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Claimed by the Savior
A SciFi Alien Romance

Elena Starr
 Copyright © 2024 Elena Starr

© 2024 Elena Starr

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or reference.

Edited by Daniel Wesley

Cover by Elena Starr
Layout by Daniel Wesley
Proofread by Daniel Wesley and Harry Davies
 CONTENTS

Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
Fated Mates of Hogar
 CHAPTER 1
Lottie
“Come on, Darren, this is stupid. Just come to bed, everything’ll be fine in the morning.”
I stare at my boyfriend and his bullheaded stubbornness. Stubbornness can be a nice trait in a person, but in Darren it
infuriates me.
But then, almost everything infuriates me about Darren. How did I become one of those women who hates her boyfriend? I
feel like a 60-year-old guy talking about his ball-and-chain; how much he hates being married to this woman; how much he
hates his children; how much he hates everything except his job and his best friend Henry at the golf club who, were he not an
archaic, homophobic prick, he probably would’ve been fucking for the last 40 years.
Music blares from the club, and I whimper as Darren stands at the beaded curtain that separates our bedroom from the tiny
hallway that leads to the staffroom of “our” barely booming business.
“I’m telling you, Lottie, I’m almost there. A few more hours and I’ll have ’em. I have at least one contact now, and it’s
probably legit. And from there, boom.”
Darren crosses the room in a haze of annoyingly attractive silk shirt and sultry cologne. After running a hand through his
brown hair in the mirror, he heads to the PA system he insists upon having on a dresser in the bedroom and announces, “Alright
everyone, I have a question. Are you having a good time? I hope so. Listen, you lot are in luck tonight. I’m in a good mood and
about to make it big, so we’re pushing it again and we’ll be open until four!”
The cheers that ring out from the nightclub are almost as deafening as the music. I swear, any other night and I’d be pleased
with that. Pleased to run out and serve drinks, chat to some loose women and some handsome men who flirt with me and touch
my thighs but will never get under my skirt.
But I’ve got a job interview tomorrow, because I can’t keep living in the bedroom out the back of a fucking nightclub with
my deadbeat boyfriend who promised me two years ago that this place would make six figures after 24 months, and he’d buy
me a nice townhouse.
I don’t even need a townhouse. A one-bedroom flat in a dodgy area would be fine if it meant I could escape on the nights
we stay open late. Hell, at this point I’d settle for a studio.
“I’m going out,” I declare. “Unless you’re going to force me to work with the other staff I doubt will be paid over time?”
“Yeah, babe, whatever. Just be back to celebrate with a drink when I bag these fucking aliens.”
These fucking aliens.
I know they’re real. Like, everyone knows aliens are real. Everyone in the Unknown World, at least. There’s a famous actor
who’s an alien. And apparently, lizard aliens live underground. And we’ve been invaded a few times.
But it’s only the big, important government people who deal with that shit. The average person will never meet an alien.
There are a lot of things you can do online, but getting into contact with aliens isn’t one of them. So I push out of the club in
my dressing gown and slippers, the heavy, metal fire exit creaking as it allows me into the alleyway with something I snatched
from my boyfriend’s nightstand on the way.
The thumping music is still audible out here, but at least it’s dulled and replaced by the more palatable sounds of the busy
London traffic. I’ll take squealing traffic a thousand times over the repetitive music in that nightclub, except maybe on queer
night, where Todrick Hall, Trixie Mattel, Kim Petras, Madison Rose, and a bit of RuPaul blasts through the place and actually
has lyrics for me to lipsync to as I serve drinks, give drag queens spare pins if their wigs have come loose, and clean up spills.
I stare down at the ugly, twisted up thing in my hand and the lighter tucked up neatly against it. Aliens indeed. With him
smoking this crap all the time, no wonder he’s gone fucking crazy.
I’m more likely to meet an alien then he is just standing here, because at least I’m outside where one might come and abduct
me or something, if they even do that. But I don’t think that’s very common. That’s just in the books and the movies.
I light the spliff and the scent assaults my nostrils. No wonder Darren wears so much cologne, because otherwise he’d reek
of this shit.
I shouldn’t make fun of weed. I’ve got a couple of stoner friends online who aren’t trashy like Darren, and I’ve got a few
who use it for anxiety and pain.
After taking a deep breath, I raise the thing to my lips.
“I wouldn’t do that, love. Not this late at night. You’ll end up starving and staying awake until 6 AM, and with that music, I
think you’re already forced awake beyond your limits.”
I pause with the spliff or the joint or the whatever-the-other-weed-word-is halfway to my lips.
There’s a dark-haired woman in respectable clothing in front of me, and she looks totally out of place. With her elegant
curls and the little blouse, she ought to be asleep next to a husband with her 2.5 kids snoring soundly in another room.
A nice life, I reckon.
 “I thought it made you drowsy?”
“It can,” she says. “But your first time, it can make you anxious and unbelievably hungry. Believe me, I know, and I was
half immune to that stuff to begin with.”
I stare at the spliff. At this point I don’t even care if I’m awake all night. I just want a break. Relaxation. I don’t think I’ve
been relaxed in at least two years, or maybe longer.
“The door of the club is at the front,” I inform the woman as the weed burns away in my hand.
“Oh, I know. Actually, I came to talk to you. You’re Lottie, aren’t you? Lottie Bird. Shacked up with the oaf in there who set
off all the alerts on my planet.”
I pause. Obviously I’ve actually started smoking the weed, and now I’m hallucinating.
“Darren is on the dark web thinking he can get into contact with aliens who’ll give him money. He heard it rains diamonds
on some planets, and diamonds are worthless on some of them, so they give them away to space travelers who don’t want jobs.
He thinks he can get those over the internet.”
The woman smiles at me, moves to my side, and leans against the graffiti-riddled, sticky wall.
“Please could you put that out? It really stinks,” she says.
I throw the nasty drug stick on the ground and stomp it out, and I can already hear Darren shouting about losing half of the
spliff or joint or whatever this is. Blunt! That’s the other word I forgot earlier.
“You’re really not from Earth?” I say.
I always thought my first time meeting an alien would … well, I thought it wouldn’t actually happen. But if it were to
happen, I thought it would be more grand. Spectacular and otherworldly. I thought they might be a different color or have four
heads or something, but this woman looks human.
“I am. I’m a Hogentinien.”
“Hogentinien?”
The woman nods, her dark hair blowing gently in the breeze.
“You wouldn’t have heard of us. Most of us aren’t allowed to visit Earth, but your planet is a huge target for all kinds of
species who want to colonize or do trading and all that.
“After an incident recently, a man from my planet whose wife is from here asked that we have people monitoring this place
when the inhabitants are going searching for aliens, because often, they end up getting in contact with some really dangerous
species. Most of the time it’s harmless and they won’t find anything when they try, but your Darren seems to be actually getting
close. I need you to stop him.”
A bitter laugh catches in my throat and hits the night air like visible breath in the cold.
“I’ve been trying on and off for weeks, and non-stop for hours. But I don’t think it’s going to happen. When he gets
obsessed with something, he gets really, really obsessed with it.”
Maria’s eyes are stern. “Well, I’ll warn you now: if he gets in contact with the species he’s researching now, you should be
by his side for every interaction. Because someone stupid enough to go looking for aliens like the ones he’s clicked on ads
from has no business dealing with them alone. Promise me you’ll stay safe, Lottie. Won’t you?”
I really must be asleep, because why would I, a simple girl from Peckham, be important enough to have an alien come warn
me that my boyfriend is a stupid dick who’s endangering us?
Why would either of us be important enough for these aliens to entertain us in the first place?
“I’ll do what I can to stop him. I promise.”
It sounds lame. Weak, somehow. Like I’m lying, or like nothing is going to happen and this was a wasted trip on this
woman’s part.
“There’s a good girl. I’ll tell my people to keep a close watch on this place and make sure I note down that I warned you.
Good luck, Lottie. I wish I could do more to help, but by law, my hands are tied. Oh, and I love your robe.”
Maria is walking away before I can thank her, heading to the edge of the alley with purpose.
She pauses at the break before the alley blossoms into street, looks back, smiles, and reaches out towards the wall. She
drags her hand back to one side, steps forward, and literally disappears somewhere between the middle of the alley and the left
wall.
What the fuck.
Staring, I wait for her to return, but it’s like she was never even there. Moments later, I hear a gentle twinkle followed by a
sharp zooming sound similar to 50 motorcycles rumbling by at once, and a severe gust of wind blows up the alley and makes
me squeal as it lifts my dressing gown.
There’s a gentle flash where Maria disappeared, the wind dies, and the night is quiet in comparison to the ruckus that just
sounded.
I return inside, shaky and left questioning if any of that was actually real.
 CHAPTER 2
Carveth
I stretch out my legs and sigh, grateful to be back in my own bed after a few nights away working. My eyelids are still heavy,
so I know I’ve woken up in the night. I have a few more hours to sleep, and fully intend to do so, before I grumble as I realize
my bladder is being a dick and demands to be emptied now even though I stopped drinking three hours before bed.
Will I ever get a night of unbroken sleep? I peel my eyes open and find myself in an off-white void of nothingness.
Oh?
“Hello, Carveth,” says a soft voice. A soft voice in my head that’s paired with a swirling visual in the cloudy space in
front of me.
I push myself up into a sitting position and blink. Blink hard, but I’m not waking up.
“What the fuck?” I decide the bold Earthly swear I recently learned is appropriate due to its strength.
“We’re going to make this short, because we already know how you’re going to respond. And that you’re wrong. Carveth,
you have a fated mate.”
I start blinking again, but I’m still not waking up. Fated mate? That can’t be right. I know I’m a fated warrior for the War of
Wars, but that whole thing turned out to be bogus. It was a setup maintained by this stupid guy called The Ancient who misled
our leaders, the Elders Council, into thinking we had to go to war with the people of Pifa every 666 years.
Turns out we were told it was a war, but the closely-controlled people of Pifa knew it was just a sacrifice. Front-line
warriors were chosen by fate, trained, and genetically modified to get them all riled up and ready for the war. Some were told
about their fated mates as extra motivation for our side to win.
In reality, we had to be tricked, because although we are a warrior race, we are good people who do not fight for no
reason. The war was actually just a sacrifice, with one single warrior and his mate destined to kill the chosen sacrifice from
Pifa. All so the ancient could harvest of this crap from the Pifa guy’s blood and stay immortal.
This was three years ago. Three guys got their fated mates, but me and the other fated warriors who were meant to be on the
front line got nothing. And lucky for me, that’s exactly what I wanted.
“Having a fated mate doesn’t mesh well with my lifestyle, but thanks for the offer,” I tell the voice.
“You act like you have a choice in this matter, Carveth.” The voice sounds like the teachers I had back at school who got
snotty with me when I told them I didn’t actually want to learn to fight, thank you, because I didn’t intend on going to war
despite being a fated warrior.
“Well, I do have free will, Divine.”
The divine is actually a collection of god-like energies, but if it’s going to try and lump me with a fated mate, I’m going to
treat it like one single entity who’s a person I don’t like.
“You may have free will, but your future is prewritten, and we can see all of it, Carveth. You have got a fated mate, and
now is the time to learn about her. Her name is Lottie.”
I groan. Lottie. Weird name. Now is the time most guys in my situation would fall head-over-heels in love with a person
whose name they know but that they know nothing else about. I fold my arms and sit, cold, staring at the fluffy swirling colors
that showed up in the off-white throughout our conversation.
“And why exactly am I being told this now, years after that nonsense war was shown to be fake?”
“Fated mates are not long tied to the war, but simply tied together because their atoms were close by each other when our
universe was birthed in the big bang. And we have chosen you at random to learn about yours. And events have finally reached
the point in time where you two are to meet.”
I want to roll my eyes. It sounds like a whole load of nonsense, but I guess, I guess it’s true. Like, it is, and everybody
knows fated mates are real. But that doesn’t make me happy about this.
“So what am I supposed to do about it?” I fold my arms. “Do you tell me where I’m supposed to meet her, or what? Alpha
Muhl and the former Prince Elder Hahl knew who their mates were ahead of time, because of … what’s his name again? Ron?
And his mate. The mates were all friends, right? Do I have to go knock on the doors of my old classmates and ask them who
this Lottie person is?”
I think of my three old classmates. We were never close. We were in opposing houses at school, and I didn’t have much in
common with Hahl or Muhl. Both Ron and I weren’t into this whole war thing, but even then, we weren’t close. I think we
talked to each other like, five times. Then a handful in the lead up to the war.
“You will rescue your mate, Carveth. She is in danger on Earth, and she needs you.”
I sigh. “I’ve just finished helping getting rid of dangers on this planet and on Lemenis. Why do I have to go and deal with
dangers on another one?”
 “Because you do.”
Because you do. Typical divine, from what I’ve heard. Big, know-it-all gods who just tell you what to do and expect you to
follow because they know everything.
Well, they don’t know me.
“You will love this woman, Carveth. You can’t argue with fate.”
I grit my teeth and roll my eyes. “Watch me. I literally can’t love her, divine, because you know what my gift is. You know
that, if I don’t want to fall in love, then you can’t make me. You can’t make me do anything.”
“We’ll see.”
More and more I’m reminded of the annoying teachers I never liked, replying “we’ll see,” in irritatingly condescending
voices when I said I would not, absolutely not, fight in the war.
And look who was right? I didn’t fight. I did not have to get my hands dirty in combat or use my gift to stop myself feeling
the pain that came with seeing my fellow warriors die. Because none of them did.
“You will go to Earth and meet your mate, Carveth, and get her out of her situation,” says the divine when I don’t reply.
“We cannot force you to fall in love, but we are telling you that you will. It is fate. The mate bond is there even if you can’t feel
it. And, in time, you will open yourself up to it.”
I just stay there with my arms knotted, stubborn as anything, while I wait for this ordeal to be over.
“Can I go home and pee now, Divine?” I say boredly, leaning back on the palms of my hands and crossing my ankles to
appear nonchalant. “Or would you like me to just piss anywhere in your pretty void?”
Well, I’ll be damned. The voice chuckles, and with a horrible sensation like I’m being plunged into icy water, my
surroundings change and I’m in my bathroom.
“Thanks,” I mutter, though I’m not sure if the divine can actually hear me when I’m not in their dimension. “Now some
privacy would be nice.”
There’s no response, so I go about my business, then crawl back into bed.
Fated mate indeed. That’ll be the day. As my eyes shut, my communicator vibrates and makes me grown. The time on it
tells me it’s 4 AM, only an hour before I usually get up, and I always find it hard to get back to sleep at this time of night. I’m
starting to hate the divine more than I hate my annoying bladder.
My curiosity overcomes me and I pick up the thing.
We have a new mission for you. It’s from the Hogentinien Empire. Are you interested? You’re the best we have for off-world
missions and I know you just got home, but it’s urgent.
I want to scream into my pillow. If I wasn’t so passionate about my work, I’d blow that off. I don’t need to work; I choose to.
I’m set for life through my grandparents.
But I don’t go back to sleep straight away. I can never turn down a mission. I may not want to be a warrior, but I do like
helping people, saving people, and making stupid people be less stupid. I reply:
Just tell me where I need to be and when.
I allow my eyes to close. They’ll tell me where I need to go, I’ll ignore it and fall asleep, then find out the information in the
morning. But when my communicator buzzes, I can’t help but pick it up and check.
Be on the next ship to Earth tomorrow morning in Hesena. You won’t be there long, so there’s no need to pack. Thanks for
this, Carveth. We know you’ve been busy recently.
Groaning, wondering if my body will allow me to stay in bed so close to my alarm, I press my face into my pillow and wish
for sleep.
 CHAPTER 3
Lottie

The identical men stare down at me as I sit behind Darren. I wish he wouldn’t sign that fucking contract.
Every night for the past two weeks of negotiations I’ve stood out in the alley, calling out for Maria.
I do not trust these creepy-looking clones. Period. They all have the same mane of grizzly black hair, long, thin faces,
sallow skin, and builds like they took an already skinny person and then stretched them out to make them even skinnier and
extra tall.
They’re all smiling at Darren, and once he scribbles his name on the line, a few of them smile at me. Then, after handshakes
are done, the transfer is made, and the aliens go back to wherever the fuck they came from, (Peeta? Peter? Pifer?) I round on
Darren.
“You should’ve read that fucking contract, babe.”
“They explained it well enough,” says Darren. “I get the money, don’t spend it on crime, and that’s that. And we get a
house. A fucking house! The big one with the bay windows that we looked at in Chelsea! I thought we’d have to waste some of
our money on it, but we get it as well as the million!”
Why does my idiot boyfriend think £1 million would be enough to buy a house in London? I’m hoping he’s not dim enough
to think he could buy the house with the million pounds and still have enough left over to live on, but luckily, that’s not
something we have to worry about.
“There was fine print on the contract, Darren.”
“Yeah, lots of tiny little words and legal jargon. I wasn’t gonna bother with that shit. Now, babe, pack a bag—we’re
heading into our new life.”
Though I’ve longed for that new life for longer than I’ve known Darren, those words sound more sinister than they do
celebratory.
*
I really want a Stanley cup because my old reusable coffee cup’s finish has started peeling and is sticky on the outside, but it’s
over 20 quid. For a cup! My old one lasted me a year, and it was only a tenner. A tenner should be alright. I can make a tenner
back in about 40 minutes tonight at work, which I’m still doing, because I need the money.
Mainly because I’m terrified to spend a dime of our million, which is looking a lot smaller now.
We were supposed to expand the nightclub, but I’m terrified doing that will wipe it all out. If we make it bigger and add
pay-to-enter VIP lounges, spend a load on advertising, and do a bit of branding work, I know we could make it into a much
better business that doesn’t stink of weed outside and isn’t the only place that people go when they have next to no money but
still want to party. But Darren isn’t hearing it. No matter what I say, no matter how many times I show him the business
proposals I’ve written up, he just says, “Let me handle it, babe. I’ve gotten us this far, haven’t I?”
“Gotten us this far” means he’s decorated our townhouse in ugly leopardprint, weird wall hangings, and mismatched
furniture. And he’s taken our million down to just under 800,000 in six months. I don’t know what he’s done with most of it.
We could’ve lived on £100,000 for 10 years. We’ve got no mortgage, so that was a good chunk of it every month that we
could spend on nice things. A whole £100,000 every year for 10 whole years …
I honestly can’t even imagine spending that much on normal living expenses in a year. Not unless I always shop at Waitrose,
take a few holidays, and buy a lot of expensive clothes just because I like them. There are a few pieces of clothing I’ve had my
eye on. But every time I fill my cart online I can’t bring myself to check out, and going to shops in person is just too painful.
The last six months were supposed to be the happiest we’ve ever had together, but they were the most anxiety-filled so far.
Every day, I think I’m going to get a call where Darren tells me we’re broke again. At least we’ll have a house, but I doubt
we’d be able to afford the bills if we lost everything.
Maybe I could get rid of this anxiety with some “retail therapy.” It’s what helped the literal criminal, torturer and jewel
thief in a book I read recently. That book was my last big splurge—£5. I’m too afraid that we’ll run out of money if I get a KU
subscription, even though it’s like, £10, so I just buy books and read them slowly.
I’ve never believed in shopping as a distraction, but I open my laptop. There are so many big brands with nice stuff. Paul
Smith has some nice tops, but the dresses are all really ugly. Also it’s all excessively expensive. Maybe All Saints, but it still
quite pricey. Amazon … are you joking? Almost £20 for a simple top?
Fuck it. I’ve never been a particularly ethical person. The world is going to burn by 2050 anyway, so let’s look at Shein.
As long as my packages aren’t lost in the North Sea before they arrive.
The options are endless, the site is horrible to navigate, but the clothes are cute. They’ll last if I take care of them, and I’ve
got some sewing skills, so I can patch them up when they break down. Every time I find something I really, really want, I delete
something from my cart that I just really want, as I still don’t want to spend too much. A cute, flouncy skirt. Oh, that cardigan,
but it’s £20 …
My phone rings and pulls me away from my laptop. Darren. I don’t know where he goes during the day anymore. “Business
meetings” and shit like that, but nothing ever comes of it. I’m half afraid he’ll end up meeting someone and ending up like
RuPaul in AJ and the Queen, where his character and his character’s boyfriend planned to build their own nightclub, but it
turns out Ru got scammed out of $100,000 and was left completely fucked.
If that clever character could be swindled, then Darren could be swindled much easier because he’s a fucking idiot.
I pick up the phone. “Hi, babe.”
“YOU NEED TO RUN. THOSE PEOPLE WERE LIARS. THEY WERE FUCKING LIARS, AND NOW YOU NEED TO
RUN AWAY AND HIDE WHERE THEY CAN’T FIND YOU.”
At first I think it’s one of those calls where scammers use AI to create a “loved one’s” voice in distress and try to scam you
out of bitcoin.
I reply, “What?”
“They’re liars, babe, liars! They said the money was for us, and we could spend it how we like, but they put this shit in the
contract, we had to spend it on, like, good deeds of our choice, and now they want me to pay it back. I don’t fucking have
£500,000 to pay back.”
“Wait—500,000? We had—we had almost 800,000 left this morning—what the fuck—”
“Look. I can’t talk. I either pay back the money I spent, or they come and take something else valuable that they want—you.
My woman. So I suggest you fucking run, babe. I’ll be doing the same. See you around, or not.”
And then he hangs up.
 CHAPTER 4
Lottie

