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Isn’t it?Do you have any objections?
Well, no, but…
He simply chuckled and pulled her close, wrapping his arms and legs around her, drawing her into a state of unimaginable contentment.
And once again, Noa decided that all the pain she’d been through was worth it, because it had led her to him.
This sweet, impossible man.
“Thank you for thinking about my birthday,” she whispered in his ear. It was the first time in forever that she was actually looking forward to it. “There’s a woman… Caity Silvester. She’s an expert tuner. If you can get in touch with her, she’s probably one of the few people on Earth that can get you a lead on some high quality instruments. If you don’t feel like dealing with her directly, maybe Arin or Kainan could help out.”
I’ll keep that in mind.
“If you do find her, please be nice to her.”
“She’s a friend of yours?”
“I suppose you could say that shewas. In my old life. But I don’t know if she would want anything to do with me now.”
Without saying a word, Ashrael just held her. And he made her feel better, because she knew that he understood.
She was different now, and she understood perfectly well that his world—theirworld—was too alien for some humans to grasp; it terrified them.
Maybe people from her past—people like Caity Silvester—would eventually be able to accept it, but if they couldn’t…
She was okay with that too.
THREE
He foundArin Varga in her office onSilence.Being the one that controlled all the human-based logistics, she’d been assigned her own workspace, a chamber adjacent to the human quarters.
Sometimes, the humans worked close together in the same space.
Ashrael couldn’t imagine anything worse.
He preferred to work alone. Occasionally, he would help out on small missions for Tarak’s people, but even then, he didn’t partner with anyone.
The only exception to that rule was Noa. He could work with her for as long as he breathed.
She was the only one that truly understood him.
Ashrael walked across to the holo-console, where Arin was sitting in a wheeled chair, wearing some sort of communication headset. She was speaking in one of the various human tongues, her words rapid-fire and completely incomprehensible to him.
He waited patiently in the doorway until she finished her comm.
He waited while she input data into the system, shaking her head and muttering to herself in apparent exasperation.
Then it occurred to him that he’d been waiting a little too long. Humans didn’t like to be approached silently. They found it unnerving. At first, Ashrael had considered it entirely their fault—humans rarely bothered to hone their senses so they could detectpresences—but then he figured it was an environmental trait.
That kind of complacency could only come from existing in a largely threat-less environment. Earth had been ignored by the larger powers for so long that for a while, Kordolians had forgotten it even existed.
And before Tarak and his fleet arrived in Earth’s orbit, most humans had been terribly naive.
He couldn’t really blame them, even if he didn’t understand them.
So he took a step forward and scuffed his bare feet on the floor to alert her.
“Just a moment, Rykal. I’m in the middle of—” She glanced over her shoulder, eyes widening as she caught sight of him. “Oh. Ash. It’s you.”
