Caveman Alien's Riddle - Calista Skye Page 0,89

spending our honeymoon there. In fact, I think it’s in that big lake down there.”

Caronerax abruptly dives, and I scream with thrilled terror as we plummet to the shimmering blue lake with the emerald green island by one shore.

“I sometimes think you enjoy scaring me,” I say as we come in to land.

My dragon beats his wings once, and then we’re down.

He Changes to human form and puts the hairpin into his golden locks.

Then he gently lifts my chin and brings his lips close, gazing right into my soul again.

“Boo.”

Epilogue

- Jennifer -

“Take a look at this. Probably nothing, but…” I shake the cherry pits out of my little pouch. They rattle on the alien material of the console in the control room.

All the girls come over.

“What are those things?” Phoebe asks. “They aren’t ordinary seeds.”

“That’s what I thought,” I tell her. “I mean, they probably are. They just don’t look like it. Now, try to smell them. It’s okay, I’ve rinsed them in water.”

The girls take one pit each and bring them to their noses.

“It’s familiar,” Ashlynn says. “Not very strong, though.”

“Try to scrape it with your fingernail,” I suggest and do the same with my pit.

They all do it, then take another sniff.

Sophia gasps. “Is that… could it…?”

“I don’t know,” I tell them, excitement surging. “It’s too soon to say. And it’s plainly not the same thing. But it could be pretty close.”

“Cocoa,” Delyah calmly states. “Or a very similar smell, anyway. Quite fatty and not too hard. It should be possible to mill it.”

“More than possible,” Dolly says and bites off a little piece, chewing it with her front teeth. “Easy. Heck, even if this isn’t exactly the same as cocoa beans, it has all the flavor and the bitterness. Once we find sugar, we can make not-chocolate all day long.”

“Can’t we extract sugar from fruit?” Emilia asks. “We haven’t bothered with that before, but if it means we can make freaking Hershey’s, then I’ll set up a sugar mill right now.”

The girls are excited, sniffing and chewing the cherry pits from Marshie’s island.

“Oh my God, this is crazy cool!”

“We might have Snickers tomorrow! Right, Emilia? You’ll make Snickers first?”

“No, where would you get the peanuts? Do something simpler. Just a soft milk chocolate.”

“Yes! A bar of Milka! Swiss quality. You can’t go wrong.”

“Why so complicated? M&M’s is all anyone ever needs.”

I grin as the girls pat my back and laugh and joke.

Sophia shakes her head in wonder. “Is there anything this planet doesn’t have?”

“Coffee,” comes the immediate response.

“Kardashians.”

“Decent tissues.”

“An Apple store.”

“Yes, yes,” Sophia laughs. “It was one of those rhetorical questions. But we are discovering a lot of good stuff now, making our lives better.”

“Okay,” Delyah says. “Great discovery, Jennifer. That will be super important. Now, we have to talk about the future.”

We settle down.

I glance at the three hundred and sixty degree display that shows everything around Bune. It all looks perfectly peaceful now. Caronerax is at full strength, and he can keep most of the enemies away. It also looks like Kyandros and Aragadon are drawing some power from his presence, which he thinks is because he is royalty.

But we still need the shelter of Bune.

And there is another problem. When he put his hand on the escape ship, he could tell it was not intact. He can’t tell how bad it is, and Mia can find no problem with it. It might only be a minor crack or something out of place. But it feels a little bit broken to him.

That means none of us can take a chance on it unless it’s a total emergency and it’s that or death.

“Weird things are happening,” Delyah says. “The battering ram was really unexpected. The caveman army suddenly dissolving is another thing. From what we experienced during the earthquake and battle, it looks like some of the guys in the army let the dragons in on purpose.”

An angry hiss goes through the room. We probably all suspected something like that, but hearing our chief say it makes it more real.

“And I can’t forget the groups of cavemen and dragons measuring each other up without fighting. Something is going on, and it can’t be good for us. On the other hand, we now have a weapon against dragons. A piece of gold shot by a blunderbuss should be effective in penetrating their hard scales. One of the softest metals is the only thing that can easily penetrate them. Kind of interesting.”

“Now all we need is gold in