It can’t be real. My skin is crawling, dripping with cold sweat. The world is kind of swimming, and it feels like the air has
thickened. I have no texts, no missed calls, but I have an email—of course I have an email. I had to give them my email address
as the partner of the guy they were doing business with.
Owed: £1 million
Earth IBAN: GB40BARC20037858666888
If not paid in full by the end of the week, we will take the woman as interest as per the contract.
If we detect either of you trying to run, then we will come sooner.
What the actual fuck. What the actual fuck.
Well, I can’t sit around and wait, because Darren is never paying that back. I have to run, and I have to run faster than they
can get to me. I pull up my bank login and find I can’t get in. The fuck? I try again, over and over, but the joined account that all
that money is in …
The rat bastard changed the password. And he lost his card two days ago, so I let him borrow mine. My old personal bank
account does have a bit of money in it—just under £2,400—and I’ve got about £1,500 in emergency cash in a fake dictionary.
My feet carry me to the stairs so quickly I face plant on it before rising and barreling up to my bedroom, where a fake
English dictionary holds my cash and the card connected to my PayPal business account.
I have no income. No, hang on, that’s not true. Those two stickers I sell on red bubble get me 20 quid every couple of
months. So next to no income.
This big, pink suitcase isn’t going to be easy to haul, but I start stuffing it with clothing, realize that shouldn’t be a priority,
so I get my toiletries and technology and shit, and the dictionary, oh, and I need knives as weapons from the kitchen—
Knock knock knock.
No fucking way. Absolutely fucking not.
I’ll have to do without the knives. I grab a pair of stilettos. The heels might be sharp enough to stab through someone.
Surely they will be if I hit hard enough? It’s not like the heels will break on contact with flesh. This bloke, Chris, tests heels on
Tik Tok. He’s done full workouts without them breaking. Yeah, they’ll be all right.
Underwear. Clothes. Special teddy bear …
They’re still knocking. How the fuck do I get out of the house? Jump out the window?
Smash.
I yelp, then I’m half tempted to sit down on the bed in defeat because it’s all over. But I’m not going down without a fight.
Wielding the Louis Vuitton Darren got me, I release a feral scream as I dart towards the top of the stairs and find a muscular
human man at the bottom of it with my door smashed in.
“Don’t hit me!” He throws his hands up. “Are you Contract 96 with Pifa? A transaction of £1 million and a townhouse?”
“Oh, wouldn’t you like to know.”
“Please. I’m not with them, I’m from Hogar.”
I lower the shoe immediately.
“Are you with Maria? She said she’s from some planet that starts with H. She talked to me and disappeared a few months
ago, she warned me that something bad might happen—”
“Oh, you mean Marialatis from the Hogentinien Empire?” The guy stares up at me, puzzled a moment. “No, I’m not with
her, but I know her. She protects my planet and several others.”
There’s a dangerous thud from overhead. I squeal like I did when the door crashed in, then scurry down the stairs, throwing
the shoe over my shoulder. I press myself up into the chest of this guy. It’s well-built and half dressed, like a stripper. His shirt
is sheer and has a deep V-neck that goes right down to his belly button. He’s hot and slightly slick.
And an alien.
I pull myself away from him when I realize that, then scream as three of those clone fuckers show up behind him at my
broken front door.
“One second.” He turns, his fist already pulled back, and takes all three of them out in a single punch.
Wowza.
Then, without waiting for me to respond, I scream again as I’m hauled up into this muscular monster’s arms. Monster? I
should call him a savior, but only someone monstrous can knock out three men with a single punch.
 Once in his arms, I feel safe. I throw my arms around his neck as he swings me out the door. There’s a growl from
somewhere up above. The world spins as the monster who saved me turns around and kicks one of the clones straight in the
face.
My stomach jumps into my throat and I’m ready to throw up the eggs I had for breakfast as the man holding me runs across
the road to an inconspicuous black car and throws me onto the back seat. The door slamming barely misses my feet, and he’s in
the driver’s seat seconds later.
The way the car lurches is so intense that we could be on a plane taking off. It squeals as we turn a corner, and as I push
myself up, I spy a car behind us with a clone in it.
“Oh my gosh,” I yelp. “Oh my gosh, they’re actually coming for me. They’re actually coming for me.”
“Yeah, they are. Their people have been fucked over for millions of years. So, naturally, they try to fuck over other people
on other planets now that they have freedom. Very logical. I’m Carveth, by the way, Carveth Methis. Warrior of Hogar.”
Warrior. Sounds a bit like another one of the books I read recently, which also cost me a big £5. There was this alien
warrior tribe, and this bloke really wanted to fuck this random woman. Thought she was his mate or something. I skimmed it. I
didn’t fancy the bloke, so all the sex was a bit icky to me.
“And why are you here for me?” I ask.
“Because I work with people from Hogar who help people from other planets stay safe from alien threats. Now the people
from Pifa want to start breeding and stop being a clone race, and they’re going about getting women all wrong. So, when
people are stupid enough to fall for their contracts and can’t pay the money back, they take women instead. Do you have a
name?”
“Of course I have a name,” I reply, which is extremely stupid, but I’m in shock. “Who doesn’t have a name?”
“Plenty of people. A lot of Hogentiniens hide their names behind titles. What’s your name?”
“Lottie.”
The car takes its strongest left yet and I’m thrown against the back of the front passenger seat. I swear loudly.
“Nice to meet you, Lottie,” says Carveth, his eyes still on the road. “Sorry our introduction came while you were running
for your life.”
I’m still being thrown around this car. I should put on a seatbelt, but I can’t bring myself to do it. His words, my eractic
heartbeat, and my rattling brain only bring one thing to mind: “Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life!”
I shout it in a Northern accent because quotes are apparently all my brain can deal with right now. Quotes from shows
about aliens while I’m being rescued from bad ones by a good one.
“What the hell was that?” shoots Carveth over his shoulder.
“It’s from a TV show.”
We disappear into a tunnel, but the rumbling of another engine and the screeching of wheels still fill the air. Despite that,
Carveth chuckles and says, “Yeah, I hear Earth TV is good. You can show me that show if we get out of this alive.”
 CHAPTER 5
Carveth

I’ll give the divine that. They did force us into meeting, or they foresaw it, or some shit. And at least it wasn’t some stupid,
grand special moment like in those movies that came out recently, where every time a man met his fated mate, it was life-
changing.
Yeah, they literally made movies about three of fellow warriors who have fated mates. Each one saw their journey play out
on screen, written by a scribe who was made into a literary post-prophet. A.k.a., they had the stories put into their head by the
divine and made movies about them. The first one was okay. Normal, even, but the second one was just annoying. My poor
fated former classmate was besotted and desperate as he sought out his mate on Earth and was forced, over and over, to prove
his love for a woman who cared nothing for him. This fated mate stuff isn’t fair on the men forced to love strangers and the
women forced to have strangers obsessed with them.
Nobody should be forced or guilted into loving somebody.
Although I never wanted to be a warrior in the War of Wars, I am grateful for the genetic mutation, or gift, or whatever it
is, that I was given. Every warrior has something done to them to make them better for war; those guys they made movies about
can turn into a tiger, have a big weapon tail thing, and can reproduce to create the next generation twice as fast as an average
man. Me? I can shut out the hardship of war by literally turning off certain feelings. And that works against the mate bond very
well, because that’s one I can turn off.
Meanwhile, Lottie wouldn’t be able to feel the mate bond unless I were to let myself feel it, and then we were to seal the
bond by fucking each other, with me coming inside her. That would activate the feelings of the bond in her. And since she has a
boyfriend, that’s clearly not going to happen any time soon.
We finally shake loose the car chasing us, and I set a course for the launch facility. Lottie deflates in the back, and I glance
at her in the rearview mirror of this weird Earth vehicle. I don’t like that you have to manually drive it.
“I can’t fucking believe Darren,” she says.
I smirk. Even though I just said it was a good thing that she has a boyfriend, I do like tearing down people who deserve it.
“Oh yeah?”
“I knew he was stupid. He’s made some bad business decisions and dodgy deals. I didn’t know he was that stupid. I told
him to read that fucking contract. And he wouldn’t let me near it to read it for him, which I would’ve been more than willing to
do.”
The human woman knots her arms. She’s slender with long limbs, and lengthy, untamed wavy blonde hair, giving her a sort
of willowy appearance that isn’t unappealing. She has plump lips that pout on her thin face as she glares with dark-ringed eyes
out the windshield.
“Right, so what’s happening?” she asks, her eyes sliding over to me.
“We get to the launch facility and I take you on a six hour ride to my planet.”
“Six hours? Where the fuck is your planet? Is it like, right above us? Doesn’t it take like, six months to even get to the
moon?”
She’s awfully calm for a woman who’s just been told she’s being taken off-world.
“I don’t know anything about your moon, but our planet is very far from yours, so I wouldn’t try to judge distance by the
time it takes to get there. We have …” Damn it. I have all this training from my job working with people from different worlds,
yet this is my first encounter like this, so it’s all mixed up in my head. “Which is Earth again? Star Wars, Star Boy Run, or
Elminiza’s Ship?”
“I’ve only heard of Star Wars.”
“Well, think of the ship we’re going on as being like the millennial falcon from Star Wars. Very fast, faster than light,
practically defying the laws of physics.”
She smiles at me. She only holds it for a second, then presses her lips together and looks down at her lap like I’ve amused
her. My brows drop.
“What?”
“It’s the Millennium Falcon. A millennial is what people insist upon calling a generation of people born between certain
years or something. It’s all just stereotyping and putting people in boxes and nonsense, but a ‘millennial’ falcon is basically
like, a 30-year-old falcon who’s not able to afford a house, wears skinny jeans, parts their hair at the side, and calls their dogs
‘doggo.’ Oh, I hate that last one, though, so the younger generation do have a point about that being embarrassing. I don’t even
know which generation I’m from, so I must sound like a twat saying ‘the younger generation’ if I’m one of them, too.”
 None of my training could’ve prepared me for this slew of language and culture that I can’t understand. I should’ve just
said, “The ship from Star Wars.”
“Anyway, so I’m going to your planet?” she says. “Hidden away, like I’m in the witness protection program or something?”
Witness protection! That’s another thing I learned in my training, specific to Earth, that I should’ve thought of but was too
overwhelmed to have come to mind.
“It’s exactly like that, yes. You’ll be coming to my planet, and the goal is to adapt and blend in fast. I’ve got your backstory
and a place to stay, and I’ll be working to try and get this whole situation resolved so you can go home.”
We’ve finally driven out of the city, heading along the road that’ll eventually take us to the airport. The airport is called
Luton, and apparently, it’s a bad airport. Well, given that they’ve secretly got a massive department for space travel hidden in
the same location, I’m not surprised that the little “airplanes” and the humans who fly in them have to suffer.
“And who are they? Those people who want me?” ask Lottie.
“Bad news.” I grumble a little. “The people of my planet were said to be at war with them, with a battle taking place every
666 years. Well, all of that turned out to be a lie, and we finally started getting to know who they really are. A lot of the people
from the planet were broken, and they needed some serious help to reform things. But now that they have almost reformed,
they’ve learned fast and have taken to manipulating people from other planets to get what they want—and what they want is any
sex that they can breed with, like females and a couple of others you don’t have on your planet. The people who want you are
actually really wealthy because they have a resource they can sell, and they finally started selling it to pull their scams. They
only work with stupid people who don’t read contracts and will inevitably spend their money wrong, be asked to give it back,
and have to give up a woman as repayment instead.”
I wonder if she’s going to balk at me calling her boyfriend stupid, but she just rolls her eyes. I don’t think she’s rolling them
at me.
“Well, I guess it’s a good thing they put you on my case, isn’t it? To keep me safe after what that idiot did. If he was here
right now …”
She scowls and starts mumbling, then looks away from me. I like that she’s not arguing against me taking her away to a
whole other planet. Though she seems feisty enough, she’s also docile where it matters.
“Can you put the radio on?” she asks.
I comply. Some song unlike the type of music we have in my planet comes on—not that we have much music, particularly
music with words—and her ears perk up like a dog realizing their owner has just walked over to the treats cupboard. She starts
singing along to the female voice who, at the end of the song, the radio announcer refers to as Taylor Hale.
She sings along with half the songs on the radio until we reach Luton, then drive through an invisible shield that allows us
to see the alien half of the facility. I march Lottie ahead of me and feel almost like I’m leading a prisoner, but she comes
willingly, wide-eyed and wonder filled as we quickly check in and are led to our ship.
She’s even willowy in how she walks, and a little flouncy, and her hips have a sway that catches me offguard. The tight
clothing hugs her body and draws my eyes to the narrowing of her waist and the flare of her hips and thighs. She wears a short
skirt, her long, slender legs mostly exposed with slightly sheer black fabric covering them.
Ah, shit. My cock responds to the visual presented to me. If she wasn’t my mate, I would probably seek to fuck her at some
point, if she was willing. Even now, my hands want to reach out and see how her body feels beneath them.
As soon as we pass through the narrow corridor from the entrance that leads to the leisure quarters, Lottie hops right over
to the sofa and sits on it with her legs crossed. She frowns, readjusts herself, seemingly realizes it’s just that hard, then beams
up at me.
“So, what are we going to do for six hours?”
The way her shoulders curl forward makes her collarbone stick out, and her low-cut shirt would make it very easy for me
to see down it and stare at her breasts if I let myself. My cock wants that very much.
She has no luggage, so she’ll probably have to wear Hogar attire, which is sheer on top and will expose her breasts to me.
That’s going to make it much harder to resist this rare beauty. Real blonde hair is so uncommon on Hogar, and with the exotic
and tight clothing she wears on top of it all …
Fuck, why did this woman have to be my mate?
I’ll need to buy her more clothes from her planet, because I don’t think I can handle seeing her with her breasts exposed.
“I’m going to work,” I inform her, “and you can do anything you like. Just don’t break anything, and don’t bother the pilot,
alright?”
Lottie raises an arm stiffly, all of her fingers sticking out rigid. She puts the backs of her fingers against her forehead, then
lowers it. It must be some human gesture I don’t understand, so I offer her a wry smile before I pass into the next corridor and
look for one of the on-board offices to make a call and let everybody know that I rescued Lottie safely.
As I slide behind the desk and the movement pushes my clothes tighter against my cock, I squirm a little and groan at the
friction. As my hips grind down into the chair, I almost want to stop, and if I’m not careful, I’ll slowly hump my way to an
orgasm while working. It wouldn’t be the first time.
 I can practically feel the divine watching me, laughing and taunting me for being aroused by a woman I can never fuck
because she’s my mate.
But if I can’t feel it, then she’s not actually my mate, and she will never be my mate.
I’ll just have to take care of this erection with her in my mind, but not in my lap. That, at least, should tide me over until I
have to go back out there and see her again.
 CHAPTER 6
Lottie

