Free Alien Romance: The Alien's Wonderland: A Sci-fi Alien Warrior Invasion Abduction Romance by Ruth Anne Scott Page A

here.”
    Frieda smiled. “I like it, but it needs work.”
    He raised his eyebrows. “What work? It’s fine the way it is.”
    “It looks unlived-in,” she replied. “It looks like no one has lived in it for a long time, and it needs someone to care about it and make it lived-in.”
    He laughed. “Of course it looks like no one has lived in it. No one ever has.”
    “That’s exactly my point,” she told him.
    “So what are you going to do?” he asked.
    “That’s why I asked you about the plants,” she replied. “I wondered if they need extra care, or maybe they need weeding.”
    “They don’t need weeding,” he replied.
    “They need something,” she told him.
    “What?” he asked.
    Frieda waved her hand again. “I don’t know. Maybe they just need to be touched and handled and cared for. They need someone to do something to them. That’s what this whole place needs. It needs someone to care enough to do something—anything.”
    He cocked his head to one side. “Are you talking about the house, or are you talking about the Aqinas?”
    She blushed. “I was talking about the house. I thought the whole Aqinas world was the same way, but I know differently now.”
    “What changed?” he asked. “What made you think differently?”
    “I saw something,” she began. Then she changed her mind. “I haven’t seen enough of this world. That’s the problem. There’s so much I haven’t seen that it looks incomplete. I thought the whole world needed people to care enough to do something to make it lived-in, too. But now I know they are doing something. I just hadn’t seen them doing it.”
    He turned around in the chair and faced her. “Maybe it will be like that between you and me, too.”
    She shrugged. “Maybe.”
    He looked around the room again, but didn’t say anything.
    Frieda shifted in her seat. “I’m sorry I don’t have anything to offer you to eat.”
    “I’m not hungry,” he told her.
    She didn’t know what to say, so she just sat and fidgeted in uncomfortable silence. Whatever else the water could do, it couldn’t do this for her. But she had to say something. She’d invited him into her house. She had to make the visit a pleasant one for him.
    She couldn’t think of anything to say, though, and he got up. Her shoulders slumped. She didn’t blame him for wanting to leave. She wouldn’t stay, either, if she was in his place.
    But he didn’t leave. He sat on the bed next to her. “We’re having a family gathering at our house tomorrow night. I’d like you to come.”
    She brightened up. “Really?”
    He nodded. “And after that, you should come to the convocation.”
    Her smile evaporated. “The convocation?”
    He nodded again. “We always have them after big gatherings. You should come. It will be your first one. You’ll be able to experience the Aqinas fully in the convocation.”
    “What do you mean by that?” she asked. “Haven’t I experienced the Aqinas fully?”
    “Not fully,” he replied. “You’ve experienced a few moments of visions with me, and maybe some others. In the convocation, you’ll share vision with hundreds of Aqinas at once.”
    “What will all those Aqinas do in the convocation?” she asked.
    “We use the convocation to see beyond the ocean,” he replied. “We see the other factions, and we see what’s going on in all the other parts of Angondra. Since we don’t travel onto land, this is our only way of keeping track of what goes on with the rest of the planet.”
    She snorted. “It’s sort of like a psychic satellite feed, isn’t it?”
    He frowned. “What?”
    She stiffened and moved a fraction of an inch away from him. “I won’t go to the convocation. I won’t be party to any spying on the other factions or anything else on Angondra. If you want to see what’s going on, that’s your business. I won’t participate in that.”
    He stared at her. “I don’t understand you.”
    “It isn’t ethical,” she told him.