Caught Between Two Blue Aliens - Celia Kyle Page 0,30

awake!” from her little sister, as expected.

Jenna shook her head over the sound of Bea and Noah fighting over who got to use the bathroom first. She went to the kitchen and fried up eggs and bacon (with a dash of hot sauce for good measure) and buttered toast while they tugged on their clothes and eventually stumbled into the dining area. The kids hungrily scarfed down their food while Jenna sipped black coffee.

And suddenly the doorbell rang. They all paused, staring at each other in confusion.

“Who could that be this early?” Bea mumbled around her eggs.

“Ms. Carmine, maybe?” Noah suggested.

“God, I super hope not,” Jenna grumbled. She did not have the ability to handle Ms. Carmine this early in the day. “But, just in case, I need both of you to go to your rooms.”

“Why?” Beatrice questioned.

“Bea…,” Jenna warned.

“Ugh, okay.” And her sister stood and left with Noah trailing behind.

Jenna paused at the front door and took a breath, mentally preparing herself for what she would find on the other side of the door. What if it was the Department of Families prepared to turn their household upside down? Had they already heard that she’d lost two of her jobs? Dread pooled in her gut as she placed her hand on the palm pad to unlock the door.

But when she tugged the panel open, her eyes went wide—wider than she could imagine because nothing could prepare her for what she found waiting on her doorstep. Certainly not any of… them.

Sevith and Hiren stood tall, broad-shouldered and unbearably handsome in the doorway with a small group of fellow Drokten warriors flanking them. And they all appeared to be carrying bags of food.

“Sevith? Hiren? What… what are you two doing here?” She hissed low. What if the kids saw them standing at the front door and became frightened? Jenna was used to the presence of the Drokten but a lot of people, including her brother and sister, had still never met them in real life.

“We have come to speak with you,” Hiren answered smoothly and without hesitation.

“And we have brought sustenance,” Sevith added as he gestured at the Drokten males behind them.

Sevith stepped aside and the males filed past, barging into the house and nearly shoving Jenna aside in the process.

“Oh.” She leapt out of the way and stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed as the massive aliens moved into her apartment and clomped their way into the kitchen.

Then she stared back at Hiren and Sevith, horror and confusion warring within her as she listened to the clanging sounds of the Drokten messing around in her kitchen. There were no shouts of terror—yet—so she could only imagine that Noah and Bea had so far remained in their rooms while the blue aliens ransacked her space.

“What are they doing? What’s going on? I don’t understand.” Jenna ranted as Hiren and Sevith also stepped through the open doorway and into the apartment, nudging the door shut behind them. They almost had to stoop as they made their way down the hall, Sevith leading fearlessly while Hiren stayed back a few steps with Jenna.

“You two can’t just keep on showing up like this,” Jenna groaned and rolled her eyes. “I have a life, you know. One that has no room for two gigantic Drokten males.”

“We apologize for disrupting your routine in this manner,” Hiren murmured in his usual calm voice. “But we mean you and your family no harm.”

“You keep saying things like that,” Jenna huffed, “but then you show up and get me in trouble with Secretary Wells. Or get me fired from my job at the diner. Or show up again out of the blue to ransack my kitchen while my brother and sister are present,” Jenna snapped. “What if they get hurt?”

Hiren flashed her an almost comically indignant expression, head tilted to the side while he narrowed his blue eyes. “Do you truly think we pose a threat to your siblings?”

She opened her mouth to respond and then closed it again. “No, I guess not,” she muttered. “Sorry, I was just upset at…”

“It’s okay,” he answered. “We are here to protect you, not to hurt you.”

She blew out a breath. Annoyingly enough, Jenna realized that despite her discomfort and shock at having a group of aliens show up uninvited, she knew deep down on an instinctual level that they hadn’t come to cause hurt to her or her makeshift family.

Not that it was any less uncomfortable for six Drokten to be invading her