This ship is a bit like a flying hotel. There’s a big, hard cream couch on the left, L-shaped and up against the walls, and then
there’s a kitchen area on the right. It looks almost like one of those pretentious “modern” houses in how it’s shaped, because
that area is recognizably a kitchen but also not like what you’d see in a normal house on Earth. Also, the mugs and glasses are a
weird shape.
I don’t bother going the way Carveth came. Is that even his name? I literally don’t remember to be honest, and I’m kind of
too mortified to ask. I go the direction we came from, branching off the corridor we came down to get to this room, and I find a
closed door that I knock on. Someone pulls it open, a woman I think, but I can’t assume because she’s an alien. She looks like a
woman though, an Earth one, with sandy hair and gold eyeliner.
And—holy fucking shitballs.
She’s got her tits out. Her top is see-through, pale pink but totally sheer.
“Hello, are you the human?” she greets me. “I’m Kelethen. Here to help you out with anything you need while you’re on the
ship. I thought I’d be dealing with Carveth.”
“He went to work.” Saying that feels weird, because technically rescuing me is work, but I’m not gonna question it. “That
is his name, right? I got it right? Carveth.”
The woman whose name I’ve already forgotten chuckles. “Yeah, you’re completely right.”
I feel a bit like an idiot standing here. Like, it’s not like I need anything. I was just exploring. I think of the man who rescued
me, this big, strong brute, who said he was a warrior or something. I have to ask, so this woman tells me a bit about him.
Basically, he works with the Hogar and Allies Peace Program. He sits on councils to settle disputes between planets,
rescues innocents when planets go to physical war, and has recently been assigned to stopping the people of Pifa following
through on their new plots to forcibly get women onto their planet.
A big old alien hero, then, I conclude as I leave Kelethen—her co-worker called her by name, thank fuck, so I didn’t have
to ask again—alone and head back to the couch, wishing I had my stuff so I could play on my phone or something. Maybe read
a book. Shit, could I even charge my Kindle out here? Probably not, and I don’t think I have any books on it that I haven’t read
anyway.
When I get back out, Carveth is sitting at the little kitchen table sipping something from one of those funny looking glasses. I
join him uninvited.
“Can I get some of that?” I ask.
“I don’t know, do you drink alcohol?”
He’s looking at a funny sort of holographic tablet thing that I can’t read. It’s just like, a blue glow from my perspective. I tilt
my head, noting the stuff in his glass looks a bit like whiskey.
“So aliens drink alcohol, do they?”
“Actually, no.” Carveth looks up and the blue glow disappears, so he doesn’t have this freaky light on his face anymore.
He’s handsome. Very handsome, actually. Gorgeous like a man you’d find it impossible to resist approaching in a bar. “There’s
no alcohol on my planet, but this is from the Hogentinien Empire.”
Hogentinien Empire. Where Maria is from. Maria who went invisible.
“And what’s that place like?”
“It’s made up of four planets with gaps between them that defy the laws of physics, in proximity to five stars, and has a big
asteroid in the middle, suspended in midair, connected by bridges to all four planets, with a diamond city built on its back. The
people there are among the most powerful in the universe, but they try to stay out of affairs. They have the ability to travel
through space and time, but they try not to use it.”
He stares into my eyes as he speaks to me, like his gaze is careful, and his tone equally so. I can tell he’s being frank with
me, probably not wanting to forge personal connections because I’m just some human he’s had to rescue.
“Time travel. Interesting. Is that where that one actor’s from? The time traveling one with the singer friend who’s famous
for being slutty and playing himself on TV?”
“There are no well-known Hogentiniens on Earth, no,” Carveth replies, “so although I don’t know who you’re talking
about, I can tell you that they aren’t from the Hogentinien Empire. I am aware that there is a man on Earth from a planet with
similarities to the Hogentinien Empire, though I don’t know much about him or his species.”
It’s weird. I’d expect an alien to know everything. Especially one in his line of work. But I guess my planet is as foreign to
him as his is to me. Well, a bit less foreign to him, but foreign enough.
 I survey him. He looks down at that thing again, though he doesn’t activate it. It’s just a bar when inactive.
He’s wearing the same type of shirt as that woman, except much lower cut and in black. I can see every muscle on him, big
pecs and abs, and his biceps are the type you want to run your tongue along while he fingers you.
Calm down, Lottie.
“You’re big,” I observe. “Is that natural, like, for your species, or do you work out a lot?”
I think this is the first I’ve seen him smile, and it’s a little bit cocky. The way his mouth twists up all slow and precise, like
he’s trying to be controlled.
“Both.”
I bite my lip automatically as I imagine him at the gym, doing bicep curls or maybe getting on the rowing machine. I’d like
to have a look at his back. If he’s got a nice back, then he’ll definitely fit my definition of tall, dark, and handsome.
“Darren would kill for a body like that,” I say vaguely, picturing muscular lats.
“Oh yeah? He’s a murderer as well as an idiot, is he?”
His smirk has turned into a more genuine smile, and his eyebrows have raised playfully. It seems there’s more to my savior
than meets the eye.
“No, just an idiot. He wouldn’t actually murder anyone. Although he can get violent with people he doesn’t like. I’ve seen
him break a few jaws. It’s horrible, actually.”
“And why exactly were you with a violent idiot who abandoned you at the first sign of trouble?”
I’ve asked myself that plenty of times. And unfortunately, I’ve answered it after every single instance.
“Because where the hell else was I gonna go?”
That gets his attention. His brows drop like those of a dog who can’t see the squeaky toy being squeezed behind their
owner’s back. That flicker of concern makes me warm up to him more.
“I don’t understand. Where else could you have gone?”
“Nowhere. That’s the problem,” I answer.
I give him the basics. Darren was my job and my place to live. My parents are dead. My only good friend turned out to be a
bitch. All my other friends are online or just acquaintances I saw one night a week at the club. I’ve got no real education, no
good work experience, no decent savings, no family, no prospects.
“I could’ve done something. Could’ve been something with that business, but Darren was too much of an idiot to let me. So
I was stuck in limbo.”
Carveth slides his own drink across the table and rises. Grinning at my victory—depressing as it was—I take a sip of the
stuff and wince. It’s like somebody mixed acid with honey, except the acid has notes of oak that make it good.
When Carveth returns to the table, he’s got a second glass and a bottle. It looks like the Coca-Cola bottle from when it was
first released, but double the size, and it’s about half full of this mysterious liquid. There’s a broken wax seal near the cap, and
the label bears some kind of coat of arms except instead of swords, there are wings over the shield.
He pours another drink and downs it in one. I smirk, shoot mine, and watch as he pours out two more measures. Something
about his big, manly hand wrapped around the bottle makes me clench my thighs under the table.
I’m finally free of Darren. And this big, strong hero just saved my life.
“You know, I fucking hate planets like yours,” he says, and the tingle between my thighs disappears. “Hell, mine is not that
great, either. We don’t have poor people, but we do have wealth inequality. Did you know I’m a billionaire, Lottie? Can you
tell? I bet you can’t, because all people are the same, and nobody deserves a billion of a currency more than anybody else.”
My eyebrows want to be in my hairline, but I don’t let them raise.
“If you’re a billionaire, why are you doing this job?”
“Because my family is noble, and if we fall from grace, our billions mean nothing. My old classmate’s family fell out of
nobility, and without their contacts, they lost access to their accounts and their assets were frozen for years. That’s what
happens where I’m from. You have to be worth something to be rich. Then under that, there are the well-off who earned it, and
then everybody else below that is just comfortable. And I don’t understand why we’re not all just comfortable.”
He drinks his second measure of this oak honey stuff as a shot. With his build, it would take a hell of a lot to get him drunk,
so his loose tongue must come from being comfortable around me. Or maybe I’m underestimating the strength of the alcohol,
though I feel nothing from it.
“A gorgeous guy who cares about social issues,” I say, letting out a dreamy sigh. “I do like that, Carveth. I like that very
much.”
I take a sip of my second drink, and I don’t feel a flood of warmth or the gentle tickle of alcohol in my brain. There’s
sharpness in my throat, but that’s it. Maybe I’m comfortable around him, too, and it’s got me looser than normal.
“I like that you’re complimentary, but you’re not pushy,” says Carveth. “Many women who compliment me later push
themselves on me or try to proposition me.”
I know he’s an alien, but he could just be a normal bloke I’ve approached at a bar. He speaks to me like an equal, like he’s
not some big important billionaire, big important savior, big important … something or other.
 “Well, I’d be running my foot up your leg if you weren’t an alien. That’s a thing we do on Earth when flirting.”
“So soon after breaking up with your ex?”
My eyes roll automatically at the mention of Darren. I take a sniff in, noting the sweet but somewhat sharp scent of my drink
as I take another sip then place the glass down.
“I’ve been mentally separated from him for a year and a half, mate. I’m glad to be shot of him.”
I lean forward, resting my elbows on the table. I’m getting drowsy. Maybe the exertion of thinking I was going to die, being
flung around the car, and the drink, have tired me prematurely. I feel my top fall away from my chest, then lean forward further,
squeezing my arms in a bit. It’s probably really stupid, but I’m wondering if he’s gonna look down my top. That crew member
had her tits out, and so did her co-worker behind her. He’s probably used to seeing tits, probably curious about mine, and eager
to take a look.
Carveth refills my half-sipped second glass of this drink that seems to be called Myavenue, then rises.
“I have more work to do,” he says, then takes that little bar thing that glowed in the shape of a tablet when I came in.
My eyes drop to the table. He did compliment me on not being too forward, so maybe I pushed it a bit. I rise, thankfully
steady, and head for the couch as he leaves for the door.
“There aren’t any blankets on the ship, are there?” I ask.
Carveth just looks over his shoulder as I settle myself onto the hard surface of the couch, frown at it, then pull my legs up
under me. He doesn’t answer before he leaves, so I take it as a no and as a sign that I offended him.
Fuck. How am I gonna avoid offending the other aliens on his planet? We might have entirely different customs. Carveth
just knows about the Earth stuff because he’s trained to deal with people from other planets.
Though my drink is in my hand, I don’t take another sip, because I’m afraid it’ll send me down a path I don’t want to
traverse. I’m feeling quite warm, and a bit needy. Maybe I can pluck one of these cushions off the back of the couch and use that
as—
Carveth returns with a blanket draped over his shoulder and two pillows under each arm. I blink stupidly for a second
before pushing myself off the couch. He puts two of the pillows where I’ve just been sitting, and when I clamber back on, he
hands me the other two pillows to arrange around myself as I like. I the blanket over my lap, then he gently taps my shoulder
with one thick finger.
He’s so tall. I didn’t notice it when we were running, even while we were walking, because I was so fascinated by our
surroundings. But here he towers over me, and I feel small but safe. Not small but belittled the way I do with Darren.
Carveth waves his hand at the wall directly across from the sofa. It lights up white. I raise my eyebrows as he points, and
corresponding to his finger, a red dot appears on the screen. He navigates to a menu of what are unmistakably channels on the
equivalent of a television.
“It’ll work for anyone,” he says. “Try not to have the volume too loud, and if any of the channels need a password, it’s
pound, pound, pound six.”
He pulls up a menu and points to the signs he means. Pound. I haven’t heard someone call a hashtag that forever.
“Cheers,” I say, to a frown from Carveth, so I correct myself, “Thanks.”
He gives me a stiff nod then walks away, his arms swaying slightly at his sides.
Cheers. He didn’t get that. How much of what I’ve been saying is confusing to him? His accent is American, and he seems
to speak perfect English, or maybe there’s some sort of translator chip or language
translating forcefield surrounding me or something.
I should probably ask, but as I flick through the channels and snuggle into this furry blanket, I find I don’t really care.
 CHAPTER 7
Carveth

“So, are you like The Doctor?”

My brows drop as my eyes slide over to the human curled up on the sofa, snuggled under a furry blanket and surrounded by
pillows. She’s put the television volume on low, and she’s staring at me while I’m browsing the ether for information on how
to take care of humans.
None of this information is informative, so I’m going to have to go on instinct alone.
“I’m not a doctor,” I answer. “All doctors only practice theory on my planet, anyway, because mated women have powers,
and those powers can heal most ailments.”
Lottie bites her lip as she giggles, her gaze falling down to her lap.
“The Doctor is an alien from a TV show on Earth.”
Lottie proceeds to spend the next 10 minutes explaining the most convoluted alien time travel show I’ve ever heard of.
She gets to, “She was this really fit woman, and then she was David Tennant again, love him, and then she was also Eric
from Sex Education, well, he was Eric from Sex Education, and running round in his pants …”
Then she eventually stops for long enough for me to say I’m nothing like any of that stuff she just described. Although, I do
like the sound of Donna Noble.
When she asks me if I’m like “Those two from My Parents Are Aliens,” her explanation of the show is shorter, and I’m still
nothing like what she described.
“Okay, are you anything like—”
“Look, I’m sure your planet has many great pieces of media about aliens, but I highly doubt I’m like any of them,” I say
eventually, and she stops, smiling.
I look back at the ether. An article titled “How to Care for Your Human Mate” makes me turn it off.
“You don’t seem like an alien,” says Lottie.
My first thought is neither do you, but that’s unhelpful. I’m well aware that people from Earth, and many other planets
come to think of it, feel like they’re the normal ones, and everyone else is some big, absurd extra terrestrial.
“Would you like me to grow an extra limb like the Letra?” I try to grin at her so she knows I’m not being an ass. “Or scales
and claws like the Mesthevens when they fight?”
“No, I like looking at you the way you are.”
My eyebrow raises, but I don’t say anything. She wouldn’t be the first person to say something like that to me, though she
would be the first human, and the first person to say it who also happens to be my fated mate.
I almost had a heart attack when she called me “mate” earlier, but luckily, the ether told me it’s slang. I have to ignore most
of what I’ve seen on it, though, the way I’m ignoring the stirrings of my cock every time I glance at her.
I’ll care for Lottie the way I’ve cared for the only other person in my life who’s been my responsibility. Incidentally, he’s
also from Earth, though I met him when he was brought to Hogar by a human who couldn’t look after him and his siblings as
well as the mother.
I cross the room in just a few strides. Even though there’s a lot of room on the sofa, Lottie slides her legs onto the floor so I
can sit next to her. Once I’m settled, she puts some of her blanket over me. My eyes browse over her curiously, but she doesn’t
seem to have any motive, and sits attentively with her hands cupped in her lap, looking at the ether stick in my hand.
Admittedly, I’m glad of the blanket over my crotch, because I could easily see right down her shirt if I craned my neck a
little, and oh, do I want to. The mere thought is getting me hard for her.
I slap the stick against my hand three times and it grows into a solid thing with a screen like she’d know from Earth.
“I want you to do some shopping,” I inform her, as I type in my passcode on the smooth screen surface. I like having
something under my fingertips instead of just hoping I’m tapping the right part of the air. “From Earth. Groceries. Toiletries.
Have a shopping spree. You’ll need supplies when we get to my planet.”
Lottie laughs. She places a long-fingered hand over her mouth. Her nails are long and the tips are so precise, each strip of
white the same size with a perfect curve, that they can’t be real.
“That’s ironic. I was shopping when I found out that I was fucked.”
It takes me a moment to realize she’s using “fucked” to mean “in a very bad situation” and not sexually. Her perfume is so
strong that it breaks through my conscious efforts not to sniff, and the heat of her body is evident even with inches between us.
My body wants her despite my mind’s best efforts to stay formal.
“Well, shop for what you were shopping for before the interruption, too, if you need to.”
I hand her the ether. She stares down at it and says, “Well, I was shopping for clothes. And I saw these two women from
your planet … does everyone walk around with their tits out?”
There’s a rush of blood to my cheeks and my cock in one swift move. Don’t think about her breasts. Don’t think about
her fucking breasts. I’m rock hard under the blanket, because my mind will not obey.
“Yes, that is the clothing style on Hogar,” I answer carefully. “All non-lounge clothing for women is like that.”
“I’m not sure that’s really me,” says Lottie, which doesn’t surprise me in the slightest given Earth’s obsession with
modesty. “Don’t get me wrong—I’m gonna like looking at it. A lot. But probably not wearing it.”
I prepare to tell her that her not wearing that attire fits with her backstory, but I cut off after realizing something.
“I never got to tell you the backstory I came up with,” I say. “I was thinking you’d pretend to be my maid. It’s a common
position for humans who move to Hogar, and my species will be able to smell that you’re human. You don’t actually have to do
the work, but it will explain why you’re staying with me.”
Lottie’s eyebrows raise. “I’m staying with you?”
“You are. Your upkeep is paid for by my bosses, but if there’s anything extra you need, you know I can pay for it. Does that
sound okay to you? It’s only temporary. Until we get Pifa off your back and you can return home.”
I’m trying to sound as sincere and unintimidating as I can. I’m aware women are wary of men on Earth, because for many
centuries, men got away with far too much and women took the brunt of it. Apparently, men can still be quite scary on that
planet. All people can, really, but Earth is one of those weird planets where the people are so stupid that they developed
inequality and a power imbalance between the common sexes.
And, being an alien with a build like mine, she has another reason to be frightened of me.
“That sounds fine,” she says. “I can buy some clothes? Earth ones?”
“Of course. You’re welcome to buy Hogar clothing or Earth clothing. Nobody will judge you for either. Just add it to the
list of what you need to buy. It may take a few days longer to arrive than you’re used to, because it takes a couple of days to go
through the intergalactic shipment facility, but it will arrive.”
Lottie has been very free and giving with her smiles all day, but now is the first time I see some shyness in one. Her pale
face is tinged with pink as she looks down at the ether and opens a website called Shein, and she’s a little stiff and slow at first
before she settles into a rhythm with her shopping.
“Thank you,” she says, when she starts browsing what appears to be clothes. I tell her she’s welcome, warmth spreading
throughout my chest.
I hate that she asks me “Is this okay?” before every item she puts in her cart, then relays the price. I have to assure her she
can buy literally anything she wants to any expense thrice before she believes me and stops asking.
We pass the rest of our journey with idle chatting, and we come up with the backstory of how she ended up on Hogar.
“I’ll be really good at pretending, don’t worry,” she says. “I actually did theater back in school. I was Anita in West Side
Story because they were short one Spanish girl and I taught myself Spanish because I liked going there so much on holiday as a
kid before my granny died.”
She sings for me and explains the plot of West Side Story, which I’d quite like to see from her description. I can see her
captivating an audience on stage; she’s charming, even when she starts yawning and dozing.
When our ship finally docks, I prepare to teleport us to my home. She takes my arm lazily and doesn’t even flinch as we go
straight from the sofa on the ship to the hallway of my home.
She wakes up a little for the tour, her eyes wide as she compliments my decor. I’m not sure how sincere she’s being, as the
place is a light color scheme, and she’s dressed in dark clothing with dark makeup.
“You can borrow some of my loungewear for the night,” I say. “And don’t worry, it’s not like this.” I point at my shirt, sheer
and low-cut. For the first time, I wonder if she’s been admiring my body the way I admire hers.
“You don’t have to,” she says. “I don’t wanna be any trouble. I could just sleep in my underwear.”
Oh, I’m so tempted to say yes, and so angry that she’s put that image in my head. I’ve heard of Earth underwear, caught
glimpses of straps falling from the shoulders of Earth women, and if what I know of it is right, most of her skin would be
exposed were she to sleep like that.
If she got up at night, and I happened to be awake …
I almost groan with neediness. Her being here is going to be really hard for me. Literally.
“It’s no trouble. I can assure you that. I’ll show you to your room and bring everything along.”
My guestroom is nothing fancy. There’s a walk-in room for clothing, a walk-in bathroom, a large bed with a heated
mattress, a nice window, and extra blankets and pillows in a chest at the end of the bed. There’s a little sofa nestled into what
we call a dip window, but what Earth English calls a bay window. Lottie goes straight over to that and runs her fingers along
the soft surface of the hard sofa.
She’s staring out the window when I return, at the pair of moons hanging in a star-strewn sky. Stars that are different from
the one she’s used to. I hand her a pair of tan pants that’ll be miles too big for her and a sleeveless shirt that’ll fall to her knees
like a dress.
“Thank you,” she says in a small voice, like she’s not sure she’s entitled to my hospitality.
 “I’ll order you Hogar loungewear and sleeping clothes tonight. None of it will expose your chest, and I’ll pay for overnight
shipping. To tide you over until your things from Earth come.”
She smiles up at me, her usually large and bright eyes looking small and tired now. Her voice is little, too, when she says,
“Thank you, Carveth. For everything.”
“Oh, I’m just doing my job,” I say, then leave her in peace.
I’m glad each room in my home is soundproof, because I don’t want to hear if she cries for home.
I stretch my muscles after a long day of sitting and head to the neighbor to pick up my baby, who I didn’t want to leave
home alone all day. My precious, bouncy, tiny little giant 84-pound baby bounces out of the neighbor’s house, wiggling and
wagging his tail, snuffling with his adorable, long greyhound/labrador beak.
“You’ll have a new playmate tomorrow, if this human is into dogs,” I inform him as he follows me, wiggling and leaping.
Beaky and I enter the kitchen to find Lottie there, dressed in just my shirt, which stops midway down her thighs. I freeze a
moment, staring at the many inches of creamy, pale skin going down to the floor, then swallow back yearning.
It’s been awhile since I saw a woman that exposed, and it feels wrong for someone to look so cute yet so painfully sexy at
the same time.
Beaky ruins it by making Lottie shriek as he jumps on her. She hits the floor, her eyes wide, and I run forward to apologize.
Before I can ,she shouts, “Baby!” and throws her arms around the neck of the dog trying to lick her face.
“Well, that answers the question of whether or not you like dogs,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck. “Relax, Beaky.”
Beaky follows my command and starts circling Lottie as she stands, her teeth touching her bottom lip.
“I was just wondering if you had any milk?” she asks.
“The closest thing we have to your milk is very nutty. It comes from an animal, but it tastes … just very different. I can have
milk imported for you.”
“Oh, I bought it as part of my groceries. But that’s very kind of you to offer.”
I can’t help how my eyebrows raise at that.
“Is it? I wouldn’t call it kind. I would consider everything I’ve done today the absolute basics someone should do when
taking care of someone. This is a new planet, and it’s scary for you, so I’m trying to make it as comfortable as you need it to
be.”
Beaky shoves his beak into Lottie’s hand as it hangs by her side, and she pets him, her fingers reaching for his silky-smooth
ear. He makes a low groaning noise in his throat and leans into it, which makes her giggle.
Then her eyes are back on me. “Well, I see it as kindness. Could I get some of that nutty milk though? We have nut milk on
Earth. Well, it’s like, nut juice. It comes from almonds or hazelnuts. And there’s one that comes from oats.”
Earth has more than one type of milk? I know they have one that comes from cows, which are similar to Mehol in their
milk-producing purpose, but the taste is different.
“And is there a way to warm it?” she adds.
“I’ll bring it up to you,” I tell her, because I doubt she’d know how to use anything in this kitchen.
Lottie’s next smile is shy, and the joy in her eyes makes me pause. She crosses the room in a couple of steps and places a
hand on my arm, a touch I almost shrink away from. She stands on tiptoe, so I dip a little because she seems to be struggling to
do what she wants. She places a soft kiss on my cheek, which makes the skin burn, and suddenly, I want to wrap her up in my
arms and whisper to her that it’s going to be okay, and that she is going to survive on this planet.
How stupid of me. I push that nonsense away at once.
“Bye Beaky,” she says, kissing the top of his beak the way she kissed my cheek, before she pads out of the room.
The sway of her hips under my overlarge shirt mesmerizes me so much that I almost don’t notice Beaky following her.
“Oh, no, baby,” she says. “No, you go back to your daddy. I’m just a stranger. I don’t want to steal you.”
Very uncharacteristic words come out of my mouth. I haven’t spent a night without my baby in almost seven years.
“Take him. Being alone can be scary your first night on a new planet. He’ll help.”
The way her face lights up is like I’ve just made her a millionaire. But like I actually shared it with her the way her no good
boyfriend didn’t.
She gives me a small wave and scurries up my stairs. I stand in the doorway of the kitchen, watching her go, Beaky
following obediently. I can’t take my eyes off Lottie’s legs. I groan as my cock responds to how they slide by, teasing me as
they vanish up the stairs.
It’s going to be a challenge to keep myself at a distance from her.
Technically I could fuck her, but it wouldn’t be fair. Because then we’d be bonded, and even if I didn’t come inside her, my
precum could very well seal the bond. I think, anyway.
And then the mate bond would be formed. I wouldn’t be able to feel it, and I don’t know if she would. Both sound like a
curse. I can’t force her to be in love with me, and that’s what her feeling the mate bond would do.
I turn away, ignoring the no-longer-soft cock rubbing against my leather pants and asking for attention, so I can bring Lottie
warm Mehol milk as well as Beaky’s toy duck that he likes to sleep with.
 Beaky also likes sleeping with an enormous stuffed penis plush toy—I got it as a joke from a human I helped once, and he
imprinted on it—but I’m not going to present that to Lottie. It’s bad enough that she’s got mine standing to attention, and if I
thought she was thinking about me and cocks in the same sentence, it’d drive me over the edge.
 CHAPTER 8
Lottie

