Page 13 of There’s an Alien Down My Chimney

“I know you, you were going to slide this under my door and sneak off without saying hello!” Stella said accusingly. The guy laughed in response, and then I heard sounds as if he was starting to walk away already. I let out a sigh of relief, so he wasn’t the social type. Probably not a contender for Stella’s affections then, good.

Thinking it was safe, I was about to open the bedroom door a crack to get a look, when I heard the male make a surprised noise. “Wait, you have a guy over Star? Where is he?” the male demanded and the sound of brotherly protectiveness I heard in that voice made me grin. Ah, so that’s how it was.

Through the crack, I could see how Stella was trying to close the front door, a thick packet of papers clutched beneath her elbow. The guy, Pike, was shouldering his way in, standing inside her doorway with his snow-crusted boots as he surveyed the mess of scattered clothing we’d left in the kitchen. I’d only picked up my pants because I’d gone out to get more firewood late last night, but we’d left a right mess everywhere else. I could see Stella’s lacy breast coverings dangling from the ceiling light.

“Did he bolt already?” Pike demanded when he turned to look at Stella, who’d gone an interesting shade of red in her face. Ah, I needed to remember that look, it was marvelous. My girl was shaking her head, gesturing at the door, and trying to find her tongue from the looks of it. While Pike was scouring the place looking for someone to pummel from the looks of his face. In not too long he was going to charge over to this door and look inside, if I was smart about this, I’d climb out the window right now.

“Pike, what the hell? It’s none of your damn business who I sleep or don’t sleep with. Now look at you, tracking snow all over my floor!” she added the last as the male started for the bedroom door, the melting snow from his boots making a mess along the hardwood panels.

He looked down at his feet, back at Stella with an exasperated look, and then he just continued on. I stepped back and crossed my arms over my chest, I didn’t go out the window as I should have. When the door swung open, Pike and I were face to face, and I got to see the male’s reaction to meeting an alien firsthand. “Woah…” he said. With his scarf now dropped below his chin, I could see his entire face, including a dark brown, rough-looking beard. His blue eyes were wide, showing the whites around his irises while he just gaped at me for a second.

Turning to look over his shoulder at Stella, he seemed at a complete loss for words, which I enjoyed tremendously. Stella on the other hand seemed to have no trouble talking now. She slammed the front door shut, pointed an accusing finger at me, and said, “Ru! You should have hidden! Now look at what you’ve done.”

I shrugged while keeping my eyes steadily on the big human male, he was still staring but he’d shaken off his shock with admirable speed. “Isn’t he your friend?” I said while I took a carefully measured step forward, testing to see if the male would back up and allow me to walk into the living area where my woman was.

While this Pike guy did back up, he was keeping himself between Stella and me and I recognized the protective glint in those sharp blue eyes. So I grinned at him, exposing my sharper teeth, and allowed the mild bio-luminescence in my skin to flare up so that the red lines over my body were softly glowing. A threatening display that I knew he would understand, everyone always understood, whether we spoke the same language or not.

He cursed and back up another step but remained protectively in front of Stella. Stella on the other hand started groaning, “Seriously? Cut it with the macho crap, both of you.” She shouldered her way around her friend and stepped in front of me instead, and I smirked over her shoulder at the guy when she allowed me to curl my arm and tail around her waist. Staking my claim at last. He met my eyes then, and I knew he understood the message.

*

Stella

First, I couldn’t believe the nerve Pike had, trying to sneak away so he didn’t have to say hello. Now this? What was wrong with Ru? He’d been smart and rational about hiding from those agents so far, did a good night of amazing sex turn his brain into mush or something? This stare-down between the two of them was getting old really, really fast.

It didn’t look like Pike had any plans to leave now, he’d even kicked off his dirty boots and claimed a spot on the couch. While Ru had dragged me into his lap and claimed the other side, I felt like a chew toy two dogs were about to fight over. Which was stupid because I knew that Pike just thought of me as a sister, a friend, we weren’t in any way romantically compatible.

Raising my arms with an annoyed growl I said, “Enough! Stop it right now. I’m my own person and I can make up my own damn mind!” I sprung from Ru’s lap and pointed a finger at his far too sexy, bare chest. “You, stop the posturing, I know what you’re doing but you don’t have the right.” And when that made Pike grin smugly, I pivoted toward him and jabbed his shoulder, “And you, cut it out, shouldn’t you be asking questions instead of glaring at the alien just because I had sex with him?”

Ru started laughing at my bold words, a deep rumbling belly laugh that made him clutch at his tight abdomen as if it hurt. The sub-harmonics of his voice vibrated along my spine. Pike looked like he’d swallowed a lemon, but he did drop his shoulders, losing the defensive posture at last. I knew my quiet friend, he was a suspicious guy, so it was surprising that he wasn’t asking the important questions yet.

