Captivate (Manipulate, Book 2)

Chapter 25

Claire closed her eyes when she realized Old Twin was coming into their shared sleeping room. Old Twin pushed the door open roughly and walked over to grab her clothes.

Claire supposed they were talking about her, and she worked to keep her face blank until Old Twin left. She couldn’t deny that it felt good to know that Sage liked her. She’d literally thrown herself at him last night, in her desperate need for human reassurance. Hearing him say that, when he didn’t know she was listening, made her stomach feel strange, sort of overly-sugared. She smiled involuntarily.

But she knew he was an alien. Why didn’t that totally turn her off? Maybe something was wrong with her...

She heard the shower turn on in the bathroom, which meant Old Twin was occupied, so she swung her legs over the bed and sat up, hugging her pillow.

Sage is an alien. She made herself say it out loud. “Sage is an alien.”

Hmm. Still nothing. It’s not that she didn’t care about the people who they’d stolen... but Sage hadn’t done it himself. If they’d turned the offer down, those bodies would still have been used, they’d just have gone to someone else.

Still, they should have turned it down... if they really cared about killing people.

But on the other hand, they were taught that it was perfectly okay to take another body. Surely the fact that Sage had developed a conscience, even if it was a little late, was evidence that he was a good person.

Claire looked out the tiny window in their room. It was only about a foot high, and looked out on the strange pedestrian walkway in front of the restaurant. The roof over the walkway extended diagonally down from just above her window to the far side of the street, meeting the ground at a sharp angle.

Nobody could walk in the last three feet of that space, where the roof was so low. At ‘nightfall’, when the streetlights switched from yellow/orange light to green light, aliens would come and spread out blankets and sleep in the crack. If they were on Earth she would assume they were homeless, but she didn’t know if that was the case here. Maybe they rented the space. With the constant climate control on every bit of Selta, it would never get too cold or rainy or windy to sleep ‘outdoors.’

While she waited for the shower, she watched two Tergre wake up and pack up their bedding. She’d seen them before, they always laid out one bed and lay very close to each other, like two dogs curled up in a single doggie bed. This morning the reddish-furred female began to stir first, and Claire watched her rub her mate’s furry back with her long ant-eater snout until he woke up. Even from up here, looking down on the two of them, she could see his eyes open and a sleepy smile lift his eyes.

So what if Sage was an alien? Clearly lots of aliens were affectionate and kind and... Claire turned away from the window, and sank her head back on her pillow. She needed to get a grip on herself. She’d overheard Sage say that he liked her and she was already picturing growing old with him. She was an idiot. She yanked her blanket up to her pillow, ruthlessly straightening her bed.

Yes, he was kind to her. Yes, he said he liked her, but that shouldn't mean anything for her. For heaven’s sake, Faal had liked her – she’d been one of his favorite zoo animals for a while, like a favored dog - and that was just degrading. She wasn’t going to be any alien’s pet – even if Sage was a whole lot hotter than Faal.

Claire groaned. She needed to get a grip. She was sure a psychologist would say she was vulnerable to anyone who showed her affection after her long incarceration in the zoo. Only somehow that knowledge didn’t change how she felt.

After she showered (still amazed and grateful that she got to do that every day), she went down to make herself breakfast in the kitchen.

Francois opened the restaurant to guests every night for dinner, but served a mid-day meal only twice a week. He said it drove up demand to keep down the supply, and it also meant that they could have a somewhat lazy morning before helping out in the afternoon and evening.