I wake up and immediately yelp because I’m on the edge of the bed and a giant creature has got his hands and feet pressed into
me.
When I remember who it is, I become the personification of that emoji that’s a little smile with the hearts circling its head.
Beaky.
This dog smells like a really sexy man. When I roll over, I realize that smell is actually coming from the clothes I’ve got on.
They smell like a mixture of fresh laundry and hot guy. So do the bedsheets. I didn’t notice that last night. I wonder if fabric
softener on Hogar has traces of cologne.
I have even less room now that I’m on my back, but I pull the blanket up to my chin and just lay here. I can’t feel any of the
springs like I can with my old old mattress, and it isn’t overly firm like my old mattress from the townhouse. I’m warm, and I
don’t feel rushed to get out of bed. I haven’t felt this safe since I stayed with Darren’s mum after Darren and me got into a car
crash, he had to stay in hospital overnight, and I couldn’t get a lift back to our place until the next morning.
She made me breakfast in bed and told me I was always welcome. Then she died, and his dad is a prick.
I felt a bit exposed last night being found in the kitchen with no bottoms on, but it was just meant to be a quick trip. I slide
the soft fabric of the lounge bottoms up my legs and secure them with the belt I was wearing on my skirt yesterday to head
down to the kitchen. Beaky follows as if I’ve been training him for years.
The unmistakable smell of coffee and the sound of something frying meets my ears as I head for the kitchen, which is
conveniently located right next to the stairs. For a rich guy, Carveth lives in a modest house.
Beaky bounces into the kitchen, his entire lower half wiggling, and I follow him. A huge pile of bags on the table pulls my
eyes to the right, and I glance over to the left to see Carveth’s back to me while he prods something in some kind of cooking
utensil. Next to him, by the sink—
“Maria!”
I jump forward before I have time to question myself, but she meets me halfway and hugs me like we’ve known each other
years. She squeezes me tight, hand running down the length of my messy hair.
“Everything’s okay, Lottie. Sorry this happened, but I told you we were on it. Didn’t I?”
I nod against her as we come apart. My eyes slide between her and Carveth, who has turned around and taken the eggs off
the heat. Because that’s what I can smell now, as he places what looks kind of like a plate onto some sort of square thing next to
a shiny, chrome coffee machine that wasn’t there the night before.
“Carveth got in contact late last night, and I went and got everything you ordered as soon as it arrived at the intergalactic
shipment facility,” says Maria, drawing my attention back from the man I have yet to greet, who is now crouching to kiss his
dog all over the muzzle. “Time travel has its perks. And if there’s anything else you need, I can go to Earth in a flash. Like I
said. Time travel.”
Time travel. I knew it was real, and I knew there was only one person on my entire planet who is known to do it. I just kind
of accepted it and moved on when I found out about it being real back in … what was it, 2006, I think? I was just a kid, and I
thought it was fake until I looked into it when I grew up. But it, and the bloke who can do it, are definitely real.
When I ask Maria to explain, she tells me about her ship. Basically, it’s invisible unless you know it’s there, and it can
travel anywhere in time and space in seconds. It can even travel to other universes within the omniverse.
“Although, some would call it an infinitiverse,” she reflects.
“That’s so cool!” I must look like a mad woman with my enthusiasm.
“Yeah, a lot of people think that, but it’s just normal to us. We try not to talk about it too much, because people get
interested, and—”
“Can I have a go? Time traveling?”
Maria is a lot prettier in the light, and a bit motherly.
“Unfortunately not. Every trip has to be approved by the government unless it’s a pre-approved type of trip involved in
cases like yours. Going to Earth to get your things is pre-approved, but taking you for a joyride unfortunately isn’t.”
There’s a door in the kitchen I didn’t notice. Carveth turns back from where he has just let Beaky out into the yard, and I
finally look over to him to bid him good morning. Those aren’t the words that come out.
“You said it would take a few days for everything to come.”
He shrugs. He’s fully dressed, but the sheer top is gray and not quite as low-cut as the one he had on yesterday. Instead of
going all the way down to his bellybutton, it stops just above his top row of abs. And you can tell Maria is not from this planet,
because she’s dressed in clothes that could very well be from Earth.
 “Well, I had the means to make it come faster. So I did what I had to,” he says.
“I don’t care what you said last night. You are kind,” I insist, and I’d like to hug him in thanks but I don’t want to be too
forward. After all, it’s not like he’s a friend. He didn’t have to save me; it’s just his job.
“You’ll ruin my reputation if you keep telling people that,” says Carveth, blushing.
Maria turns around so swiftly that her hair almost hits me in the face. It’s thick and perfumed with something sweet like a
fruit I’ve never encountered.
“How the hell are you in your current job when you clearly don’t need to work, but you don’t think you’re kind?” Maria
snaps, folding her arms tightly. “And since when was being kind a bad thing?”
Carveth stares down at her, weirdly tall and well over 6 feet. She’s taller than me, yet he still dwarfs her. And she’s wider
than me, too, as most people are, but he still twice as broad.
“Shut up, Maria,” he mumbles, then stalks over to the door and whistles.
Oh, he’s adorable. Seeing a handsome face like that pouting almost makes my knees weak, and I finally get a good look at
his back, which is broad and toned and makes my knees weak for an entirely different reason. Did my savior have to be
gorgeous as well as wonderful? Because at some point, I’m probably going to break some boundaries and try to seduce him if
I’m not careful.
Hell, I’m really sexy too, and if Hogar has similar beauty standards to Earth, maybe he thinks so as well. So maybe he
won’t mind if I’m all over him. Would it be weird to have a wank while staying in this house, considering it’s not mine or a
hotel? Because as I watch his muscles move when he leans out the door to call Beaky again, I’m close to getting wet.
Maria, thankfully, distracts me.
“My wife and I are going on vacation to Earth tomorrow—yes, we had to get the government’s permission to use my
machine for that—so if there’s anything in your house that you want me to get, I’ll be happy to make a quick stop while down
there. We’ll be in London, so it’s not like we’ll be going through any extra trouble. Her grandmother lives there.”
“Your wife is from Earth?” I ask, before realizing an alien may well live on Earth, and I’m stupid for assuming this
grandmother and her granddaughter are human and from my planet.
“She is,” replies Maria, beaming.
A big wiggly dog comes thundering in, runs between my legs, and starts pressing up against Maria as Carveth stalks over to
a breakfast of Earth stuff and flicks the switch on the metal square the plate is balanced on.
“I met her when I was doing a job like the one Carveth’s doing now. She was almost captive to the Kolthroki because her
father’s an idiot. She may not end up captive to those heart-eating brutes, but my heart certainly ended up as a captive of hers.”
That was so horribly cheesy, but I love it.
“That’s so sweet,” I tell her.
Humans and aliens. It’s such a weird thought, but I know it’s not unheard of. I mean, humans end up with vampires and
witches and all sorts where I’m from. Love is love, isn’t it? As long as you’ve got the same sort of intelligence and maturity.
Maybe that’s why me and Darren never worked out. Because he’s got about as much as intelligence and maturity as a prune.
“Can you check on Darren?” I ask. “Like, make sure he’s alive and let him know that he can stop running? His dad will
miss him. Not me, mind you. I never want to talk to him again after he abandoned me like that. But I don’t want him dead.”
A loud beeping from Maria’s pocket as she answers, “Of course,” and quickly follows it with, “Right. I should go.
Remember, anything you need, just call me. I’ll check on Darren.”
“I packed a bag before I had to run. If it’s not too much trouble, could you get that? I’ll give you my address, or Carveth can
send it to you, because he clearly knows it.”
Maria grips my hand and squeezes it. “Absolutely.”
Her goodbye to Carveth is brief and slightly teasing, and she steps into the back left corner of his kitchen and disappears.
That weird noise I heard on the first night I met her happens, and a gust of wind blows me and Carveth for a moment, and when
it’s gone, I know Maria is.
Beaky lets out one single bark, then goes over to the place the invisible ship left and sits down, presenting his hand.
“Okay, baby,” says Carveth.
While Carveth goes to a cabinet and pulls down a box of unmistakably Earthly dog treats, he looks at me with a curious
gaze. He has yet to bid me good morning.
“Do you still care about him?”
“Oh, fuck no,” I scoff. “I told you, I haven’t in years. He was doing my head in. You rescued me from those aliens and from
him.”
The way Carveth grins is almost uncharacteristic. He keeps up this cool persona, but he betrays himself with that smile. It
reaches his eyes and makes them bright. They’re very blue. Or are they green? They sort of cross between the two shades as he
turns his head and the light hits them differently.
“I spent years studying Earth phrases when I decided this is what I wanted to do with my life, but I focused too much on
American stuff,” he says. He’s liberally feeding Beaky animal-shaped crackers, then offers the tub to me. I take one and hold it
out to the dog, who’s gentle as a butterfly. “I should’ve studied British ones, too. Actually, there are a lot of regions I ignored
because the USA is such a powerhouse.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, you should’ve. Because we’re the most extra terrestrial nation on the planet. Got the most
connections and that. Well, technically America’s got more connections because it’s bigger, I read that online, but if we were
the same size, we’d have way more based on like … how many connections we have for the size of us.”
Carveth scoffs as he closes the biscuit tin even though Beaky is still sitting there and presenting his hand. He stands back up
when Carveth says, “Enough.” Carveth turns back to me and says, “Oh, yeah, if you read it on the Earth Internet, then it must be
true.”
“Oi, I’m not a Facebook mum. I read it on a scientific site, like a science news site, and it had sources, I’ll have you
know.”
I back up against the counter as Carveth squeezes past me in the small kitchen. He heads over to the plate of eggs, picks it
up, touches the bottom of the plate, then hands it to me.
“Maria’s ship has these tiny, time traveling cameras. I used them to find out what you had for breakfast yesterday.”
I take the plate, which is warm even though it’s been sitting there for a while. He gestures me over to the table and pushes a
lot of the bags aside, leaving just enough room for the two of us to sit face-to-face. Once seated, he brings me over coffee he
made before I got up, then gets some cereal-looking yellow stuff for himself.
“You used time traveling cameras to spy on me? That’s dead creepy, you know.” I grin at him, because it doesn’t actually
bother me. Actually, I’m thinking of all the other things he could use those cameras for, to see me doing all kinds of things I plan
on doing in the future while fantasizing about him.
“Oh, I know, but I wanted to make sure you were comfortable.”
Not kind, my arse. He’s practically jumping through hoops to please me. And he shouldn’t, but I’m not gonna tell him I
don’t want him to.
Very lightly, I run my bare foot up his leg, and he flinches. My responding grin has to be wicked.
“I’m doing it platonically,” I say. “I promise.”
But I don’t do it again as I start on my eggs, which are cooked just how I like them. I wonder how much you can see with
those cameras. Could he watch every moment of my life? I doubt he cares enough to have done that.
He tells me that he needs my consent to watch any individual moment of my life at all, like he’s reading my mind. Because
it’s time travel, my consent can come after he’s done it. So I give it to him, and he quickly moves on from the topic. I’m left
wondering when he slept, because he tells me he wrote out all these instructions about where things are in the house and how to
use everything, and he made video instructions to go with it, which I can watch by pressing the piece of paper he’s given me the
instructions on against a wall. Literally any wall, because any wall can be a screen that functions as a television or as a way to
connect to the Hogar Internet. You can also access Earth’s Internet through the Hogar Internet.
“Carveth…” I shake my head as I stare at him. He’s just given me all these instructions, all the information, with a
completely straight face while having breakfast. “That’s going overboard. You didn’t need to do all of that.”
“I like to be thorough,” he says.
I suppose I can’t argue with that, so I just watch him finish those big yellow chunks that look like cereal, admiring the sheen
on his lips each time he takes a drink from a cup emitting a sweet-smelling aroma. His lips are plump, and his mouth slopes
down but the corners turn up, so he always looks a mixture of melancholy and playful.
I wonder what it would feel like to kiss that pretty mouth.
I finish my breakfast first and offer to do the dishes, and he looks like he’s about to argue, but I silence him with a look. I
like that it works on aliens as well as humans, though it hasn’t been that effective on Darren in the last year.
“I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” Carveth informs me, when he tells me he’s leaving for work, and he’s a little stiff as he
heads off to get his teleporter. He gave me the choice of looking after Beaky or bringing Beaky over to the neighbor, and there’s
no way I’d dream of bringing Beaky to the neighbor.
When I know it’s just me and Beaky in the house, I wait to feel myself relax. Back with Darren, the relaxation hit the second
I was left alone. But it doesn’t happen now.
I haven’t been tense since the moment I got here.
As I wander back into the kitchen to check on all my things, I wonder how long I’m going to have to stay here, and how I’m
going to survive back on Earth when I leave because now I’ve got no place to go and no money. Could I stay here? Apparently
there are no poor people on this planet, and I could get a big, nice house like this. It feels like a regular family home, like what
I used to dream about.
I didn’t want that stuffy old townhouse. I wanted a nice family house and a kind man a bit like Carveth, though not an alien,
and not someone who shies away from the fact that he’s kind.
I suppose I’ve got the house now, even if it is temporary, and even though it’s not mine. And as I scratch Beaky under the
collar, and he stretches his neck to the side, I figure temporarily having one of the two things I’ve always dreamed about really
isn’t bad.
 CHAPTER 9
Carveth

