His Naughty Little Mate (14 page)

“I love you too, Carmen.” He kissed the top of her head, stroking her hair as he pulled back to gaze at her before standing up and moving toward the doorway. “I will be back soon.
Stay here
.”

He left her alone, and she remained in bed for a few minutes, lost in her thoughts. Nuemis had claimed there was nothing he could do to help them, yet Erik kept spending more and more time with the alien, supposedly studying their technology. She sat up and her gaze landed on the stack of notebooks that rested on a dresser across the room. The notebooks that held all her observations about Blumeran life forms she’d encountered. She’d stopped taking notes after learning they’d never return to Earth, and the notebooks had remained there untouched ever since. Yet Erik hadn’t slowed down a bit in his scientific endeavors on Vella. For a moment she was angry about it, angry that he carried on as if nothing had changed, but then suspicion lit a fire underneath her.

Jumping out of bed, she rushed to change out of her nightdress and into one of the many sheer, long dresses the Blumerans had stocked in their closet. The fabric stretched over her expanding stomach.

Stay here.

Erik’s words replayed in her mind, over and over again. What was he up to?

Pacing the bedroom, she glanced out the window as the suns shone down on the forest. Hope filtered through her vision, causing the colors below to appear brighter. She’d asked Nuemis to help them steal a spaceship, but he’d said it wasn’t possible because the Blumerans would simply detect their stolen ship and shoot it down long before they reached Earth. But Erik had experience with stealth planes and the technology that kept them hidden, or so she’d heard from the whispers at flight school. Her heart raced and the flowers on the trees appeared to glisten as the suns’ rays reflected off the large petals. As if sensing her excitement, her baby kicked in her stomach. Two of the purple birds that she now knew were called
galians,
cawed and swooped down into the trees, and seconds later a shadow blocked out the suns. A sleek, rectangular-shaped ship descended quietly through the trees.

Of course.

It made perfect sense. She felt like a fool for not realizing what Erik was up to sooner. She rushed around the room, slipping on a pair of shoes and gathering up her notebooks. Smiling, she hurried downstairs and outside. The warm air caressed her face as she looked around, finally spotting Erik running out from the trees. She rushed to him, grasping his offered hand while clutching the notebooks to her chest.

Erik pulled her close. “It’s time to go home. Back to Earth. As a family.”

* * *

The ship lurched over the trees as Erik checked the stealth addition. Nuemis piloted the ship with his hand on a bright blue screen, though from what Erik understood, most of the navigation came from mental commands. Stealing a ship would have been impossible if he hadn’t made a Blumeran friend. They’d spent weeks adding the experimental stealth technology to one of the older spaceships that had already been retired. They’d also altered the outer shell to make the ship appear as one of the surface transports that they often saw zipping over the forest, so even if someone were to spot the ship, no one would suspect a thing. And if someone did notice the ship was missing and tried to track them, the stealth addition made it impossible, even once they left Vella’s atmosphere.

He glanced at Carmen, making sure she was buckled into her seat properly.

“In just a moment we will pass through the Drema Barrier and then we can initiate the space fold. You’ll be home very soon.” Nuemis shifted his hand on the blue screen.

“The Drema Barrier?” Carmen asked, looking between them.

“It’s basically the same thing as the Karman Line, but on Vella it’s called the Drema Barrier,” Erik said, a thought suddenly occurring to him. He laughed, throwing his head back. God, it was so perfect, as if they’d just come full circle.

“What’s so funny?” Carmen asked.

“That’s what we should name our child. Drema. Sounds like it could be a boy or a girl’s name.”

“Drema.” A smile reached her lips and she stroked her stomach. “I like that.”

The screen glowed green, and Nuemis turned in his chair. “We’ve passed though the barrier. Now I will initiate the fold.”

Erik squeezed Carmen’s hand when her eyes went wide. “It’s okay. It should be a smooth ride. Nuemis says—”

“We’re here,” Nuemis interrupted.

“Already?” Carmen sat straighter and peered out the window, craning her neck to look around the alien’s big hair. Erik followed her gaze.

Nuemis began a longwinded speech about space folding, but his voice faded into the background. Earth. They were home and they were safe, and so was their baby. The familiar blue and white marble that was Earth had never looked so beautiful against a black velvet backdrop surrounded by stars.

“Where do you want me to land? I can hack into the GPS systems you told me about Erik, so a specific address will work just fine.”

Erik leaned over his seat, hugging Carmen to his side. “Where do you want to go?”

“Wyoming,” she said without hesitation, then gave Nuemis the address of the ranch she’d inherited from her grandfather years ago. “I think Drema will like it there.”

Erik was happy that she hadn’t given them the address for NASA. The interviews, debriefings, and fanfare could wait for another day. He gazed down at her, the love of his life, and all the plans, hopes, and dreams for their future felt whole again. He tucked her head over his heart and splayed his hand over her stomach. “Welcome home, Drema.”

