“Shouldn’t you be studying?” Liza raised an eyebrow at her.
“Yes, I should.” Geneva smirked. “But school is boring. Spying on you is more fun. And what he just said? It means he’s yourboyfriend.” And she flickered out and disappeared.
“No, no,” Jaspar hastened to say. “It means nothing of the kind. It meansheart-mate. My heart sings when I see you. You are my intended. You and I are meant to be together.”
“Ha, ha, ha,” Liza said flatly.
Jaspar glanced at his clan brothers in confusion.
“The human laughs, but there is no appearance of mirth in her face,” he said. “Can you explain this, Loren? Is she ill?”
A man who looked like a much more mild-mannered version of Jaspar strode forward, tapped a bronze bracelet on his wrist, and murmured into it. The bracelet spoke to him in a series of chirps, and he looked up at Jaspar and shrugged.
“The ways of the humans are strange. As are you, for wanting to be the heart-mate of a human female,” Loren said.
“The human is standing right here,” Liza said, waving at them in annoyance.
Jaspar nodded. “Yes, I observe that. We Drakken have excellent vision. We are genetically superior in many ways. Our young will possess your beauty,” he gestured graciously at her, “and my superior physical strength and ability to fly.”
Liza shook her head. “Step off the crazy train, please. It’s an expression!” she added as Loren gave her a puzzled glance and began talking to his bracelet again.
A female member of the crew strode forward. She was tall and stunning, clad in a leather dress and leather boots. Her ebony hair was piled high on her head and entwined with a silver rope, and diamonds were studded in her tresses, glittering like stars in a night sky.
Jaspar’s mother, Karmelite. The matriarch of the Balthazar clan, and a fearsome warrior.
“I agree with the human,” she informed her son.
“You do?” Liza said with surprise.
“Yes. The idea of you marrying into our clan is, as you put it, crazy. I strictly forbid it.”
“And yet I am the Regis of the clan. Therefore I decree who can marry and who cannot, not you,” Jaspar said with annoyance.
She met his gaze with an imperious glower. “But I am your mother, she who sat on your egg for ten long months. I only want what is best for you, and therefore I forbid this union.”
Jaspar snorted. “Everyone knows that you had clutchling-warmers sit on us ninety-nine percent of the time.”
“Well, I was there when you hatched, anyway. I left right in the middle of my monthly claw-sharpening as soon as I heard about the first crack appearing in your egg.” His mother looked miffed.
“Hey,” Liza said with annoyance. “Not that I plan on marrying your son, or having his hatchlings, and I’m not even sure how that would work, but for the sake of curiosity, why don’t you want me to marry him?”
“I should think it would be obvious,” his mother said, staring at her.
“Not to me,” Liza said.
“You’ll figure it out,” she said, and she abruptly turned and walked away, heading back towards their enormous hovercraft.
Stuck up bitch, Liza thought indignantly.
Anyway, it didn’t matter. Customers would be there soon, and Liza had more important things to worry about than a deluded Drakken.
“We will not rent to you. You and your clan infected all of our trees with the black fur fungus and destroyed the world that our great-great-great grandparents settled,” Liza said to Jaspar. “You did it so that we would be forced to declare bankruptcy and you could buy everyone’s property up cheaply. So you can kiss my ass.”
“I accept your offer with enthusiasm. However, we also need to book rooms here. And I repeat, we did not sabotage your forests. Why would we do such a thing?”
“Well, the fact that you and the Harbinger clan both wanted our world must mean that you think there’s something of value here,” Liza said. “And you knew that we would never have sold it on our own.”
“You do know that the males of the Drakken race are genetically incapable of lying, right?” Jaspar said.