“She’s the third victim in as many months. This is out of our hands, Carveth. They’re getting too good at this.”
Pruhleth paces back and forth behind his desk, and I spy the patch on his neck. Anti-wai, which lets me know how serious
he is about this.
Wai perfumes this entire city, lulling all the people into a perpetual state of relaxation. I take capsules every morning to
stop it from impacting me, but this is the first time I’d seen Pruhleth do this.
Fucking Pifa. And after everything we did for them when the sham about the war came out. For them to go insane and start
doing all this.
“So what’s happening? What do we need to do?”
Pruhleth shakes his head as he sits back down behind his ornate brown desk. I stare at the gold and purple office with gems
galore on the walls, basking in the grandeur. I’ve always liked it in here.
“Your main job is to take care of that girl. Keep her safe, and I will update you on this case as time goes on. Right now,
your main job is to live your life, keep up appearances, and make that girl seem like she belongs here. We’ve abolished the rule
that you should have three cases going at once. It was too stressful on the workers.”
I smile. I’ve always liked Pruhleth. I can’t imagine having three different people to care for in my house. One is easy, but
Lottie is so accepting of what happened. So docile. If I had to deal with three people in a panic, or even one, I don’t know what
I’d do.
“And what’s going to be done about Pifa?”
I can’t bring myself to sit on the golden stool across from his desk. I just step back and forth over and over, swaying my
hips a little, fists on them, trying to get out my irritation.
“The situation is getting dangerous fast. It’s being taken over entirely by the Hogentiniens. Grandi Miari is so valuable, so
Pifa is accumulating wealth at an exponential pace, and advancing at a level we haven’t seen before. There now a level 14
planet according to the Spatium Vigilum, and a level 11 according to the SH. They’re above us, So the Hogentiniens, who are
above them, are the only ones qualified to manage it.”
“Good riddance,” I spit.
I was more than happy to try and help Pifa before. Many of the big shots on our planet were, too. But a lot of people on Pifa
teamed up with a woman who tried to overthrow our leadership not that long ago; a woman so evil she later started trafficking
humans off our planet with the people of Creshn when her plan to overthrow the leadership failed.
“You can’t blame them, Carveth. Going to the extremes with other planets, and going against us. They spent millions of
years terrified, thinking we were lording over them. Because of the false war. What the ancient did to them …”
Pruhleth shakes his head, his silver hair moving gently around his face like a pair of curtains. His old eyes look tired,
which is a way I’ve never seen them.
“That was the ancient and the former elders. Their actions don’t dictate the thoughts of our entire planet. They had no
reason to take revenge on our regular people, because most of the people didn’t want the war to happen. Some warriors
didn’t.”
“They were still living knowing that every 666 years, one of them would have to sacrifice himself.”
“Yeah, and if they’re so smart now, so advanced, then they were always smart. They could’ve found a way around that.
Could’ve reached out for help and found a way to grow a body without consciousness. It’s been done. The bodies are there and
alive, but they have no brain activity and never will. I’ve seen many civilizations do it.”
I cross my arms. I’ve been saying it since we found out the war wasn’t real, and since we found out that it was all just a set
up for a sacrifice.
“It’s very difficult to grow fully functional bodies, particularly with organ systems like the people of Pifa have, and with
Grandi Miari in the blood, Carveth,” says Pruhleth. He reaches into the drawer and pulls out a thick book, most of his attention
off of me.
It’s starting to feel like coming into work was pointless today. I have no new cases, so my only job is to look after Lottie.
And I can’t do that from here.
“People artificially grow meat all the time,” I grunt. “In mass quantities. I don’t see how they couldn’t grow just one body
every 666 years. Or maybe they could’ve all come together, all donate a little Grandi Miari, if they were told the truth.”
Pruhleth sighs heavily, which he doesn’t do often. “It’s still incredibly difficult, Carveth, and not everybody has your brain.
Besides, now we are learning that some, at least some, of the planet was drugged into submission, effectively making them
low-functioning robots for all that time. All orchestrated by the ancient.”
 I sigh, but I can’t argue against them being drugged.
Pruhleth pulls out a glittery pen and starts to scribble away in that book, not looking at me. I begin to walk in more of a
circle because I’m too agitated to stand still. It feels like the meeting isn’t over, though there isn’t anything else to discuss.
Go home, look after Lottie. That is the extent of my entire job right now.
“You always were like this, you know. Stubborn. You need to be right, don’t you?” says Pruhleth.
My budding irritation freezes. I stop moving, fold my arms, and puff my chest out.
“No, I don’t have to be right, actually, I just happen to be right now. I don’t always have to be right.”
The gentle scratching of the pen and paper stops as I stare down at the old man, whose eyes are on his book. Slowly, he
looks up.
“You don’t have to be like your father, you know.”
“Fuck my father,” I spit, hair rising up like a beast that knows it’s about to be hunted. “Don’t you dare talk to me about him.
I know he always had to be right, but I don’t. He may have raised me, but I’m not like him. I’d rather be anything else than be
like him.”
I wish Pruhleth’s face would betray his thoughts, but he remains stoic. He’s always been that way, even when he was just a
school headmaster and regularly had to discipline me because I didn’t want to do the stupid war training with the rest of the
fated front-line warriors. He always smiled at other people, but never at me. I don’t resent him for it, but I do wonder why.
Maybe he pitied me. I would.
“How is the woman?”
“Doing well,” I reply, grateful for an excuse to talk about something else. “She’s settled well, and she doesn’t have any
connections tying her to Earth. It’s tragic, but lucky.”
“A blessing. But common. I’ve noticed that women with fated mates from other planets often don’t have many connections
back on their own. Like the warrior trio and their fated women they made those delightful movies about recently.”
Everything inside me turns to stone as I freeze in place.
“How do you know she has a mate here?”
Pruhleth chuckles like I should know the answer.
“As a city leader, I receive digital updates from the divine on the goings-on with warriors and other leaders.”
“Digital?”
“Oh, don’t tell me they pulled you in to talk to you in person!” Pruhleth’s eyebrows may be wispy, but they’re definitely
raised, and not in shock; he is, for the first time, laughing in my presence. “Oh, they must’ve thought you’d be really stubborn,
then. And needed you to see how real they were so their words would have more of an impact.”
They could’ve just sent me a message? But pulled me in? Well, now I feel like an idiot.
“I don’t like that.”
“Well, they’re at the level of what some planets view as gods, Carveth. You don’t have to like it. And it may not be fair. But
it is what it is.”
My mind goes back to Lottie. Fate so desperately wanted me to learn about her, to believe them when they said she was my
mate. Part of me wishes they hadn’t, because then maybe I wouldn’t feel compelled to go out of my way to please her. Because
I have to be doing that because of the bond, right? Even though I can’t feel it. It must still be influencing me. I don’t know why
I’d go so out of my way otherwise.
“You keep her safe, Carveth,” says Pruhleth, as if reading my mind. “People are sniffing around, and this planet isn’t as
peaceful as it once was. In the absence of the threat of regular war, souls have blackened. Now, take the rest of the day off, and
we can talk about you taking on other duties tomorrow.”
I would usually protest. I like bringing Beaky to my office and working on cases, taking meetings, and the likes. But today,
going home feels like it would be good for me. So I mutter my goodbye and prepare for the annoying walk through the city to
teleport out of it. They don’t allow teleporting within its borders, for some stupid reason.
I arrive back home in my kitchen, but it’s empty, and there are no bags on the table. Music spills from the living room down
the hall, as does the soft pitter patter of nails on my wooden floors. I follow the sound and find Lottie flashing a little red dot on
the ground, which Beaky is chasing in circles, then going back and forth across the room. When she makes him run in circles,
he starts barking, runs over to her, and tries to bite the little thing in her hand that’s omitting the light.
She falls back on the couch, shrieking and laughing, and I feel the irritation from that meeting leaching out of me like poison
sucked out of a wound.
She’s wearing a pair of very short pants which don’t even meet her mid thigh, and there’s a shirt tucked into them that
covers to just above her breasts and is held onto her shoulders by straps instead of sleeves. It’s purple, like the flowers in the
city I’ve just vacated, but it’s prettier than them. And that purple shade makes me feel more relaxed than wai ever could.
“Hey,” I say softly in the doorway, and Lottie freezes. I distract her just enough for Beaky to steal the thing in her hand and
run out the open patio doors to the back yard, to shrieks from Lottie.
“Oi, mate, that cost your dad’s job £12 on Amazon! And I’ll need that back before bed, because I got it to make myself
dizzy so I could sleep better!”
But Beaky most definitely is not bringing that back until he’s chewed it up very well.
“I got the rest of the day off,” I tell her, even though she hasn’t asked. My eyes move down her again, noticing the boots
hugging tight to her calves, right up to her knees. For some reason, them covering half of her legs while a stretch of thigh
remains visible is more enticing than if I could see everything right down to her toes.
“That’s great,” says Lottie, beaming. “Maria brought me my stuff. It was right on the bed where I left it, so those aliens left
it alone. The clone ones. And Darren is alive, but still running. Do you think those aliens are still after him?”
I shake my head. “No. No, you’re their only target now. Until we get them shut down.”
I move farther into the room. Even though Lottie has got her chest covered up, she’s showing more skin uncovered than
women on Hogar typically do. Her hair is tied back in a loose ponytail, with a few wavy strands falling by her face, framing it
perfectly.
Fuck, she’s beautiful. I’ll give fate that; it chose me a mate I could stare at for hours, and one who’s already got my cock
rousing, twitching, itching for her touch.
I allow myself one touch of her delicate skin, just crossing the room to examine her arm, as there’s a small tattoo inked on
her bicep. We don’t have those here, so I’ve never seen one in person before. My finger traces over the ink without asking. The
image is of a tiny line drawing of a weird animal with some kind of beak and webbed feet.
“What is this?” I ask.
“Oh, that? A goose. Because I used to call my best friend a silly goose before she turned out to be a stupid cow. Now I tell
people it’s for the Untitled Goose Game, which was funny for like a minute a few years back.”
I don’t know what any of that means. I know what a cow is, and I assume it’s insulting to call someone that given the prefix
of “stupid.” I don’t know what a goose is, but I assume it’s this creature.
And Lottie’s face has fallen in a way that’s unacceptable.
I whistle for Beaky as my subconscious makes a decision before my conscious mind does, and I let go of Lottie’s arm, my
desire to touch her satisfied. For now.
“How you would feel about a trip out, Lottie?” I ask.
The light is back in Lottie’s eyes in an instant, and my heart feels, like it’s trying to do a backflip but doesn’t have the
mobility.
“I’d love that, yeah! Yeah, that’d be really cool!”
Half my mouth rises before I can stop it, so I go ahead and complete the smile as Beaky comes pounding in with a
thoroughly chewed silver tube.
“Beaky!” Lottie gasps, as he finally gives it over. “Naughty boy! Oh, that’s not going to work anymore, and we’ll have to—
oh, nevermind. Still working.”
I chuckle fondly, then turn away so she doesn’t realize the fondness in it, as I go to get Beaky’s lead.
Nobody has been able to get me to chuckle fondly in a really long time, and I can’t place what’s special about this human
woman that’s made me do it now.
 CHAPTER 10
Lottie

This place is like … so normal. That in itself isn’t normal at all, because I’m literally on an alien planet right now. The grass is
green, the sky is blue, and the sun … I dunno, I think it might be a different size to our sun, and it’s beating down way more than
it does where I’m from.
There’s some sort of thing visible in the cloudless sky too. It might be a moon.
But the people are just, like, chilling. milling around, like they would at a dog park, except this isn’t a dog park, and those
aren’t dogs.
I’m really not sure what they are. They look like a mixture of cats, foxes, and bears. When they’re on all fours, their limbs
seem to grow and they have these big bushy tails like foxes, and they make fox noises. But they slink around their owners’
ankles like cats. When they get up on two legs, they kind of clamber around and their arms get shorter, and they make roaring
noises.
“The most common household pet on Hogar,” says Carveth as I stare at them upon arrival in the lush, green outdoor space
with backless benches.
And the city around us … my goodness the city around us. Every building is on a circular plot of land, and all the roads are
risen, so these little black vehicles zip by overhead.
There are two other dogs here, and Beaky is wiggling and waggling, eager to get to them. Carveth removes his leash, and
off he goes like there are springs attached to his legs.
Carveth points to one of the empty benches, so I follow him to it and sit. I’m attracting a couple of looks, and most people
are looking at my legs. I wave at them all. They don’t seem scandalized. Everyone here wears long pants, even one of the
people with dogs, who might be human. He’s wearing a T-shirt, anyway, and when he turns around I see there’s branding for
AC/DC on it. Definitely human.
“A lot of rich humans from Earth and Simleath come to Hogar for vacations,” Carveth explains when he sees me looking.
“And some relocate here looking for a change, but that’s very rare. The only people who move here are people who meet
people and fall in love. Many stay even if the relationship doesn’t work out.”
It’s weird. It doesn’t feel like there should be humans here. But apparently, it’s normal. There must be a whole lot on Earth
that I’ve missed out on.
I squint in the sun and wish I brought sunglasses, then admire my nails and how they shine in this lighting. Oh, shit, I
should’ve ordered manicure stuff or packed mine. Oh well. I can live without it.
“So, are you happy with your purchases?” Carveth asks, like he can read my mind, and I grin at him.
“Yeah, really happy. I’ve got everything I could ever need. Thanks again.”
He shrugs. His eyes are on Beaky, who’s sniffing the hindquarters of a kind of red golden retriever. The dogs owner has a
streak of blue in her hair, and I wonder if it’s natural. For all I know, it could be if she’s from here.
“Is it okay that I got some kitchen gear so I can cook for myself?” I ask, tearing my eyes from the dog that Carveth’s
watching so I can monitor his expression instead.
“Of course. But you know, I do have a fully stocked kitchen with all the equipment required for cooking.”
“Yeah, but I had a look, and you don’t have any Earth kitchen gear. A frying pan, for instance. Because I really don’t
understand that thing you cooked the eggs on this morning.”
“You cook things on plates here so they can be served immediately after being manually cooled,” says Carveth.
“Yeah, but it seems like a learning curve. I saw you use some sort of square thing, and it just seems like a lot of bother.
Seems easier for me to just cook in a frying pan, then put it on a plate.”
“I could teach you. You don’t need a frying pan. It’s just an extra dish to wash.”
“But I’ll be the one washing it.”
“It’s still pointless.”
He doesn’t seem angry, but there’s a touch of bewilderment, like he can’t quite understand why I’m not thinking exactly like
him. It’s alien. It’s cute. He’s cute. And gorgeous. And way too appealing sitting there with his legs slightly spread, his trousers
all tight, and his body practically begging to be touched. My hands want to know how those muscles feel.
“Okay, Mr. I’m Right,” I mutter with an eye roll, turning back to look at the reddish-gold dog, who’s apparently called Ellie
if I heard her owner right. Her owner is petting her and Beaky at the same time.
“I’m not right,” says Carveth, then quickly corrects himself, “I mean, I am, but I don’t have to be right. Not like some
people I could mention.”
 I feel like I’ve touched a nerve, so I just press my lips together and say, “Okay.”
We drop the topic. Turns out Ellie’s owner doesn’t have naturally blue hair, and she’s human, but she’s adapted to Hogar
because she’s been here for 13 years, hence her dressing like she’s from here. Ten years with a partner, but they call them mates
here, and she’s been on her own for the last three. But she has to go, and the other dog and their owner seem to have vanished,
so the only dog people Beaky has to play with are me and Carveth.
Several times, Beaky dashes towards Carveth, chasing his tail for a few rotations, then runs away. He stops after a couple
of feet, looks back, barks, and I swear he jerks his head. Carveth barks back at him then barrels towards him so fast I let out a
squeak.
Carveth dives to the grass and Beaky jumps all over him, lifting up Carveth’s legs and bouncing. He wraps his arms around
one of Carveth’s legs and starts chewing on his shin, and when he lets go, Carveth gets on all fours, throws his arm over
Beaky’s back, and wrestles him to the ground. Beaky lies down with his front half, but his tail end is in the air, tail wagging in
circles.
And I’m laughing like a haven’t in longer than I can remember. I’ve never seen anything so adorable, so I pull out the phone
that was in the luggage Maria retrieved. I take so many pictures half of them come out blurred.
“What’s that?” asks Carveth, when he returns. I’m swiping through the images I took. I show him, and he beams.
“Ah, right. I forgot your communication devices are also cameras.”
A bark breaks through the hum of overhead traffic and chatter from around us. Beaky is doing the thing again, and Carveth
nudges me with his elbow.
“You try this time. He really likes you.”
I’ve never been much of a runner, or actually remotely athletic, but I run at the baby like a lunatic. Beaky is stronger than me
and must weigh almost as much, and eventually I end up with him standing on top of me and pecking my face repeatedly. When
I return to Carveth’s side, with a spinning Beaky at my heels, Carveth shows me the pictures he took.
“You learn fast,” I say.
His grin is a little smug. His eyebrows lift in a way that’s almost haughty, and I like that face as much as I like the pictures.
I turn my phone to the front camera and ask him to keep that expression on as I take a picture, and when I show it to him, he
holds my phone with his hand over top of mine.
“I think I like Earth communication devices,” he says softly.
Beaky runs off as he spots a bird similar to a crow, but bigger. I throw my phone away as I look up at Carveth, who’s
watching Beaky like a proud father. He turns back to me a moment, and his face is flushed with concern.
“You have some …” His hand reaches towards my face, and I almost flinch at it, but I let him pluck a piece of grass from
my hair. As he raises his hands to flick it into the wind, I almost snort as I notice his hands are green.
“I think you have worries of your own, mate.”
When I nod at his palms, he looks at them and swears, I think. He says an unfamiliar word the way I’d say “fuck” or “shit”
in the same situation.
Luckily, I have a purchase for this stowed in my pocket. I ask him to present his hands, pull out the tiny bottle of hand
sanitizer, and squirt the liquid into the center of his palm.
“What the hell is that?” he says, staring down at the clear liquid. He takes a whiff, then wrinkles his nose. “Oh, that’s
horrible.”
“It’s like soap,” I explain, “but it has alcohol in it for cleaning. Sanitizing, really.”
The corners of Carveth’s lips curl down, and he frowns down at the substance in his hand further. Laughing a little at his
distrust, I spread the stuff all over his palm and rub it around until some of the green starts to come away.
I didn’t think this through. Now there’s just green goo on his hand, and the discoloration has nowhere to go. My shorts are
black, though, so I bring his hand down to the thigh of them and wipe it off, the green stain invisible on the denim.
His hand is almost as big as my entire thigh. I didn’t think that through, either, because now it’s a struggle to keep my
breathing even. Fuck, I wonder what it’d feel like to have that hand roam up my thigh and not stop until it met something better.
I do the other hand even though Carveth trusts the stuff now, wiping it on the other side of my shorts. Carveth’s not frowning
any more, but he’s not smiling, either. He’s staring at me with an almost wary look in his eyes.
“Your Earth knowledge really is inconsistent, isn’t it? If you don’t know about hand sanitizer,” I say.
“Yeah. Well, you are aliens to me. So it would be. I know some, but not everything.”
I open my mouth to compare him to that bloke in Doctor Who, Voyage of the Damned, who described Earth’s Christmas in a
completely bonkers way, because he had all the elements right but it was so alien that the story got totally twisted. I’m starting
to grin, about to get the words out before I spot a flash of black over Carveth’s shoulder. As soon as I see the long, robe-like
attire over a suit, and the scruffy black hair, sweat trickles down my back. I grab Carveth’s wrist and walk backwards, slowly,
like I’m trying not to startle the thing.
My eyes scan the area next to me for Beaky, but he’s off playing with one of those fox-cat-bear things. And Carveth has
reached out to grab my waist, trying to stop me walking backwards.
 “Carveth? Carveth, is that you?” calls the creature; the thing from Pifa. The thing that wants to kidnap me and breed me like
I’m part of an illegal puppy farm.
When Carveth’s eyebrows raise and he turns from me, I continue backing up, taking small steps because I don’t want to take
my eyes off that thing.
“Kevel!” calls Carveth. “Lottie, come here a second, will you?”
Heart hammering in my chest, I wonder if any of the other people in this park would help me, or, like Carveth, they’re going
to betray me.
That clone thing feasts its dark, beady eyes on me, and I don’t think I’d be able to outrun him even with the small bout of
running practice playing with Beaky just gave me.
 CHAPTER 11
Lottie