Epilogue

Carmen gazed at the mountains in the distance as she stood at the window, sipping her coffee. Decaf coffee.
Ugh
. Erik frowned upon her drinking anything with caffeine in it these days, and her bottom tingled as she recalled the spanking he’d given her a week ago when he’d caught her sneaking the regular stuff. She smiled though, once again in awe of the reason for his new rule. She placed one hand on her stomach as her baby boy kicked inside her.

“Drema!” she called, placing her coffee down on the table. “You’ve got to get dressed. Uncle Nuemis will be here any second!”

“I’m already dressed, mama!”

Carmen turned around as Erik entered the kitchen, carrying their three-year-old daughter in his arms. She laughed at the outfit her little girl was wearing, a pirate costume complete with an eye patch and a plastic hook for a hand.

Erik placed Drema in her booster seat at the table and she immediately began playing with her oatmeal, gathering up a spoonful of it only to let it slide back into the bowl. “Uncle Nuemis says they don’t have oatmeal on Vella,” she mumbled, scowling at her breakfast.

Warmth filled Carmen as Erik approached to hug her from behind, his hands coming to rest on her swollen belly. “How’s my barefoot and pregnant wife doing this morning?”

“I’m tired,” she said in a grumpy tone. “I need coffee. Real coffee.”

“Nice try. Oh, I spoke with Nuemis about an hour ago,” he whispered into her ear. “He’s leaving Vella soon, right after a meeting with the council concludes.”

“Is everything all right?” she asked, recalling all the worry they’d felt when the alien who’d helped them escape his planet illegally returned to his home, not knowing if he’d be in danger once his actions came to light. Though the council had detained him for a while, they eventually released him and decided to officially make contact with Earth. Nuemis had regained his position on the council as well, and Carmen was grateful that it had all worked out in the end, and she was also delighted that Nuemis made regular trips to visit them in Wyoming. He’d become a close friend, and Drema absolutely adored him.

“Yes, they’re just going over their agenda for their first meeting with President Ambrose next week. Nuemis started to describe the agenda in more detail, but the communications device must need tweaking because I lost his video feed. I’ll monkey with it today.”

Carmen nodded. Nuemis had developed a method for communication between Vella and Earth, but given the distance between the planets, it didn’t always work perfectly. The Blumerans had used this method to first contact American leaders shortly over a year ago, but aside from Nuemis, none of the aliens had been to Earth yet. The world was watching and waiting though, and their first visit and meeting with the president would be televised next week.

The doorbell rang and Drema squealed and clapped her hands, her dark brown curls bouncing around with her movements. “Uncle Nuemis!” she cried with a big smile that warmed Carmen’s heart.

“Daddy’s going to answer the door,” Erik said. “Once you finish your oatmeal, you can play with Uncle Nuemis.”

Drema shoved her plastic pirate hook off her hand and began spooning the oatmeal into her mouth, her gaze remaining on the kitchen doorway. She managed to finish just as the tall, big-haired alien walked in, a bouquet of
entra
flowers gathered in one hand. He passed them to Carmen, greeting her with a nod and a smile.

“Oh, they’re beautiful. Thanks, Nuemis.” She placed them on the counter and searched for a vase in the cabinets, quickly getting them in water. The alien flowers would last for weeks, their lavender-like perfume filling the house with a pleasant scent.

“Uncle Nuemis!” Drema hopped out of her booster seat and ran to him with open arms. He caught her and lifted her up, spinning her in the air while she giggled.

“What happened to your eye?” he asked. “It’s all covered up.”

“I’m a pirate, silly,” she said.

“A pirate?” Nuemis asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yarrrrr,” Drema said as he placed her down on her feet. “Come on, Uncle Nuemis! We’ve got to search for buried treasure!” She grasped his hand and led him outside into the early morning.

Carmen and Erik stood at the window watching the big-haired alien follow their little girl around the field below their house. She sighed softly as Erik nuzzled her cheek, his stubble scraping against her skin.

“I wonder if Nuemis knows there isn’t really any buried treasure out there,” Erik said when the alien knelt and began digging in the dirt with his hands.

“Oh my,” Carmen said as the pile of unearthed dirt quickly grew behind him. “I don’t think he does.”

Nuemis’s kind hadn’t been around children in thousands of years and he therefore didn’t quite understand playing, nor did he grasp the wild imagination that came with childhood.

“Should we go out there and tell him she’s pretending?” Erik asked.

Carmen laughed and shook her head. “Not yet. It looks like they’re having fun.” She gazed at Nuemis interacting joyfully with their daughter, and Erik placed a hand on her stomach as their baby boy once again started kicking.

The events that had led up to this moment flashed in her mind, both good and bad, from the accident on the asteroid and waking on up Vella, to the breeding and the escape from the alien planet, and to riding out the fanfare after their return to Earth and marrying Erik a few months before the birth of Drema. It all led up to this perfect moment, this perfect happy ending.

The End

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