The Alien's Revenge - Ella Maven Page 0,3

by the giant wasps.” She grabbed my hands. “Stay in the compound. It’s safe here. We have pie.”

“Pie is great, but I really want to do this. For myself. I don’t like being dependent on anyone. You know this. I was the first to volunteer for the translator implant because I didn’t like not knowing what was going on around me. I wanted to communicate with the Drix. And now I want to know if something happens, I can survive out there.” I threw my hand out. “I get that you’re scared for me, and this isn’t something you want to do, but I need to do it for me.” I squeezed her hands. “Please understand that.”

Her eyes watered, which had been happening a lot since Daz knocked her out. Her nose twitched and she looked down at our joined hands. “I understand,” she whispered.

“Frank—”

“No, you’re right. I just hate being separated from you. From day one in this new life, it was your face I saw.” She glanced up at me with a wobbly smile. “You’re my good luck charm.”

I wrapped my arms around her, drawing her to me. I closed my eyes, remembering when I’d handed her my lucky necklace when she was off on her dangerous mission with Daz. When they’d been captured, they’d used the wishbone charm to pick the locks of their bonds.

Frankie’s words only solidified my reasoning for wanting to learn to hunt. They relied on me, even Frankie, who as the leader’s mate was something of a queen to the clavas.

“Look, I’ll be fine,” I pulled back, swiping the tears off her pale cheeks. “I’m with Gar of all aliens. He’d cut off his arm before I was harmed. You know that.”

She sniffed. “I do. But you watch your back too, okay. And if you’re going to do this stupid life-risking thing, you better pay attention and come back like fucking Katniss.”

“You like shows where everyone dies, don’t you?”

She scrunched up her face. “The books were better.”

I groaned. “I miss books.”

“Tabitha’s short stories of pure filth she’s been writing for us have been getting me through.”

“That girl,” I muttered. “She’s trouble.”

“She can write a wicked sex scene,” Frankie said. “Just saying. And I have wicked sex so I—”

I smacked my palms over my ears. “Lalalalalalala, I can’t hear you talk about your alien sex life. Lalalalalalala.”

Frankie collapsed on the bed laughing, and then with her growing belly got stuck like that, so I had to help her up. I tended to my plants, watering and plucking dried blooms, while Frankie piddled around my room smelling the foliage.

Gar had said to meet him in a yora, which was about an hour. The only way I could tell time was by a small sundial outside my front door, which told me it’d been about a yora. I slipped on the thick-soled boots Anna had made each of us.

“It’s time for my adventure,” I called to Frankie, who had her face in a gigantic yellow plant that resembled a sunflower.

“Fine, I’ll just sit around here and sweat by myself.”

I rolled my eyes at her and gently pushed her outside into the sun. After I straightened the small flower wreath I’d hung by the door, I closed it.

Frankie gave me a hug. “Be safe. Come home. Don’t do anything stupid like run into a pack of Rizars and almost get eaten.”

“Haha. I won’t pull a Reba. I’ll stick by Gar’s side like glue.” I didn’t add I’d do that because I couldn’t see well enough to be more than five feet away from him.

Frankie kissed me on the cheek before walking off while wiping the sweat from her brow. I shook my head. Three pregnant ladies stuck in this clavas together carrying hybrid babies. That wasn’t going to be me, that was for sure, so I’d sit back and enjoy being the auntie. I had my room and my blooms.

A mate wasn’t for me.

Not at all.

Never.

Two

Miranda

As I crossed the grounds of the compound toward the gate, Naomi spotted me as she left the dining hall, as we called it. Her small face lit up in a bright smile as her short legs walked swiftly toward me.

I had a soft spot for all my girls, but Naomi was different. Everything about her exuded a kind of soft innocence which inherently pulled at my heart strings and protective instincts. She wasn’t even the youngest of all of us—that was Tabitha—but Naomi was only twenty-four. I’d just turned thirty, so