The clone that wants me does some kind of hand cupping ritual with Carveth. I’m frozen to the spot. Beaky has come over to
investigate him, and the clone greets him by name.
Carveth whips around and dashes towards me to take my arm.
“He’s not like them, Lottie,” he says. “He comes here a lot on vacation, and he’s not part of their operations. He’s one of
the good ones.”
My anxiety leaves me. I don’t think Carveth would lie. What reason does he have? He’s done nothing but good things, and
although I only met him yesterday, I trust him.
I do not trust this clone guy, but as long as Carveth is here, I don’t have to.
“Oh, this one is human!” says Kevel the clone, taking a long sniff of the air.
Can he smell species? That’s just incredibly weird. I can’t smell his species. I can’t smell any species. I can’t even smell
“dog smell” that people on Earth never shut up about for being one of the reasons they don’t like dogs indoors or on furniture.
“She is.” Carveth plants his hand firmly on my shoulder, and it makes me feel slightly more secure in the face of this clone
identical to the ones that hunted me down.
“Did you meet through work?” asks the clone, and Carveth nods.
I still haven’t said anything. I don’t want to. Beaky has noticed, and he’s come sniffing my hand to see what’s wrong. He
licks it, then loudly gags. Hand sanitizer. I smile.
Carveth squeezes my shoulder gently, and I gaze up at him. With him next to me, I feel more secure.
“We did, unfortunately, meet through work,” says Carveth, then when I flinch, he adds, “Kevel has worked with me in the
past. It’s actually part of the reason he spends so much time on Hogar; some of the people of Pifa don’t like what’s going on
there now that society is waking up.”
The clone, Kevel, takes a step closer, and I flinch. Upon noticing that, he bows his head.
“I’m so sorry on behalf of my people, human,” he says. “You have no idea how much. I understand wanting beautiful
women …” He takes a step closer, and I don’t flinch this time, though I want to. “But I don’t believe in taking them by force the
way they do.”
I try to offer him a smile. I must be successful, because his eyes light up. I hope I’m imagining the hunger in them, but I
don’t think I am as his eyes move down my body. I want to hide behind Carveth and somehow find a trenchcoat that covers
every inch of my skin.
I have to remind myself Kevel is part of a clone race. He’s probably never fucked a woman; never even been so close to
one. And I am showing a lot of skin.
No, you fucking idiot, how you’re dressed is irrelevant.
He reaches out a hand. With Carveth’s hand on my shoulder, I present what the clone is asking for. He has long, skinny
fingers, not unlike mine, and grips my knuckles as he draws my hand to his lips. The kiss is soft, almost gentlemanly. He
chuckles against my skin.
“What’s your name, little human?” he asks. “I didn’t catch it. I was too caught up in your beauty.”
The compliment makes my skin crawl worse than ever.
“Lottie,” I say.
“A beautiful name for a beautiful woman. Lottie.” My name sounds unpleasant on his tongue, though he seems to like how it
feels in his mouth. I feel dirty now he’s repeated it.
“And Lottie has just been through a breakup,” says Carveth, very firmly, finally letting his hand drop from my shoulder. I
wish he hadn’t.
“And I wouldn’t dream of forcing myself on a human woman, recent breakup or not,” says Kevel, with sincerity. “Carveth,
I’m afraid I was just leaving, but it was good to see you. Goodbye, Carveth, and the beautiful Lottie. Very beautiful indeed.”
My skin doesn’t stop crawling until that guy leaves through the fence that encloses this park-like place in a circle.
Did I just imagine there was danger where there wasn’t any? My heart is still hammering like it’s trying to chisel its way
out of my chest and run away of its own accord, and I wrap my arms around myself defensively, like I’m trying to shield myself
from the world even though the guy is gone. Carveth turns to me, his expression nothing but sympathetic.
“Sorry about that,” he says. “I can see how seeing someone from Pifa would be jarring. Let me take your mind off it. We
can go to a restaurant and get lunch. You can show me more things that your communication device does, and we can take it in
turns feeding our orders to Beaky, because clearly, they’re actually for him.”
I look at all the buildings around me, grand places made of smooth stone. I can’t imagine any of them being restaurants.
 “We’re allowed to bring Beaky into a restaurant?”
My mind isn’t fully on it. It’s on wondering if I should’ve told that guy my name at all. Like him knowing it gives him
power over me.
“Of course we are!” says Carveth. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
I smile. Carveth’s lack of knowledge in some areas is shining through again, and for some reason I find it cute even though
it’s to be expected.
“They don’t let dogs in anywhere on Earth. Even if they’re specially trained. They have to be registered service animals,
like, have jobs to help their owners. Like guide dogs to lead blind people, and in America, dogs that can detect seizures and
stuff. And I think dogs that help people with autism are allowed in some places in the UK. But normal dogs? They say it’s, like,
unsanitary or something. Personally, I think they should set up tests you can have your dog pass to prove they’re trained enough
to go places, even if they’re not service animals.”
Carveth scoffs. I really do like him.
“Whoever made up that nonsense about dogs being unsanitary probably has a dog they didn’t care wash. I can assure you no
such rule exists on Hogar. So, are you interested?”
I nod eagerly. My heart has finally stopped hammering and allows my arms to drop back to my sides. Carveth raises his
wrist with the teleporter on it, so I gently take his arm. He calls Beaky, I take hold of Beaky’s collar, and the three of us teleport
to what could easily be a normal restaurant on Earth.
By the end of our hour of dining, I feel foolish for ever being distressed. Carveth puts my mind at ease about that guy.
Apparently he visits Hogar all the time and helped punish some of the people who tried to help some woman take down
Hogar’s leaders not that long ago. And I show Carveth everything my phone can do and badly explain social media, leading to
me having to demonstrate it to him.
When we return to Carveth’s house, I’m feeling even lighter than I did this morning, and I wonder briefly if I should have
some homesickness, but it doesn’t feel like it’s ever gonna come.
I wait in the kitchen while Carveth stows away the leftovers from the restaurant. When he turns, he claps his hands together
and looks down at me, his eyes smiling.
“Now. What’s this frying pan thing you told me about that you’re going to use for cooking? I’m curious.”
As Carveth waits in the kitchen, I dash up to my room to get the frying pan, which he frowns at as he inspects it.
“Well, that just looks bulky and inconvenient to store.”
He teased me about it on and off while we were dining, but he didn’t seem actually annoyed that I purchased it. I roll my
eyes.
“Well, I’m keeping it in my room, so you don’t have to worry about it taking up space. I’m keeping all my things in my
room, because I don’t want to take over your house.”
The way he folds his arms and leans against his counter is almost obnoxiously attractive. Does he know he’s hot? I know I
am, and he seems at least as clever as me, so there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s aware of his good looks. Whether he’s
aware of what specific things he does make him look even hotter is another matter entirely.
Once, just once, I’d like to feel him pressed up against my body from behind with his lips against my ear, whispering filthy
things.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You can store it in the kitchen. Just leave it out for now, and I’ll find a place for it. Maybe I can hang
a hook above the heating pads. I used to store my kretzeth maker there. And you can leave your stuff anywhere in the house you
please, because you’re my guest here, and while you’re my guest here, it’s as much your home is mine.”
I lay the frying pan down where he gestures and thank him profusely, but he brushes me off. I’m not gonna tell him he’s kind
again, even though he’s being kind again. He might be one of the nicest men I’ve ever met, and I’ve met a lot.
I await his next move eagerly. Because even though he says it’s my home for now, I know he technically calls the shots.
And I’m used to living like that. I should thank him profusely for how nice he’s been to me so far, though, but as I’m about to, a
soft vibration noise fills the kitchen. Carveth pulls something out of his pocket. Oh, his communication device.
As he scans the screen, his eyebrows lift in what appears to be pleasant surprise.
“Do you mind if I leave you alone for an hour or so, Lottie? My sister has just come back from a long excursion on another
planet, and I’d like to go and welcome her back to Hogar. I won’t be long.”
Sister. So weird. I never imagined this man having relatives. I imagined him as some kind of entity that sprouted up out of
nowhere.
I suppose he has to come from somewhere, doesn’t he? So I nod, and after he says goodbye to Beaky and tells me to make
myself at home again, he leaves. I settle at the kitchen table with this little printer thing I bought on Shein that lets me print out
pictures from my phone, but the printed quality is absolutely terrible. I wish I was surprised, but I just sigh and throw the
badly-printed images into what Carveth’s video instructions about his house told me is the trash.
As I sit down to make a new album of today’s pictures on my phone instead, the squeak of the door draws me back to my
feet.
 “Back so soon?”
Carveth doesn’t answer. His footsteps are light as he moves from the front door up the short hallway to the kitchen. I
wonder why he’s come that way, considering he teleported right out, until I see a flash of black that makes me draw up against
the wall.
“You,” I say.
Although these clones all look the same, this is most definitely the one from the park. The hungry glint in his eyes tells me
that much.
“Hello, Lottie,” he says. “Or should I say, Case 96?”
My panic from the park comes flooding back, and I reach behind me for the door to the back but it’s locked. I don’t know
how to open it. Kevel doesn’t approach, but stands in the doorway of the kitchen.
“Don’t you recognize me?” His question is met with silence, because of course I do, but that doesn’t mean he gets the
satisfaction of an answer. “You looked lovely on the night the contract was signed, in your little sequin top and skirt. I was with
them, undercover, trying to take down the operation from the inside.”
His words should bring me comfort, but his demeanor is so predatory that they don’t. I stare at him as I shake against the
wall. As he continues to approach me the way he did in the park despite my clear discomfort, I think I know what he wants.
“Unfortunately, it’s proving to be too big of a job,” he says. His dark, beady eyes hold nothing but malice. “And if you can’t
beat them, join them. They’ll be very happy to see you, so much so that they might reward me by letting me be the one to breed
you first.”
The only thing to my left is the refrigerator, and I highly doubt that’s got a weapon in it, or like, is bigger on the inside so I
can run away into it like it’s gonna lead me to Narnia. I’m too afraid to look right.
He’s only a few steps away. Every step closer feels like my inevitable death.
“You’re so beautiful,” he growls.
I almost feel like I have no heart, and it’s my entire body that thumps instead. I wince as the pitter-patter of Beaky’s
footsteps sound in the hallway, and I feel like this guy’s gonna kill him, so I whimper, “No.”
But Beaky arrives, and that precious baby starts yelling. Not that it’s gonna do much good.
Kevel’s eyes roll back in his head, and he turns around with his fist raised.
“Would you shut—”
Like hell he’s gonna hurt that fucking precious infant.
I scramble around for something, anything, to save the baby, and spy the frying pan on my right. I slam the clone in the head
until he falls over and narrowly misses Beaky. A nervous but triumphant laugh leaps out of my throat, but it’s short-lived, as the
guy’s getting back up. I hit him twice more, and this time, he stays down.
Is he dead? Can I go to prison on an alien planet? No. No, it was self-defense, right? But maybe they don’t have that law
here. Or maybe murder isn’t even illegal. I literally know nothing. My brain is trying to figure out where to hide the body, how
to plead my case of self defense, and how to feel safe on a planet where murder isn’t illegal all at once. Or maybe they just
throw you in prison with no trial, so I won’t get to plead my case at all. Maybe the ground can detect dead bodies buried in it
unauthorized.
I should really learn the laws if I’m going to stay here a while, but I won’t be able to read them now with my eyes full of
tears.
Whimpering, I get around the jumping, yelling Beaky and hurry out of the room, up to mine, where I left my welcome
packet. I can’t remember how to contact Carveth, but it was in those instructions. As soon as I get my hands on it, I dial in a
weird number I’m half convinced won’t work on my phone, but it seems to work just fine and starts ringing as I dash back
down the stairs.
“Hello?” comes the reply on the other end just as I make it back to the kitchen, my eyes landing on the empty spot where
that clone’s body was just moments ago.
“Fuck,” I say down the phone, then whimper.
“Say no more,” says Carveth. “I’ll be with you in a couple of seconds.”
 CHAPTER 12
Carveth

