourchild made my instincts glitch, and I realized now wasn’t the time for a deep discussion anyway—not when our hosts were waiting.
And I am perfectly fine with delaying the conversation.
The nanny bot lumbered into view with Pedro attached, and, again, I had to fight the urge not to snatch the sling for myself. Besides the Eki already knowing the “little bundle of joy” wasn’t biologically ours, it would probably be best to downplay any attachment to Pedro—to redirect all attention to my mate.
“Should we tell themyouhave powers too?” Micah asked as I pulled on the puffer jacket I didn’t need, for appearances’ sake. “Or make it sound like I’m an Earthling anomaly?”
I considered my answer as I star hopped our party to the landing bay. While I understood Micah’s hesitation to draw attention to his home planet, I begrudgingly believed honesty would be best in this circumstance.
Honesty to a point.
“Eki value innovation and discovery over the idea of conquering other planets,” I replied. “Yes, meeting you may make them curious about Earth, but we are many light years away from your galaxy. Telling them about the existence of superheroes and villains probably won’t make the trip worth their while.” I paused to tap in the code to open the ramp. “And to answer your question—let’s keepmeoff their radar for now. Tell them I’m a powerless normie.”
So if I need to kill them, they won’t see me coming.
My mate nodded thoughtfully as the ramp deployed, the light from outside the ship illuminating his perfection in an orange glow once again. “Do you think they’ll like me?”
What?
This was thelastquestion I expected him to ask, and one I had no easy answer for. If there was one thing I’d learned in all my years of infiltrating various vessels and societies, it was thatsomeexperiences were universal while others were as varied as the stars in the sky.
“I believe they willrespectyou,” I carefully replied. “Because anyone who doesn’t lacks intelligence, and the Eki are an extremely intelligent species.”
Unfortunately, I sensed this wasnotwhat Micah wanted to hear, but then the ramp hit the ground with a resounding clang, and we collectively walked to where a trio of hooded figures awaited.
The Eki.
24
MICAH
“You didn’t tell me they werespace wizards!”I hiss-whispered to Ziggy in English, earning me an amused snort in return.
This was the best way to describe what I saw, since the three Eki standing at the bottom of the ramp were wearing full-length Jedi robes that sparkled with pinpricks of orange light.
Are thoselavarobes?!
Talk about the fit being fire…
Even though I was practically vibrating with excitement by the time we reached our welcome committee, I was determined to play it cool—to at leastpretendI was a chill bad bitch in front of the yassified space wizards.
“Greetings!” I called out in the trade language with a little bow of my head, because why not? “We are grateful for your hospitality.”
Please don’t kill us.
I didn’treallythinkwe were in danger, but I also knew if the Eki caught a whiff of us being a threat, they wouldn’t hesitate to turn us into space dust.
So, as usual, we’re playing Hide the Stellarian.
