what remained of my kind.
“And…I was good at it. The lifestyle came naturally to me, and I excelled, becoming one of the youngest althicars in recent history. For”—he blew out a breath and glanced toward the ceiling as though searching—“nearly eighteen Earth years, I have served. It has been that long since I last saw my homeworld.”
“I can’t believe I haven’t asked you this before, but how old are you?”
“Thirty-six Earth years.” With a wink, he added, “Though Logan Ellis is thirty-two.”
Tabitha smirked. “You’re ten years older than me. I always liked older men.”
His brows fell low, and he leaned closer still. There was a predatory, carnal glint in his eyes. “You don’t anymore, Nykasha. Only one male, and he is no man. He’s a faloran.”
Tabitha pressed her thighs together beneath the table at the pure possessiveness in his voice. “I still have three weeks to decide,” she teased.
Now it was Zevris’s turn to smirk. “You act as though you haven’t chosen already.”
She chuckled. “Still so sure of yourself, I see.” Her smile faded into something softer as she looked at their hands and lightly brushed her fingers along his calloused palm. “Do you miss it? Your homeworld?”
He also dropped his gaze. For what felt like a long while, he was silent, his face more unreadable than ever before. “I miss the idea of it. I miss what it should’ve been to me…what it should be. But I have been away for so long…it has not felt like home in my heart for a long, long while.”
His eyes flicked aside, looking beyond Tabitha, and his expression changed to something far more neutral—a friendly but guarded look. He sat back, withdrawing his hand from hers. Tabitha glanced to the side to see their server.
“Your food is ready,” the man declared, flashing them a wide smile as he lowered his arm and set the dish in front of Tabitha. “Baked salmon and saffron rice for the lady”—he turned toward Zevris and placed the other plate down in front of him—“and the rib-eye steak, medium rare, for the gentleman. Is there anything else I can get you?”
“I’m fine, thank you,” Tabitha said with a smile.
“No, thank you,” said Zevris.
“Then enjoy!” The waiter gave them a slight bow and walked away.
The lemon-and-spice scent of Tabitha’s salmon wafted up to her, making her mouth water. As she unwrapped her silverware from the cloth napkin, she glanced at Zevris. “Do you still have family there?”
“I’m sure I’ve some blood relations somewhere on my homeworld, but no immediate family.”
Tabitha placed her napkin on her lap and frowned. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry. I accepted long ago that I was likely to never see that world again, and I’ve made peace with it. Especially now. Earth is more a home to me than anywhere else I’ve ever been.” Zevris took up his knife and fork and cut into his steak. “Speaking of Earth…I’ve seen so little of it. You mentioned vacations with your Nan. Where did she take you? What places have you seen?”
Thoughts of Nan were always bittersweet. Tabitha missed her sorely. The woman had been her mother, had been there for Tabitha’s entire life, and then was simply…gone. But the memories… It was in those memories that her grandmother would always be alive, and Tabitha would cherish them forever.
She smiled. “We never left the states, but we visited so many places. We took a lot of road trips during the summers. I remember one when I was maybe twelve, Nan said we were going to the Grand Canyon. I was really excited until I realized how long a drive it actually was. And it wasn’t even so much the drive itself, but how bland the scenery was. There’s a lot of dry, desert landscape once you go far enough east to get out of the forests, and it was boring as heck for a twelve-year-old.
“But Nan kept me pretty entertained. She had this digital music player hooked up through the cassette player in the car. I think there were only twenty songs on it, but we sang our hearts out to every one of them, over and over, and it just got funnier every time. Our voices were hoarse by the time we got into Nevada.
“I was in awe when we got to Las Vegas. I mean, it was nighttime, and there was nothing, just dark, barren land, and then bam! It was like a sea of light in the distance. It was like…Christmas.”
Zevris