By the time we reach my family home, my house has been protected by shields from several local women. Despite that security,
I don’t trust us to stay there. Not once Lottie has been spotted and attacked in it.
She needs to be with someone who can protect her better than I can; someone with powers, like my mother and my sister.
They can offer her even more protection than I can. The Grandi Mairi that runs through their blood gives them powers, and
we’re so lucky that the people of Pifa are just men. Grandi Miari doesn’t grant men powers, but women? Upon mating, women
with Grandi Miari in their blood—like all the women on Hogar—become powerful beings almost nobody can go up against.
“But here’s the thing,” I tell Lottie, as we prepare for the grand event that will be introducing her to my family, “I don’t trust
anyone right now. They can’t know who you really are. And I think it would be weird to tell them my maid needs to stay for
protection because she’s being harassed by people from another planet. Because my maid is not my responsibility outside of
working hours.”
“Who do you need me to be?” Now that she’s going somewhere safer, her stubborn determination is back, and the fear that
was on her face when I came home is gone. “I’ll play any part.”
I can’t believe I’m going to say these words. It feels like a trope in some romantic comedy.
“We should say that you’re my mate. My human mate that I met on a mission not to Earth, but Simleath. Do you know about
Simleath?”
The gentle nod that confirms her knowledge of the Earth-like planet full of humans makes this a whole lot easier, then one
explanation of fated women’s powers later, we teleport to my family home.
My mother meets me in the entrance hall with a face full of concern, but her eyes quickly slide over to the blonde female at
my side, her nostrils twitching as she identifies her as human.
“Carveth?” Mother gently touches the gem at her throat the way she always does when stressed. “Is everything okay? What
happened?”
One deep breath does not prepare me for what I have to lie about, but it’s temporary. I’m a private person, and always have
been, so I can reasonably bat away questions without drawing suspicion to us.
“This is my mate,” I inform my mother. “It’s new, so I wasn’t going to reveal it any time soon. But she’s in danger.”
I rattle off some ridiculous story about the people of Creshn looking for her, saying she was one of the escapees of the
human trafficking camp that existed in the northern region of our planet not that long ago. The Calithentisi of Creshn ran the
operation with the help of a few evil spawns of our own planet.
My mother squeezes my mate’s hands and says, “Of course you can say. Lottie. Such a pretty name.”
Lottie stares into my mother’s face, all concerned blue eyes and a worried mouth, which is a face my mother has worn
many times. Lottie’s smile tight, and then she does this weird little dip … oh, oh my.
That was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen, and I own Beaky.
“There’s no need to curtsy, Lottie.” I try to hold back a laugh and a smile I know will be adoring. “Mother, will you show
her to my old room?”
My mother is quick to help. A flick of her wrist raises all of Lottie’s belongings so they follow the pair up the stairs, and I
rub my forehead as I head to the kitchen, itching for an alcoholic drink, but of course there isn’t anything like that here.
Hogar really is missing out.
But I don’t have anything to worry about. There are already protections on this home, and between my mother and my sister
when she comes back, there’s plenty of power to go around. Lottie would call it magic, and did several times while I was
explaining it to her. She says it several more times as she asks my mother to show her tricks once we’re seated in the living
room, Lottie having adapted to her new surroundings in a snap.
This is a girl who doesn’t get attached to things, and it makes me a little sad. Nobody should have to be able to adapt to
new situations so quickly.
But this is good. Very good. Made better by the fact that my mother hasn’t asked me any probing questions about my mate
yet, but that may happen after Lottie’s asleep tonight and I find myself unable to join her in that slumber.
Damn it, I’m going to have to find a way to sneak into one of the guest rooms.
Mother quizzes Lottie about life back on Simleath, and Lottie answers as if she’s actually been there. I lazily pet Beaky as
he rests with his beak on my knee. The screen on the wall with the faux fireplace is illuminated, showing some drama show
with the volume on silent. I’m reminded of family gatherings, but the stress I felt at those before my father went away is
intensified by thousands. I even flinch when there’s a knock on the door and my mother goes to answer it.
“How am I doing?” Lottie mouths the words clearly, careful not to whisper; before we came, I told her about the heightened
senses of the people of our planet. I also told her the emotions we can smell, though I left out our ability to smell certain things,
like arousal.
I try not to use my heightened senses because I find it weird. If I sniffed now, I’d be able to tell if Lottie was comfortable or
afraid, and a whole lot more, but I don’t want to be creepy.
I point my index finger up, realize that’s not how humans do it, then give her the thumbs up instead.
“My divine!”
I almost knock over the non-alcoholic beverage on the arm of the sofa at my mother’s cry. My feet carry me down the
hallway unarmed before I realize what a stupid idea that is, then hiss at Lottie to stay back. I bring my drink so I can break the
glass and use it as a weapon. When I come to a skidding halt in the entrance hall, I have to look twice to see if I’m seeing what
my eyes are translating to my brain.
If he’s here, then we may all be in danger if his years behind bars haven’t changed him.
 CHAPTER 13
Carveth
A tall, blonde man with wavy hair that flows down his shoulders is staring at me. He has my eyes and my weird sloped-down
upturned-cornered mouth, and the glint in his eyes is menacing.
“They let you out?” I breathe.
“What a charming way to greet your dear old father, Carveth,” my father replies coolly. “And I’ll have you know I took
matters into my own hand. The sentence I got was much too long for my crime. I decided it was time to leave.”
Yeah, you’d like to think that. You can do no wrong, be no wrong.
“Are you going to welcome me back with open arms, dearest?” he asks my mother.
My mother responds exactly how I knew she would upon seeing my father again, whether he broke out of prison or was
freed by his jailers. She leaps upon him and kisses him like the sun has finally come up after a decade-long night, and he
responds with such enthusiasm that he lifts her off her feet, twirling the two of them around as he enters the hall and kicks the
front door shut with a bang that makes me flinch.
I’m happy for my mother. Despite his flaws, she has always adored my father. I find it admirable that someone can find a
way to forgive the things he did. She’s a bigger person than me.
When my parents part, my mother looks 10 years younger and grips my father’s hand as he tugs her down the hall.
“You came on such a good day. Darleth is staying with us for a few days, and Carveth too, because he’s protecting
someone. It’s an awful story, she’s being hunted—his mate. Our Carveth has a mate.”
I wish the jailers would come and take my father back to prison, but I’m forced to look upon the gentle lifting of his
eyebrows.
“Does he now?” His voice is low and silky. “Well, that is a surprise. A joyous day indeed. More joyous then my freedom.”
I feel like he’s not being sincere.
Lottie looks timid as she sits on the couch in the grand living room, her eyes wavering between her lap, the silent screen,
and the archway leading to the entrance hall. She focuses on the latter when she notices us coming through it, then rises.
“Lottie, my father,” I say.
“I heard,” she says. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mr…?”
“Leithes,” says my father. His nostrils twitch, and his perpetual smug smirk seems to grow. “Humans may address each
other by their last names as a sign of respect, but we don’t. When I heard you people do it, I found it impersonal. My roommate
in prison was human,” he adds, rather menacingly. “I can smell the humanity on you. I’m sure how the pair of you met is quite a
story.”
Fear flickers across Lottie’s face upon hearing a human on this planet is in prison.
“He killed his mate,” I quickly inform Lottie. “Infamously. And I hear he and my father became good friends while locked
up together.”
Something flashes in my father’s eyes. I move from his side to Lottie’s, sensing her discomfort. She grips my arm, but I
can’t tell if it’s because she’s afraid or if she wants to put on a show of being my mate.
The way her small hand rests on top of my bicep sends a shiver through me, and I’m forced to push away thoughts I can’t be
having right now.
“Dearest Lottie,” says my father, and I kind of want to tell him to stop talking to her because I don’t like how addressing her
sounds on his lips. “And my darling mother’s name. I was wondering if maybe the pair of you could excuse us for a moment?
I’d love to sit down on my sofa for the first time in 12 years while I have a little discussion with my son.”
“Of course,” says my mother. She kisses my father’s cheek before heading for the archway, where she waits for Lottie.
Lottie’s small hand quivers on my arm, but she does let go and joins my mother. She seems to relax a little in knowing she’s
leaving the room.
My helpful mother creates a door in the archway, closes it, then I round on my father with rage more intense than I thought
myself capable of.
“You do understand our planet, its leadership, and its connections to several other planets have been falling apart?” I snap.
If my father is bothered by my anger, he doesn’t remotely let it show. “How can you do this?”
“Oh, please, I’m hardly a criminal, Carveth. It’s not as though my escape was going to endanger anybody. I’d have thought
our new leadership would take a different view to these things, given what I’ve heard about them. I was only trying to steal
what almost anyone else in my position would already be entitled to, and isn’t ending unfairness our new leadership’s entire
goal?”
“I think ‘steal’ is the word that makes everything an issue, father. Because no matter who it’s from, theft is never, ever the
answer unless you’re suffering so badly you won’t be able to survive without the object you’ve stolen. And we won’t even
mention the other law you broke. I should turn you in. You’ll endanger all of us by being here after breaking out. Harboring a
criminal is criminal itself.”
I wish he’d roll his eyes or scoff at me or something, but he just stands there with his silky voice and a bored expression
laced with an undertone of smugness.
“Our new leaders are soft and will understand that in the lead up to the war, I was simply frightened and trying to do what I
had to do to protect my family in case my eldest son tragically lost his life fighting for our planet.”
Why did that sound like a threat?
“You went to school with one of them, didn’t you?” says my father. “So we’ve got an in with them. That boy who couldn’t
get girls but somehow ended up with a fated mate.” His lips curl.
“You don’t seem to think highly of fated mates. That’s a surprise. You’ve definitely changed while in prison.”
At long last, my father shows an actual reaction by rolling his eyes.
“Can’t we just put the past in the past, Carveth?”
“I have. But that doesn’t mean I want you here.”
“So, what, you’re going to turn me in? Your own father?”
Your own father? It should make me feel something, but it doesn’t. Except guilt at a memory. He guilted me into hugging
him before he left by asking if I was going to miss the chance to hug my own father one last time. It was a ploy to whisper
wicked things in my ear one last time before he headed off to prison.
“Of course not,” I grumble. “You’re my father, after all. I do have some amount of loyalty. But mostly, it would hurt
mother.”
“There’s my boy. Come and show your father how much you missed him.”
When my father opens his arms, I don’t move into them. He steps towards me like beacon of death heading toward
somebody bleeding out and yearning to survive. His body is cold, and his clothing reeks; wherever he got the clothes he wears
instead of his prison uniform was full of damp.
I pull myself away. “I have a mate to tend to. Who’s been in distress. Excuse me.”
My father steps back, his hands already folded in front of him, as I push through the temporary door and find my mother
waiting eagerly and wringing her hands.
“She went up to your room,” says mother, and she grips my arms to smile at me before I can head for the stairs.
Lottie is looking over an outfit she seems indecisive on, but she looks up the second I enter. Seeing her face is a comfort
after that confrontation, but I don’t want to disturb her as she breaks from her task. I just sit on the end of the bed next to the
outfit and vaguely compliment the skirt, though I’m already imagining her in it and thinking about her legs wrapped around my
head, my face up that flimsy piece of black fabric.
She takes a seat next to me. I jump a little as she puts her hand on my knee. It’s been a very long time since somebody did
that. I put my hand on her knee, too. Her skin is so smooth, but I dare not stroke it. I wonder if my touch is as affectionate to her
as hers feels to me, or if she means any affection by hers at all.
I’m tempted to squeeze, or slide my hand higher and touch more of her soft flesh. It would be such stress relief, and it
would certainly make our lie about being mates more realistic. For them to smell the results of our fucking.
Then again, they’d smell that we’d only just formed the mate bond, even if neither of us could feel it, and I would shatter
the illusion of us already being mates.
Vibrating in my pocket pulls me out of those thoughts as I sigh.
“Bad news?” asks Lottie.
“I hope not.”
It’s my boss. The Hogentiniens think they know how to take down the operations putting Lottie in harm’s way. They want
my team to weigh in, and there’s a meeting now. I don’t want to leave Lottie’s soft touch.
“I have to take a meeting. Will you be okay here on your own for a few hours? The walk-in clothing room is empty, and you
can put all of your things into it. Just leave me at least one shelf.”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” Lottie slides her hand off my knee as we rise together, but apparently she’s not finished being
affectionate. She reaches up to my face, her arms practically stretched straight, and says, “Everything is going to be okay, you
know. I just realized I never thanked you for bringing me here to keep me safe, too.”
I stare down at her eyes that hold no ulterior motive. So few people look at me like that now, and her soft, small hands on
my face lull me into a sense of security that left when my father came back.
I’m not sure why do it, but I put one of my hands on top of hers and wrap my fingers over hers to draw them to my lips. I
brush my lips across her knuckles, just like Kevel did, but without the horror.
But just as quickly, I drop her hand, bid her farewell, and head off to work.
 CHAPTER 14
Lottie
The house feels more like a museum than a home, possibly mixed with a high-class party facility that you might see the upper
class mingle in on social media while they pretend to be relevant and in-the-know about normal people’s lives.
Inside, the ceilings are so high it hurts my neck to look at them, but outside it’s peaceful. The hedges are round, and there’s
a fountain of a pair of kids with pursed lips like they’re going to kiss, but instead they’re spewing twin streams of water that
connect in the middle.
The place makes me feel like I should be dressed up like those girls from Bridgerton.
“You’re good for him.”
The arrival of Aleyieth’s voice makes me jump, but I smile at her as she approaches. I feel like she should be dressed like
Lady Danbury or the queen or something, and not wearing skintight leather pants and a sheer top where I can see more than I
bargained for.
“Am I?”
I’ve been out here for an hour. Or is it two? Baby Beaky and I have been playing, which makes it easy to lose track of time.
“He was a lot calmer during that meeting with his father than he would’ve been if you weren’t here. Especially after what
his father did to him.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Oh yeah? Carveth’s got daddy issues?”
“I don’t know the term ‘daddy issues.’”
“Right. Sorry. It just means he has issues with his father.”
I tried not to listen, but the way Carveth spoke to his father wasn’t that of a son overjoyed to see his dad, or worried that
said dad would get caught and thrown back into prison. I heard more than I was comfortable with, so I left to give them
privacy.
Aleyieth puts her hands in her pockets as she walks towards me with laziness to her gait. The closer she gets, the more I
realize her gait is more downtrodden than lazy; it’s like she’s carrying a lot of weight on her shoulders, manifesting in a walk
that makes it look like she’s wearing ankle weights and is exhausted.
“His father used to be a different man.” She sits heavily next to me on the bench, which is as hard as the couches of this
planet. “But that was years ago. Being locked away from your family changes you.”
“Why was he in prison?”
“He did some bad things to try and secure wealth for our family. I know we appear well-off, and we are, but for many
families in our situation? This wouldn’t last forever. I don’t know if you have this thing on Earth called adoption?”
I briefly explain what adoption means to me, and Aleyieth confirms it’s the same thing here.
“The laws aren’t good for adopted people on our planet, and I am adopted,” says Aleyieth. “My parents are loving and
wonderful and plan on officially passing down their wealth—what we have now comes from a monthly allowance—but my
mate doesn’t trust them. He is also adopted—we met through a mixer for the adopted and wealthy—and his parents decided to
give him nothing when they died, which was before we met.
“We have this thing called the next-generation rule. If the adopted party has a child who proves that the adopted family unit
works, then the adoptees are forced to pass their wealth down after death, and they don’t have any choice in the matter like my
mate’s parents did. The oldest child, once mated and after having a child themselves, legally binds the family together and
forces the adoptees to give their children their wealth, and their grandchildren get it after that. Until the oldest grandchild of the
people who did the adopting mates and reproduces, nothing is set in stone, and nobody is entitled to anything. Adoption wasn’t
common on our planet until a few generations ago, you see, so they’re still working things out.”
I frown. Automatically, my mind goes to theft.
“And … your mate tried to find a way to make sure you’d get all that money?”
“He did. He tried to manipulate everything, and was caught, and crimes like he attempted is highly illegal. I’ve been away
from him for 12 years.”
I should be able to sympathize, but I can’t. I can’t imagine missing anyone after being away from them for five days, let
alone five years. I did miss my ex-best friend for a while, but that pain eased quite fast. I missed my parents, but that ache
didn’t last, either; losing them always felt inevitable, and we were barely more than acquaintances by the end, anyway.
I imagine going back to Earth and losing contact with Carveth, though. That shakes me. I don’t like the thought at all. And
leaving Beaky? That would kill me.
“I’m glad you have your mate back now,” I say.
“As am I.” Aleyieth pats my hand. “He made a mistake once, and I can forgive him for that. I just hope it doesn’t do it
again, because I don’t know if I could forgive him a second time.”
She’s bigger than I am. If I was with someone who did something so awful they and did up in prison, and they did that thing
to our kid, I don’t think I’d be able to forgive them at all.
Aleyieth pushes herself to her feet, her face suddenly alight.
“My daughter’s back,” she says. “Sorry, I know because of my keen hearing. Oh, she’ll be so happy to meet you, and just
wait until she hears about her father!”
Aleyieth scurries off with a small wave to me, so I turn back to the fountain and contemplate it again. I wonder if I’ll ever
have a pure, innocent type of love that those round-faced people depicted on the fountain share, or the deep bond Aleyieth and
her mate clearly have.
Mate. It’s such a weird word.
“Admiring the fountain, dear one?”
The sound of Leithes’s voice makes me flinch, but I turn with a polite smile. He can’t be that bad. He doesn’t seem
dangerous, just potentially unpleasant.
“Yeah, I’ve always liked fountains. When I was a kid I used to go to the garden center and look at all the little fountains.
And those words were totally alien to you, weren’t they?”
I’d expect anyone else to chuckle, especially since this man seems to be smiling all the time, though that smile is half-smug.
He, like his mate, has a lazy walk, but I don’t think it’s because he has any weight on his shoulders. It’s more like the walk
equivalent of a person who talks with a deliberate delicate drawl to their voice. Which he does, come to think of it. His
shoulders sway a little with every step, like he’s got flair. Once he gets next to me, he makes quite a flashy move out of taking
his hands out of his pockets and resting them next to him, arms straight but hands extended out a little. His fingers curl into fists
in a rolling move, pinky first.
“Very alien, yes. But not as alien as they would be had I not just spent the last 12 years sharing a room with a delightful
human. Well, as delightful as you can be as a murderer, I suppose.” He folds his arms now, a series of slow and precise
movements. “Don’t worry, though. That experience hasn’t made me assume all humans are killers. He was an anomaly. Samuel
came here because he was almost caught on Earth. Serial killer. But you, you are soft, delicate, beautiful, and surely wouldn’t
hurt a fly.”
His first quick movement is when he turns to face me, stepping around to block my view of the fountain. He’s daunting; he’s
all long blonde hair and a slender face with high cheekbones, right on top of a broad, muscular body, not quite as large as his
son’s.
“Well, I would hurt a fly, actually. I’ve killed loads of them. And bugs. But wouldn’t kill anything bigger.” Even though he’s
slightly petrifying, I smile. He’s Carveth’s dad. He might be a bit of a prick, from what I hear, but he wouldn’t hurt me.
He unfolds his arms and in the same movement has the back of his hand to me, fingers curled towards himself as he drags
the back of his fingers down a lock of the hair by my face.
It feels like he thinks he’s petting an inferior creature.
“See? Gentle. And I know you’re not his mate, by the way. Because my son would never take a mate.”
The accusation makes me more frightened than it should. I should trust this man. He is Carveth’s father. And I know his
secret, that he’s broken out of prison, and if I were to just get into contact with the right people, I could have him thrown back
in. Although I wouldn’t, of course, because I wouldn’t want to hurt Carveth or his mother.
“I—”
“Lottie,” he says. I don’t like how he says it. “Lottie. Rumors started spreading 24 hours ago that the people of Pifa are
looking for a human called Lottie. One of the guards, Mevias, her husband works for the Alpha’s Council. And the Alpha’s
Council all have to monitor this stuff, you see. And Mevias and her husband like to gossip, especially about affairs from Pifa.
Pifa are offering a very big reward.”
“There’s a reward for getting me?”
“Yes, there is a reward for you. One million kesfokos. Do you know how much that is on our planet?” When I shake my
head, he answers, “Over 930 million. It is exponential. More than our entire family is worth, and I could have it all in cash if I
turned you in. Thank goodness for currency exchange.”
He’s been stroking my hair the entire time, occasionally catching my face. It feels like someone petting a lamb they plan to
slaughter.
And I still can’t bring myself to step away from it, because something about this man is dangerous. It’s like refusing to give
your number to a sleazy drunk bloke in a bar. For all you know, he could get violent and punch you because you won’t fuck him.
Slowly, Leithes’s hand trails down my face to my neck, then collarbone, then all the way down until his fingers graze my
wrist and wrap tightly around it.
In one move, I scream for help and kick him in the balls.
I barely get a few feet before he’s on top of me, his hand on my jaw from behind as we slam to the grass. He rolls us so
he’s sitting on my midriff as I struggle beneath him, but I may well be trapped under a building after a storm.
 “Don’t worry,” he says, pouting down at me with mock concern, “I know they aren’t very good-looking, but I know you’ll
get used to them. Besides, won’t you be glad my son is out of your hair? He doesn’t love you.”
“I know that,” I say, confused, because I can’t imagine why he needs to state it.
“Yes, but I see how you look at him. You have your eye on him, and oh, wouldn’t it be nice …”
My heart is pounding, and a cold sweat has broken out across me. I wriggle against the grass but can’t move, whimpering
as I kick out but make contact with nothing. I’m punching his chest, trying to scratch his face, but he bats my hands away like
flies.
Sitting on me alone has kept me down, even with my arms free. And he’s been smiling the entire time.
He’s genuinely going to fucking turn me in.
“What if I marry him?” I ask, then shake my head. “Sorry. That’s not what you do. But like, mate. Become his mate, have his
baby. Get you your money that way. Be willing. Like you said, I’ve had my eye on him.”
Have I, though? I adore Carveth. I think he’s wonderful, and so kind, and he’s undeniably gorgeous. I’m loving spending
time with him, honestly.
Does that mean I like him? Like, I like like him? God, I sound like such a child, and from the way I’m whimpering, I
probably sound like one out loud, too.
“Please,” Leithes scoffs. “Carveth would never. My son will never open his heart. Not even to you, little human.”
I’m trying so hard to hold my resolve and make him see me as an equal. Not a pet. But my lower lip quivers as I whisper,
“Please. Please, Leithes …”
All I can do is yelp as he gets to his feet and pulls me with him. I scream in case the women in the house can hear, bashing
his arm with my free fist, but he’s pure, unfeeling muscle.
Then, using his nose to activate some kind of watch thing on his wrist similar to his son’s teleporter, I’m taken away from
the house entirely and condemned to my fate.
 CHAPTER 15
Carveth
The meeting is fast and I can do most of my new work at home. I’m case monitoring now, with no people that I have to look
after besides Lottie, who I’m eager to get back to.
I don’t like the idea of her being alone in a house with my father. She’s not even alone alone. My mother is there, my sister
will be turning up any time now, but just the idea of that sinister, scheming man being in the same building as her gives me an
unshakeable sick feeling deep in my stomach.
You know, I’ve always thought my mother loved him more than he loves her. I wouldn’t put it past him to go for someone
younger and exciting now he’s free. And look at Lottie. She’s beautiful, she’s charming, she’s cute, and she’s sexy all at the
same time. Any man’s type. Any man’s dream.
If I’m there, Lottie won’t be preyed on, and my mother won’t get hurt. Any actions my father takes could have repercussions
on my mother, so I teleport directly into the entrance hall and find all is peaceful. My mother and sister sit in the living room
together, Lottie nowhere to be seen.
“Hello, darling,” says mother. “That was quick.”
“Where’s Lottie?”
My mother and sister exchange a look that I choose to ignore.
“Your father told me he’d put on a disguise and decided to take her out to show her the city,” says mother. “Said she was so
excited that she fell into the fountain and screamed with joy. A shame they’re gone, really, because sister’s name didn’t get to
meet her first. I was just thinking—you couldn’t use your old school mate, the alpha, to maybe get your father branded innocent,
could you?”
“Well, he broke out of prison, so no,” I reply dryly. “And theft and manipulating people are completely fucking illegal here,
mother.”
“Fucking?” says mother.
“Do you know where he took—”
“Please.” My mother gets to her feet. She never asks me for anything, so not being able to give her what she wants hurts me.
“If you don’t do it for him, do it for me.”
“The most I can do is help you hide him, mother. Now where did he take Lottie?”
The idea of my father running his hands all over my fated mate enters my mind again, and I’d like to rip his hair out of his
scalp. Long hair is so easy to grip for that kind of thing. I fantasized about it as a child when he used to yell at me over trivial
things, like forgetting to turn off the bathroom light. Or accidentally getting a speck of mud on our floor, which vanishes after
two minutes on our floors anyway.
“Just out. I don’t know where specifically. To the stores. Not far.”
Grumbling, I enter our gardens. I’m not sure what I expect to achieve, but I scan the area and give a sniff. He was definitely
here, alright, and so was Lottie, as the smell lingers in the air, but scents don’t linger for long outdoors.
As I head for the bench to maybe see how much of Lottie’s scent is left to gauge how long ago they left, I pause as I notice
something that smells like human fear. I tried to pass by it, but I’m drawn back to that piece of grass, crouch down, and breathe
it in. Mingling with the icky scent of the grass itself, there’s a mixture of humanity, human fear, and Lottie’s perfume. And on top
of it, the unmistakable scent of my father. And the smell that somebody teleported from near this spot.
I dash back into the house with my communication device already out and ask my mother what father told her.
“Well, he said he planned on going out, then he sent me a message once they’d gone,” says mother, shrugging. “Said Lottie
wanted to do some shopping. Said she was interested in switching to Hogar attire, which I find very brave. And since you were
away, he said he’d treat her and bring her back all dressed up as a nice surprise for you.”
My mother is much too trusting, and I love her, deeply and truly. But she can be much too naïve.
I dial Maria’s number and press the phone to my ear as I leave the room, heading outside, though I’m not sure why or where
I’m going.
“Hello, Carveth,” Maria greets.
“My father has broken out of prison and he teleported Lottie somewhere. She was frightened, and they seemed to be in one
spot outside in the grass for a while.”
I start running toward the gate as if the streets are going to tell me where Lottie is. I feel like if I’m not moving, I’m not
doing enough to find her.
I’m hit in the face with a gust of wind as the sound of Maria’s ship materializing forces me to stop, and I run toward it so
quickly I collide with her in the doorway. She stands with a woman in the black and silver shirt of Hogar law enforcement.
 “We’ll find her, Carveth. Get in.”
I nod at the law enforcement officer as Maria leads me to the console of her tremendous ship.
These ships always throw me. It’s a little cylinder on the outside, one that I can’t even see, but the inside is infinitely large,
with a control room like nothing we have on Hogar. There’s a row of seats in the circular room, all facing a six-sided control
panel covered in screens. A great tube travels up the center and disappears into the ceiling, which must be two or three floors
high. A deep green color runs up and down that tube, reflecting Maria’s origins on Sylth Etrude of the Hogentinien Empire.
She leaps her way forward as she swings a huge screen around the console, where Lottie and my father come into view. He
has her Lottie’s bound and has one arm wrapped around her neck while she whimpers. They’re in some kind of seedy-looking
facility, and seemingly empty as they hobble toward the door.
“Gotcha,” says Maria. Numbers appear on the screen—coordinates—then she slams a big red button and I jolt so hard I
fall to the floor. I’m on my feet again by the time we land less than a second later.
I don’t have a plan as I barrel out through the sliding door of the ship, Maria and the law enforcement officer close behind
me. My father is running now, literally dragging Lottie with him because she can’t keep up. But I’m faster, so I throw myself on
him, taking him and Lottie to the ground.
He freezes beneath me as Lottie rolls away free. His hair falls back around his face, squinting eyes glaring up at me. His
roots are showing, as the dye job at the back is patchy. I wonder where he got dye in prison.
“I wasn’t told she had a Hogentinien on her case,” my father snaps.
I ignore him and haul Lottie up, pulling her into my body as I shield her from the man now lying, unable to move, on the
floor.
Every time I leave this planet for one where nobody has powers, I’m more and more appreciators of the powers mated
women have when I return. The law enforcement officer has her hand outstretched to keep him pinned.
Lottie shakes like a leaf in my arms, and I freely wrap them around her to see if it will offer her some comfort. Her face
presses into my chest, and the scent of her fear is so strong that it’s assaulting my nostrils even though I’m trying not to smell it.
It’s almost stronger than her sweet perfume. I breathe in and try to focus on the latter instead of the fear, bowing my head to get
closer to the source. Her hair smells like Earth apples.
“Did he hurt you?” I mumble, and she shakes her head against my chest. I pull her in for one last tight squeeze, then allow
her to step back so I can snap the ties around her wrist with my finger.
My eyes glide over to the law enforcement officer, who has hauled my father onto his feet. Maria is sending a message to
someone.
“Festenes Prison, is that right?” the law enforcement officer says. “Just moved to the lower security unit? Well, that was
clearly a mistake.”
“Darling, my crime was hardly worth the time. But if you feel that strongly about bringing me back to prison, know that just
now, I was fulfilling a Pifa contractual obligation, not breaking the law further. The people of Pifa get this woman as written
out in a contract. And I get a reward for it, which I’ll happily split with all of you if you let me go.”
I could tear my eyes out and toss them down a smooth, wooden lane to play that Earth game with those big balls and those
pins, and they still wouldn’t roll harder than they do now.
My father looks at me, as if this offer is at all beneficial. “You could be guaranteed your fortune, Carveth, instead of living
on borrowed time.”
“I’ll pass,” I reply.
I know he’d run if he could, and the viciousness in his voice tells me he’d love to lurch at me.
“You would really choose some human woman over having your father back and making your family whole again? Over
making amends with me and moving on?”
When I look between the deranged man frozen to the spot and the nervous face of the innocent woman I want to protect, and
will, even after my work no longer needs me to, my answer isn’t even difficult to form.
“Yes. “
“I really am regretful, Carveth. Of what I did to you.”
He spoke while I was looking at Lottie, and if I didn’t know it was him speaking, I wouldn’t know his voice. There’s
something soft about it, not sinister. I look at him, and I think it’s the first time in my life I’ve seen him wear a neutral
expression. He looks older, somehow.
“It was evil, actually. The worst thing I’ve ever done. You don’t know what I’d give to go back and make it right.”
The tightness in my throat must just be a natural response to hearing someone plead for their freedom. Because I cut ties
with him a long time ago, and my heart is hardened to him now. It’s hardened to everyone, even the woman standing next to me
who’s supposed to be my mate given to me by fate.
“But you can’t,” I inform my father simply, then slip my hand onto Lottie’s lower back. I drop it just as quickly, because I’m
not sure why I touched her there. Then I look away from my father and mumble, “Bring him back to prison.”
Lottie looks up at me, wide-eyed, like she can’t quite believe I just condemned my father to be locked up. She doesn’t
know him like I do, anad she is worth having him locked up again. I could look the other way, could use my contacts to get him
freed. He wasn’t breaking the law just now, technically. Even if our people do prefer to protect people wanted by the people of
Pifa, my organization is the only one enforcing that safety; everyone else is free to turn in whoever they like.
But I am not putting Lottie at risk by trusting a man who has hurt and misled me my whole life.
“Let’s go home.” I take hold of Lottie’s wrist with the gentlest touch I can. When she flinches, I let go and offer her my hand
instead, which she slides hers into without hesitation.
My father opens his mouth to shout, but no words come out. His face is one of unbridled rage as the law enforcement
officer silences him with her powers and I turn, unbothered by the man I no longer wish to know.
 CHAPTER 16
Lottie
I keep my arms wrapped around myself as Carveth and Maria escort me back to Carveth’s family home. They keep asking if
I’m okay, and I nod every time.
Yeah, like, I’m physically okay. And the dangerous bloke is going back behind bars. But I can’t look Carveth in the eye. He
lost his dad again because of me. I’ve been nothing but a nuisance to him since I got here, and that’s not a feeling I like.
Maria says goodbye before we leave her ship. I mostly keep my eyes on the twirling green stuff in that tube above those big
console panel control things. It looks proper sci-fi.
We walk out into Carveth’s bedroom.
Slowly, Carveth maneuvers me towards the bed and I sit down with my hands folded in my lap, holding eye contact with
the black fur rug.
“I’ll go see what everyone else is doing and tell them what’s happening,” says Carveth. “You recover.”
I’m not the one who has to.
Once left alone, I sort of feel like I can’t move. Not only did I invade Carveth’s current house, but now his family home,
too, tainting his old bedroom with new, bad memories of loss and torment.
The hard gel nail extension on my pinkie came loose during whatever ordeal happened today, so I rip it off with my teeth. I
rip off the others for good measure and stow them in my pocket because I don’t want to litter Carveth’s trash with my nonsense,
because I’ve already littered his life with it.
I jump as the wooden door softly thunks shut as Carveth makes his reappearance. It made no noise when it opened. I glance
at him, but he doesn’t look tired or upset. In fact, he smiles at me as he rubs his hands together while approaching.
“My mother is going to see him, and my sister is gone to pick up my mother’s favorite dinner. She asked if you and I wanted
anything, but I told her you’re still getting acclimatised to what we have here. You can use the kitchen and make something if
you like. We can dine up here so you never see anyone after. My mother says she’s sorry. She also says it’s so unfortunate that
my mate happens to be a wanted woman, so your cover isn’t totally blown. I explained that we met through work, but then we
fell in love. I implied it all happened months ago.”
“Why are you being so normal?”
“What do you mean?”
I rise. In the soft and slightly yellow lighting of the bedroom, it hits me that Carveth could pass for human, albeit a very
muscular one. His clothing could be some costume he wore to a play or a nightclub or something. The bedroom is just so …
normal. Alright, the bed’s a bit of a weird shape, but it’s normal enough.
“I just got your dad thrown back in prison.”
“Where he should’ve been all along, because he hadn’t finished the sentence. I’m not the one who should be upset. I should
be comforting you.”
When Carveth steps forward, I’m hoping it’s to give me my punishment, but it’s to steer me instead. His hands form solid
seals on my biceps as he gently steps me back to the bed to lower me onto the end of it. He takes the spot next to me. He’s so
heavy that the mattress sinks down considerably, and I have to tighten my core to avoid falling against him.
This morning I would’ve giggled if I fell against him, but now I curl away in shame at the thought.
I deserve to feel the shame, because he’s looking at is lap with melancholy. That pulls me out of my selfishness a bit to put
my hand on his knee.
“I’m really sorry, Carveth. About everything.”
He just shakes his head.
“It’s really fine, Lottie. My heart is closed. There are no emotions in me regarding this. I’m looking at it from an objective
point of view. My father is a horrible person who belongs in prison, for his old crime and for trying to aid in a technically-
legal cawful thing that my workplace tries to prevent and that our government is against, even if they can’t legally do anything
to stop people siding with Pifa.”
“But he’s still your family,” I whisper. “You deserve to heal whatever happened between you before.”
“Lottie, it’s really okay.”
“It’s not, though!” My guilt redistributes itself, moving away from shame and into a desire to help him, to make him see that
he’s actually hurt. Hiding from emotions is never a good thing, so I get on my knees and grip his arm, shaking it a little bit. “You
look miserable.”
Ever since he sat on the bed, he’s been staring ahead of him like he’s trying to see through this situation and into another.
His shoulders have even fallen and curled in a bit.
Another random document with
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 Verlag von Quelle & Meyer in Leipzig
Geb. M. 1.80 Naturwissenschaftliche
Bibliothek für Jugend und
Volk
Geb. M. 1.80
Herausgegeben von Konrad Höller und Dr. Georg Ulmer
Reich illustrierte Bändchen im Umfange von 140 bis 200 Seiten

