Alien in the Family

mean?”
    I leaned against the wall. “I’m just spitballing here, but I’m guessing that your world leaders wouldn’t be wasting their time coming to Earth. I don’t care who you think’s here, it’s too damned far away. Especially since the planets that made the decision to lock you guys down are all a lot closer to home.”
    I shifted. Martini made leaning against walls look a lot more comfortable than it was. “Now, the royal family is sending someone out here, ostensibly to give me the royal marriage test that I’m going to flunk impressively, but no one in the entire universe can convince me that the head royal honcho or honcha is going to be arriving on our unwelcoming shores. Only the completely moronic would do that, and they may be many things, but stupid surely isn’t one of them. So they’re sending a representative, or several. Then they’ll enact their little plan of world domination or world extermination on us. But your people wouldn’t care about that. They want to deal with the folks nearby, to make them pay for what they did. And I can understand that. But you can’t, can you?”
    “No blood from that line should remain!”
    “So, did they rape and kill your family members or something?”
    “No. They enslaved our entire race.”
    “Yes, yes, enslaved, big net, got it. I’m asking you if they did something else to make you suffer.”
    She looked as though she didn’t understand the question. “They denied us our place in the stars. That is sin enough.”
    Great. She and presumably her mate were fanatics. Wonderful. “So, the two of you decided, what? That you were going to take care of any remnant bloodlines?”
    “We were sent here by the Grace of God to enact vengeance.”
    “Oh, right. Um, I don’t think that’s God’s plan.”
    “Of course it is. Why else would She have allowed us to escape?”

CHAPTER 23

    “ESCAPE FROM WHERE?” I wasn’t surprised Moira was calling her God a female. It would have been a lot weirder if she’d thought God was male.
    Moira didn’t answer. She just gave me a dirty look, then checked out my chest. I had a feeling she was doing it to make me uncomfortable. Didn’t work, especially since I’d just flashed the twins at all my guys a few hours earlier.
    “So, you two were under arrest, weren’t you?”
    She looked away from me. “No.”
    “Who arrested you? Your own government?”
    She kept on not looking at me. I moved into her line of sight. She turned her head to the other side. I had the feeling she was going to try this child’s move all day. Another thought rose up.
    “How old are you?”
    “We don’t count age like you do.”
    “I’m sure. How old are you in the way you do count?”
    “I am of age.”
    Aha. She was a kid, by their standards, anyway. Only kids made sure you knew they were old enough to do what they were in trouble for doing. A fanatical kid. But a kid. And kids had fears and usually not a lot of defenses against them. “So, Moira, just want to tell you something.”
    “What?” She turned back to look at me.
    I got up closer to her, but not so close she could head butt me. “When I find your mate, and I will, I’m going to make sure I destroy her in the most evil, painful way possible. I’ll make sure to smash her brain in and do other horrible things to her. And I’m going to make you watch. You’ll get to see her suffer, and then you’ll get to see her die. How does that sound?”
    Moira didn’t look as confident. “You will never be able to catch her.”
    “Caught you.”
    “Only because you had help.”
    “I’ve got a lot of help. And your mate doesn’t, does she? She had you, but you’re not going anywhere. In fact, I’m going to shoot you full of drugs, so you can’t escape even if you manage to get out of the restraints. They might kill you, but I’m willing to take that risk.”
    “She is more experienced than me. You won’t catch her.”
    I did my best to give her my mother’s most intimidating smile. It worked, if the look in Moira’s eyes was any indication. “Of course I will. She’s going to come to try to rescue you. And I’ll be waiting. I’ll have so many traps waiting for her that even if most don’t work, one will. Then you’ll get to see her suffer and die. So you can feel what it’s like when you hurt a person someone else loves.”
    “Why would you do that?”
    “Because you not only hurt someone I love, you gloated about it. You were happy to