The Alien Prince’s Omega by Lorelei M. Hart
Hanson
“You don’t haveto tell me. I know not all of you are permitted to let humans know.” I waved my hand to him, encouraging him to follow me inside. “Let’s get you set up with someplace to stay, and we can figure things out.”
He came in and I thought back to what Lennox had said. He hadn’t wanted to turn Kagin away, but something felt off about him, and he didn’t want him alone either. He’d planned to call me, recognizing me from my work with his poodle, and ask advice, but Kagin hadn’t given him the chance, instead apologizing and leaving.
The oddest part of the entire story? He’d held Lennox’s hand. Lennox assured me it wasn’t in a sexual or even too forward kind of way. He said it felt like something else—something necessary.
My guess was that not only was he shifter, but he came from one of those packs that stayed hidden from the human world.
“There is much to figure out,” he agreed, and followed me in. I set the grass on the counter.
I walked back around and shut the door behind him. “Listen, Kagin. I understand you don’t know me from any random human, and not going to lie, humans can be shitty. Why do you think I’m a vet? Animals are just better. But I need you to know you can trust me.”
“With my life.” He folded his hands into each other and brought them to his shoulder.
“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me the truth. I will not share your animal with others, but it might help me help you.” I pressed my heel into my left eye, which was beginning to twitch the way it did when I was nervous, and I was nervous. Nervous I’d not be able to help Kagin, and he very much needed it.
“I was not deceitful when I said I am not a shifter.” He sat on the couch and looked at the empty seat beside him. “Join me, rupling.” There was that word again.
I walked over and sat beside him. He wouldn’t hurt me. If anything, he would protect me should the need arise. I could just tell.
“What is that word you call me? Rupling?” I twisted, allowing me to look at him while we spoke.
“It is a word from where I come from. I am not a shifter as you believe, but I am not human either.” He took my hand in his, but unlike the way Lennox described it, this felt personal. “I am from Thulnara, a planet a great distance from Earth, and I came here to find my future.”
Did he say what I think he just said?“Why is it I believe you?” Not one ounce of me questioned his words. It was ridiculous and over the top and impossible and yet—I believed him.
“Rupling, you saw the truth from the beginning, you simply attributed it to the easiest of solutions—shifters. And now that I have taken that solution away from you, your eyes are set on the reality that is in front of you.”
He flickered, a shade of blue so similar to the babe in my picture.
“Are you my son coming back from the future?” I gasped. He didn’t feel like my son. No, my feelings towards him were not that at all, but I had to be sure.
“No. Why would you ask?” He leaned in a little closer. “Do you think of me as a child?”
“No. No. Not at all. It’s just in the movies… nevermind.” I wasn’t ready to tell him about the dream. Not yet. It was a me problem and this… him here was a him problem and I needed to help him. I was just relieved I’d jumped to a very wrong conclusion. “Tell me everything?”
And so he told me about his journey and how with most people he needed to touch them to communicate and how with me… we just understood each other. I assumed it was because I was the first human he’d encountered. But as curious as I was, I refused to interrupt him. My head was flooded with all the things he explained, most of which I didn’t fully understand. But I did understand the important thing; he needed help—a human who could guide him in his vague quest having to do with his future.
“I can teach you.” I shored my shoulders. “I am not a teacher by trade, but in my work I do a fair bit of education.”
“I already know many ways of your kind.” He indicated the dead grass on the counter. “When you look favorably upon another you bring them dead plants.”
I looked to the counter and then back to him and couldn’t avoid the giggle building up inside of me.
“We bring flowers, Kagin. We bring flowers.”
“Not grasses?” He rubbed the tip of his nose.
“No. Not grasses. Flowers. Do you accept my offer?” A growing part of me needed him to. I’d missed him in the short time he was gone, as messed up as that was. Like part of me was gone too.
“With my gratitude.” He did the thing with his hands folded together and touching his shoulder, and I did the same in return, earning me a ginormous smile.
What I would do to get another.