Turning back to a still laughing Ru, I jabbed my thumb towards the kitchen, “Why don’t you go make some hot cocoa for all of us?” He snapped out of the laughter immediately, narrowing his eyes into a glare directed at Pike, but he did get up to do as I asked for which I was grateful. I could swear I heard him mutter under his breath about not wanting to share the hot drink with Pike so I called after him, “Stop acting like a freaking four-year-old.”

His tail lashed wildly behind his back, and he rumbled a growl, but then he started chuckling again while he got to work in the kitchen. When I turned to look at Pike, I could see the astonished look on my friend’s face, he was trying to work out what was going on and failing miserably. “Yeah, he’s an alien,” I said, “He crashed into my chimney a few days ago.”

“What the fuck have you gotten yourself into this time, Star? This could be really dangerous, what if somebody finds out?” Pike said, and he yanked his scarf from his neck, tossing it and his hat down on the coffee table. Message received, he was definitely sticking around for a bit.

I hadn’t wanted to involve Pike in this any more than Ru had wanted to involve me. I had just wanted to say hi to a friend I knew I might not see again for a very long time, if ever. He was in it now though, and at least I knew I could trust him, like Daria, Pike was a good guy. So I gave him the rundown on what was going on, with Ru, with the cabin, with the papers he’d just delivered.

Ru handed out mugs of steaming hot cocoa, the only brew available out here in my cabin, as I didn’t like coffee. I was pretty sure that Pike would have preferred a good dose of caffeine but he drank what was offered, even if he did eyeball the mug at first like he wondered if it was poisoned.

With the hostility finally sort of resolved, I opened Daria’s packet and had a look. Relieved to see the blueprints of the facility, and a list of duty rosters, giving us a clear idea of when the base would be the least busy. I explained to Ru what they were and he leaned in close, his tail flicking over the papers occasionally to point at something and ask for clarification.

The third time he did that, Pike finally seemed to cave. “I can’t believe there’s a real alien in your freaking cabin,” he said with wonder in his voice. His eyes were on Ru now, not with anger but with a kind of curiosity as he studied his appearance. Ru straightened under the gaze, looking at my friend with a grin, then he held out his hand in what was clearly an offer for a handshake. I wasn’t sure where Ru had picked that up, or if that was something his species just did.

Once the two shook hands, they seemed to fall into a pattern familiar to anyone planning a mission. I had to translate for Ru, but we all seemed to understand what we had to look for to plan how to storm this base and get Ru his ship back. It wasn’t until we were halfway through our planning session that I realized that Pike had assigned himself an integral role in it.

“Hey, hang on Pike, are you crazy? Planning is one thing, but you shouldn’t be going out with us and actually storm this base, you’ll be branded a terrorist!” I protested. Then I had the dubious pleasure of having both of them turn on me. Ru’s dark red eyes narrowed in a glare while he shook his head, with Pike giving me an even fiercer look.

“And you’re allowed to take that risk?” Pike said while Ru was still shaking his head and looking more determined than ever to shut me out of this. He rose to his feet, towering over both of us, and the intense moment was only ruined because he managed to get his horn stuck in the lamp dangling above the coffee table.

“Stella,” he said, while he jerked his head free, stalking around the table to drop to a knee at my side. His hand came up to cup my face gently, “Pike says you can keep your cabin if you go work for them, the papers are right there.” His hand swiped out to pick up the neatly stapled stack with the job proposition, I’d been ignoring it so far and I hated that Pike had managed to tell Ru about it, probably when I’d gone for a bathroom break.

“I don’t want to work for them,” I said, but I couldn’t explain exactly why the idea was making my skin crawl so badly. It wasn’t as if I could entirely fault them for how they were acting regarding Ru’s ship, it was just that we didn’t trust that they’d be nice and give it back to him when he asked… No, it was more than that, this felt like a very shadowy, underhanded organization, and the fact that Daria didn’t like them spoke volumes.

“You should, it’s a guardian and caretaker’s job, you wouldn’t have anything to do with the base. You’re just here to keep people away from it. That’s all, it’s a good deal sweetheart.” Ru picked up the stack of papers and pressed them into my hands, “So you definitely shouldn’t be storming the base with me, they’ll see your face. Your life would be ruined and I can’t let that happen.”

I couldn’t explain the absolute panic crawling through me, and I still refused to touch the papers, acting like they were a venomous snake. I just had this feeling that working for these people wouldn’t end with just that, as soon as they owned a little of you… They’d own all of you. Just look at the two agents that had been bugging me yesterday, they were a soulless bunch, with no real name any longer, and no family.