Alien Prince: (Bride of Qetesh) An Alien SciFi Romance Read Free

shot back conspiratorially, evoking a nod of concession.
    “What is the point?” I asked, finishing off the wine and propping my hands up on my hips as I stared at my parents from across the kitchen island.
    “The point,” my father said at length, “is that we are still very early in our cross-breeding phase. We know that pairings could create viable half-breed offspring, but we don’t necessarily know if they will.”
    “Or if they should,” my mother added.
    “Well, but the Echelon is sending all those human and Europax women to Qetesh. I just assumed—”
    “It’s really only phase one,” Dad said. “Just to see if we can correct a trend before an entire species dies off.”
    I nodded, though I couldn’t shake the notion that they were both putting the proverbial cart way before the proverbial horse. “Well,” I said at length, “I'm not looking to settle down, so to speak. But I do want…”
    “What?” My mother urged.
    “I don’t know. Something else.” I picked absently at my nail beds and I did not look at them. “Something more… normal.”
    My father chuckled low in his throat, and I heard my mother sigh through her nostrils. Jack and Cora Vauss were an impenetrable wall when they were united, which they usually were. “Normal,” my father repeated, like he was turning the word over in his mouth to have a better understanding of it. “What does that even mean?”
    “More like other people,” my mom said, and there was an edge to her tone that put me on edge as well.
    “I’m not passing judgment or anything,” I said quickly. “I just want to try another kind of life, that’s all.”
    “What’s so wrong with the one we’ve given you?” Mom asked, and that was where I lost them.
    “Nothing,” I said, even as I watched my mom turn her attention to the oven and her pot roast. She slipped her hands into her oven mitts and opened the oven door, sending a plume of hot air into the kitchen. “Nothing is wrong with it, I just want something else.”
    “You’re like the little mermaid,” my dad said, and I quirked a brow. “Yeah, you live in this magical underwater kingdom that most little girls would kill to be a part of, and all you want to do is live on the shore like, like… like some typical human.”
    “Yes,” I said. “Yes, exactly!” Mom took the pot roast out and let it cool on the top of the stove.
    “Well, it’s done,” she said, “but it looks kind of disgusting. We have some Keldeeri hash that we froze, we could just—”
    “No, I don’t want any Keldeeri food or Europax food or… or any of that crap. I just want normal people food. I want the disgusting pot roast, all right?” I hadn’t meant to raise my voice. My mother put her hands up defensively in front of her, still wearing the pair of ridiculous red polka dot oven mitts. Then she exited into the dining room to set the table, and I was left alone with Dad, who was chewing contemplatively at his lower lip.
    “Listen, pea,” he said, invoking my childhood nickname, “it’s not that we don’t want to give you what you want, it’s just that permanent settlement anywhere off the Atria takes a long time. You have to be coached, prepared. It’s a months-long process and the chances of us seeing each other once you leave the Atria are very slim.”
    “Why?” I asked, suddenly wide-eyed.
    “Because the Atria doesn’t spend much time anywhere near Earth. Human technology is too advanced. They can spot us too quickly nowadays.”
    He pursed his lips in a thin smile before turning on his socked heel to head into the dining room, leaving me there alone with the steaming pot roast. I didn’t bring the subject up again while we were eating. I let them believe I’d dropped the whole thing, let them ask me about work, about my friends, about how I liked my new living quarters. I talked to them about their research, about their work with the Echelon, how the human and Europax placements on Qetesh had