Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 134725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
“We were all scared when we arrived, and it turned out okay. Maybe it turned out okay for Lacey, too,” I mused.
“I really, really hope so,” Jetta said.
And I knew that not every man on Phallyx was pure of heart because of what’d almost happened to me the night we arrived, and the crazy story Jetta told about how Daxx almost lost her, too. But if Lacey was actually with Zane’s twin brother, I had to believe she’d be okay.
When it got late and it was very obvious that Daxx and Jetta were ready for their wedding night festivities, we all adjourned to stay at a nearby hotel. Jetta tried to say there was plenty of room, but the look in Daxx’s eyes confirmed what the rest of us knew. They may have already been Phallyx-married three months, but this was their ‘wedding night’ by Earth traditions and he was ready to observe those traditions. All of them.
They hosted a late brunch the following day, so we got to spend more time together before everyone went their separate ways. And Zane said we’d see them again in a month or so, when he’d planned to take us back for a visit and to look at some beachside properties.
***
“When is this fashion event at the Blackstar residence?” Zane asked me back at home as I was unpacking our things into the closet in the master bedroom to have them taken away, cleaned, and stored.
Ollie was down visiting Chili in his habitat. Zane’s father, Marko, and Daylin had been taking turns keeping him company and we’d already had word that he’d slept on the pillow beside Ollie Sr. the night before and seemed okay with us being gone. We’d decided to consider getting him a friend or two at the nearby fuschilla sanctuary. Young orphaned ones if possible as Chili was showing so many signs of intelligence that we were training him to follow commands and hoped it would equate to fewer problems that were typical of the species.
“Tomorrow,” I said. “Will you drop me off after lunch?”
“What time is Elaina going to be there?”
“Around the same time.”
“Why don’t I pick her up and drop you both off together?”
“Um… isn’t she out of the way?”
“No. It’s exactly on the way. But I would drive out of the way. I’d prefer you not arrive without her.”
“Because…” I felt my hackles rising.
“She’s quite adept at handling Treya. I’ve seen her in action.”
My hackles weren’t just rising, they were up. “And I’m not?”
Zane came to me and took my face in his hands. “You were perfectly gracious and dodged her attacks in a way that showed you are the better person. I could also see how you internalized some of it. Elaina cuts her right back down, whatever she says to her rolls off. She’ll help you get through it, if Treya has any bad intentions. I still think you should skip it, avoid her, but---”
“You don’t think I can handle myself.”
“It’s not that. It’s that Elaina’d have your back. If I’m not there to do it, I would prefer someone is.”
I was pissed. I pulled away from him and slammed the cupboard door and then I stormed to the bathroom and slammed that door.
When I came back out, he wasn’t here. And it took the wind out of my sails a little because I wanted him to know I was angry with him for thinking she was tougher than I was, that I needed someone to defend me.
And what really had me riled, if I was honest, was that every time he spoke about Elaina, he talked about her like she was this awesome, funny, fearless person and when I’d seen them together at Jetta’s wedding, she hugged him and he laughed with her a whole bunch of times off to the side as if they had private jokes, and now that I was mad at him for his comments, I was thinking I was a little jealous of his high opinion of her. Did he have the hots for her?
I suddenly wanted to throw up at that notion.
I went back into the bathroom to take a hot bath. Halfway through my soak, the bathroom door opened. I jolted to cover myself in case it was Ollie, but it wasn’t. It was Zane. I shot him a dirty look and covered myself with my hands, anyways, because I was ticked.
He gave me a strange look.
“If you don’t mind…” I snapped.
He fully came in and shut the door behind himself.
“If I don’t mind what?”
Damn it. There were so many linguistic things he didn’t get. He occasionally said things I didn’t understand, but my language had way more idioms than his did.
“It’s a figure of speech that is a not-so-rude way of telling someone to either fuck off or in this case, get the fuck out.”