Der deutsche Wald. Von Prof. Dr. M. Buesgen. 2.

Aufl.
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botanischen Werken, die in jüngster Zeit erschienen sind,
beansprucht das vorliegende ganz besondere Beachtung. Es ist
ebenso interessant wie belehrend.«
Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau.

Die Heide. Von W. Wagner.

»Alles in allem – ein liebenswürdiges Büchlein, daß wir in die
Schülerbibliotheken eingestellt wünschen möchten; denn es gehört
zu jenen, welche darnach angetan sind, unserer Jugend in
anregendster Weise Belehrung zu schaffen.«
Land- u. Forstwirtsch. Unterrichtszeitung.

Im Hochgebirge. Von Prof. C. Keller.

»Auf 141 Seiten entrollt der Verfasser ein so intimes, anschauliches
Bild des Tierlebens in den Hochalpen, daß man schier mehr
Belehrung als aus dicken Wälzern geschöpft zu haben glaubt. Ein
treffliches Buch, das keiner ungelesen lassen sollte.«
Deutsche Tageszeitung.
Vulkan und Erdbeben. Von Prof. Dr. Brauns.
Es ist erfreulich, daß hier eine erste Autorität des Faches ihre
Wissenschaft in den Dienst der Allgemeinheit gestellt hat. Der
behandelnde Stoff ist von allgemeinstem Interesse, besonders seit
auch bei uns in Deutschland wiederholt größere Erderschütterungen
sich einstellten und das Woher und Warum sich auf aller Lippen
drängt.

Aus Deutschlands Urgeschichte. Von G.

Schwantes. 2. Aufl.
»Eine klare und gemeinverständliche Arbeit, erfreulich durch die
weise Beschränkung auf die gesicherten Ergebnisse der
Wissenschaft; erfreulich auch durch den lebenswarmen Ton.«
Frankfurter Zeitung.

Aus der Vorgeschichte der Pflanzenwelt. Von Dr.

W. Gothan.
Der Verfasser bespricht zunächst die geologischen Grundbegriffe,
geht dann auf die Art der Erhaltung der fossilen Pflanzenreihe ein
und schildert die Vorgeschichte der großen wichtigsten Gruppen des
Pflanzenreiches der Jetzt- und Vorzeit.

Tiere der Vorzeit. Von Rektor E. Haase.

Dies Buch bietet Schilderungen einer Reihe besonders interessanter
Vorwelttiere in Wort und Bild dar. Ohne sich auf trockene
Beschreibungen einzulassen, erzählt es vor allem von dem Leben
jener Tierwelt. Es ist nicht nur für die erste Einführung geeignet,
sondern wird auch solchen Lehrern, die sich schon mit dem
Gegenstande beschäftigt haben, eine Fülle neuer Anregungen
bieten.
Die Tiere des Waldes. Von Forstmeister K.
Sellheim.
»Die Sehnsucht nach dem Walde ist dem Deutschen eingeboren …
Aber wie wenig wird er dabei das Tierleben gewahr, das ihn da
umgibt. Da wird dieses Buch ein willkommener Führer und Anleiter
sein.«
Deutsche Lehrerzeitung.

Unsere Singvögel. Von Professor Dr. A. Voigt.

»Mit nicht geringen Erwartungen gingen wir an Professor Voigts
neuestes Buch. Aber als wir nur wenige Abschnitte gelesen, da
konnten wir mit Freude feststellen, daß diesmal der Meister sich
selbst übertroffen.«
Nationalzeitung.

Das Süßwasser-Aquarium. Von C. Heller. 2. Aufl.

»Dieses Buch ist nicht nur ein unentbehrlicher Ratgeber für jeden
Aquarienfreund, sondern es macht vor allen Dingen seinen Leser mit
den interessantesten Vorgängen aus dem Leben im Wasser
bekannt …«
Bayersche Lehrerzeitung.

Reptilien- und Amphibienpflege. Von Dr. P. Krefft.

»Die einheimischen, für den Anfänger zunächst in Betracht
kommenden Arten sind vorzüglich geschildert in bezug auf
Lebensgewohnheiten und Pflegebedürfnisse – die fremdländischen
Terrarientiere nehmen einen sehr breiten Raum ein.«
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Bienen und Wespen. Von Ed. Scholz.

»Das Interesse der Naturfreunde wendet sich meist den
farbenprächtigen Schmetterlingen und Käfern zu. Darum freut es um
so mehr, daß ein gründlicher Kenner einmal die Ergebnisse
jahrelanger Beobachtung der Stechimmen in einem so volkstümlich
geschriebenen Buche niederlegt«.
Landwirtschaftl. Umschau.

Die Ameisen. Von H. Viehmeyer.

»Viehmeyer ist allen Ameisenfreunden als bester Kenner bekannt.
Von seinen Bildern kann man sagen, daß sie vom ersten bis zum
letzten Wort der Natur geradezu abgeschrieben sind.«
Thüringer Schulblatt.

Die Schmarotzer der Menschen und Tiere. Von Dr.

v. Linstow.
»Es ist eine unappetitliche Gesellschaft, die hier in Wort und Bild vor
dem Leser aufmarschiert. Aber gerade jene Parasiten … verdienen
von ihm nach Form und Wesen gekannt zu sein, weil damit der erste
wirksame Schritt zu ihrer Bekämpfung eingeleitet ist.«
K. Süddeutsche Apotheker-Zeitung.

Die mikroskopische Kleinwelt unserer Gewässer.

Von E. Reukauf.
»Nur wenige haben eine Ahnung von dem ungeheuren
Formenreichtum und eine auch nur annähernd richtige Vorstellung
von dem Wesen jener Mikroorganismen, die unsere Gewässer
bevölkern. Als ein Schlüssel hierzu wird das vorliegende Bändchen
vorzüglich geeignet sein.«
Deutsche Zeitung.

Unsere Wasserinsekten. Von Dr. G. Ulmer.

Für Freunde des Wassers, für Liebhaber von Aquarien ist dies Buch
geschrieben. Es bietet eine Fülle von Anregungen und wird den
Leser veranlassen, selbst hinauszuziehen in die Natur, sie mit
eigenen Augen zu betrachten.

Aus Seen und Bächen. Von Dr. G. Ulmer.

Zusammen mit Ulmers Wasserinsekten bildet die Schrift ein kleines
Lehrbuch der Hydrobiologie. Der erste Teil bringt in reichillustrierten
Einzeldarstellungen das niedere Tierleben unserer Binnengewässer
zur Anschauung. Der zweite Teil handelt von dem Tierleben der
einzelnen Gewässerformen, mit besonderer eingehender
Berücksichtigung des Plankton.

Wie ernährt sich die Pflanze? Naturbeobachtungen

draußen und im Hause. Von O. Krieger.
Entgegen dem alten Brauche, den Tätigkeitstrieb der Jugend in die
Bahnen des Naturaliensammelns zu lenken, will dies Buch den
Leser zu einer selbsttätigen Beschäftigung mit der Natur anleiten.
Durch Wald und Feld, durch Wiese und Garten wird er geführt, um
Beobachtungen zu sammeln und mittels einfacher Vorrichtungen
Versuche anzustellen.

Niedere Pflanzen. Von Prof. Dr. R. Timm.

»In dieser Weise führt das kleine Büchlein den Leser in die gesamte
Welt der so mannigfachen Kryptogamen ein und lehrt ihn, sie
verständnisvoll zu beobachten.«
Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau.

Häusliche Blumenpflege. Von Paul F. F. Schulz.

»Der Stoff ist mit großer Übersichtlichkeit gruppiert, und der Text ist
so faßlich und klar gehalten, außerdem durch eine Fülle von
Illustrationen unterstützt, daß auch der Laie sich mühelos
zurechtfinden kann … Dem Verfasser gebührt für seine reiche,
anmutige Gabe Dank.«
Pädagogische Studien.

Der deutsche Obstbau. Von F. Meyer.

»Der Obstbau ist ein Zweig der Bodenkultur, der heute mit
besonderer Energie gefördert wird. Dieses Buch möchte weiteren
Kreisen einen Einblick geben in die Betriebsweise des
gegenwärtigen deutschen Obstbaues, es will insbesondere auch
dem Besitzer des kleinen Gartens ein Ratgeber und Wegweiser
sein.«

Chemisches Experimentierbuch. Von O. Hahn.

Das Buch will jedem, der Lust zum chemischen Experimentieren hat,
mit einfachen Apparaten und geringen Mitteln eine Anleitung sein,
für sich selbst im Hause die richtigsten Experimente auszuführen.

Die Photographie. Von W. Zimmermann.

»Das Buch behandelt die theoretischen und praktischen Grundlagen
der Photographie und bildet ein Lehrbuch bester Art. Durch die
populäre Fassung eignet es sich ganz besonders für den Anfänger.«
»Apollo«, Zentralorgan f. Amateur- u. Fachphotogr.

Beleuchtung und Heizung. Von J. F. Herding.

»Ich möchte gerade diesem Buche seiner praktischen,
ökonomischen Bedeutung wegen, eine weite Verbreitung wünschen.
Hier liegt, vor allem im Kleinbetrieb, noch vieles sehr im argen.«
Frankf. Zeitung.

Kraftmaschinen. Von Ingenieur Charles Schütze.

»Schützes Kraftmaschinen sollten deshalb in keiner
Schülerbibliothek, weder an höheren noch an Volksschulen, fehlen.
Das Büchlein gibt aber auch dem Lehrer Gelegenheit, seine
technischen Kenntnisse schnell und leicht zu erweitern.«
Monatsschrift für höhere Schulen.

Signale in Krieg und Frieden. Von Dr. Fritz Ulmer.

»Ein interessantes Büchlein, welches vor uns liegt. Es behandelt das
Signalwesen von den ersten Anfängen im Altertume und den
Naturvölkern bis zur jetzigen Vollkommenheit im Land- und
Seeverkehr.«
Deutsche Lehrerzeitung.

Seelotsen-, Leucht- und Rettungswesen. Ein

Beitrag zur Charakteristik d. Nordsee u. Niederelbe.
Von Dr. F. Dannmeyer.
»Mit über 100 guten Bildern interessantester Art, mit Zeichnungen
und zwei Karten versehen, führt das Buch uns das Schiffahrtsleben
in anschaulicher, fesselnder Form vor Augen, wie es sich täglich an
unseren Flußmündungen abspielt.«
Allgemeine Schiffahrts-Zeitung.

Naturgeschichte einer Kerze. Von M. Faraday. 5.

Aufl. Mit einem Lebensabriß Faradays. Herausgeg. v.
Prof. Dr. R. Meyer. 202 S. mit zahlr. Abbildg. In
Leinenbd. M. 2.50.
»Im übrigen ist ›die Naturgeschichte einer Kerze‹ geradezu zu einem
klassischen Buche für die Jugend geworden, in dem der Verfasser
an einem begrenzten Stoffe in lebendig wirkender, anregender
Darstellung fast alle im Weltall wirkenden Gesetze behandelt und die
Leser in das Studium der Natur einführt.«
 Zeitschrift für lateinlose höhere Schulen.

Verlagskataloge, Verzeichnisse der Sammlungen

Wissenschaft und Bildung / Naturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek
versendet unentgeltlich und portofrei der Verlag

Quelle & Meyer in Leipzig, Kreuzstraße 14

 Weitere Anmerkungen zur Transkription
Offensichtliche Fehler wurden stillschweigend korrigiert. Die Darstellung der
Ellipsen wurde vereinheitlicht.
Die erste Katalogseite der »Naturwissenschaftlichen Bibliothek« wurde nach
hinten zum restlichen Katalog verschoben.
Korrekturen:
S. 147: Baco → Bacon
mit dem des Roger Bacon
 *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
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