Bo and the Beast (Book #1) (Completed)

22. Questions and Answers

For good behavior, the Beast let Bo back into the room under the dome. She'd taken to calling it the Sky Room, as she was always able to see that stretch of blue above her head. Only, today it was still a sickly gray, the unfallen rain swelling the clouds nearly to the point of bursting. It made reading hard, though she was barely doing that at all. Her eyes were focused on the little screen, propped up by a stack of books in front of her, and the view it showed of the middle of camp. So far she'd spent around three hours in the room, laying on her stomach and staring at the screen and hoping to see Aston or Felicia walk by. Eventually she'd grown bored enough that she'd pulled the next book in her knight series over and half-read it as she watched, splitting her attention to make the time of orange dust and tent-tops move a little faster.

As she was flipping through the pages of the knight proclaiming his undying love to his lady despite her family's disapproval, Bo heard the door open and close, and then footsteps across the metal flooring. Bo didn't have to look to see that the Beast sat down a few feet away from her. She felt the weight of his eyes on her and heard the gentle rhythm of his breathing.

Bo shifted uncomfortably, thumbing the pages of the book laying in front of her. She wanted to be lost again in the tragic love story, but all she could concentrate on was the fact that the Beast was looking wonderingly at the print before her. She forced herself to continue, hoping that she'd forget that he was there—but with no luck. He'd made a habit of staring at her whenever he was in the same room, and she knew she'd have to get used to it someday. That didn't mean she'd ever be comfortable with it, though. In fact, she debated whether to make a big deal about it, rolling her eyes and making snide comments, but thought better of it when she considered that he had an army of robots on his side. She didn't relish the idea of being locked in her bedroom for acting badly. Not to mention that she didn't know what he considered 'good behavior'. She wasn't willing to lose her one link to her home if he thought she wasn't deserving of it.

Bo turned over to her back, facing the glass dome above her, and tucked her arms under her head. She still felt the Beast staring at her, but could only see the blurry edge of his shoulder from the corner of her eye. She sighed and focused on the dark clouds in the sky. They still hadn't burst and she wondered if they ever would. They could break up in a few hours and not give anyone the benefit of the rain within. She hoped, for her camp's sake, that it rained soon.

Out of nowhere she felt the gentle brush of fingers across her temple. The soft buzz of the electrical currents swimming in the Beast's blood twitched across Bo's skin. Instantly, she jerked away, her head whipping around to stare at him. He retracted his hand, stuffing it into his pocket as if he it had never been moved. His eyes finally moved from her face to look at some distant point in the sky.

Now it was Bo's turn to stare. She wasn't used to looking at him, especially not from this angle. He was sitting on the floor, but upright, his head turned away from her but showing off his profile. She noted his strong jaw and high cheekbones. If he'd been a man, she had no doubt that Felicia would have been falling all over herself to try and seduce him. But he wasn't a man. He was one of the many that came down from their planet to try and take earth as a prize. His people would have been perfectly happy to exterminate the pesky inhabitants of their new toy and been done with it, but those pesky inhabitants had a nasty habit of fighting back.

While Bo thought of the aliens and their eventual retreat, she thought of something that had been bugging her since her arrival. It was something that swam in the back of her mind, a nagging question that she never quite brought to the front of her mind until now.

She pushed up to her elbows and cocked her head. "Why didn't they take you with them when they left?"

"My species?" he asked, but she knew he already knew the answer to that question. "They did not want me. I am the Beast of Lyx. That is not something they wished to bring back to the homeland."

"I thought they loved a good old lust for blood. They didn't want to take you home and set you on some other unsuspecting planet that had the bad luck to look too shiny to your greedy generals?"

The Beast cut her a look out of the corner of his eye. "They like a love of war, yes. But they did not want me, so they left me behind. It is as simple as that."

"That doesn't make any sense. You were their greatest weapon. That's like leaving an energy cannon just lying around behind enemy lines because you didn't like how it looked or something."

The Beast didn't answer her, and his jaw tightened as his eyes swiveled away once again. Bo frowned, pursing her lips, and pushed herself up to a sitting position. She wrapped her arms around her knees and looked around the room.

"What is this place? I didn't think there were houses like this left in the blast zones," she said.

"Before the war it was someone's residence, I think," the Beast said. "But I know it as the Prisoner Exchange. In the height of the war, this house was set up to exchange prisoners in as neutral an area as could be devised. The cells down below are leftovers from that time."

The Beast motioned a hand, taking in the room they sat in. "This was where the negotiations and planning were done. I left it largely as it was when I arrived."

Bo inclined her chin to the dome opposite of theirs. "What is that?"

"The armory."

She nodded, hoping she didn't look too interested. Just in case, she moved the conversation elsewhere. "And how is there none of the orange dust on your land? Everything is green and alive, and the sky is clear. Well... normally it's clear."

"It's technology we used back home to keep the royalty safe and inaccessible to those wishing to overthrow them."

"What tech?" Bo asked, interested despite herself. Even though the aliens were her hated enemy, she still had to admire their technological progress that was lightyears beyond the human's.

"A forcefield is around the house. It acts as a sort of globe," he said, unwilling to explain it in more detail.

"So, that mist stuff is a forcefield?" Bo asked, peering out the glass walls at the distant hazy fog. "Why could I come through it when I arrived here, but I can't get back out?"

The Beast frowned at her.

"What?" she asked.

"I don't think I should tell you."

Bo snorted and rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on. Why not? It's not like I can escape, as you've already witnessed."

The Beast still hesitated, but then must have decided her question was innocent enough. "It is very rare that anything can come in without knowing where the wall is, so I leave the entrance open for the most part. But I've programmed the exit to be only allowed by myself. If anyone wants to leave, I have to know about it." He glanced at her. "I think I'm regretting leaving it so that anyone can come in, though, now that you and your father just barreled in."

Bo's eyebrows drew together and her head snapped around. A retort sprung to her lips, but she stopped in mid-word when she saw the slightest hint of a smile on the Beast's face. He had been joking? It almost shocked her to think that an alien had a sense of humor, and she quickly looked away before he could see it written all over her face. She wrapped her arms around her knees and rested her chin on the top. She wasn't entirely sure she liked the idea of him joking with her... But it did feel a little more like home.

She left the questions there, and returned once again to her books and the view on the screen of her camp.