Free Eban's Command: Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Science Fiction Alien Romance) (Survival Wars Book 2) by Hana Starr

live.
     
    All the while, the day continued to end. As the lights grew
darker, the participants began to sink lower and alight back on the ground.
Adults filtered away, toting small, yawning children with them.
     
    Her eyes never left Eban though, and she quickly noticed
that he was coming back.
     
    Dropping down neatly beside her without a sound, he reached
out and motioned around. “How did you like it?”
     
    “It was beautiful,” she whispered, surprising herself with a
few tears in her eyes.
     
    “It was like this every day back on Daeden,” Eban said, and
folded his wings with a few neat motions, like a preening falcon. “But, times
change. Yet have you ever noticed that the more things change, the more they
stay the same?”
     
    “I guess I have,” she agreed. His palm was burning hers, her
legs starting to tremble at his touch. He was so close and smelled so good that
she was having trouble thinking. And her tiredness didn’t help. She’d been able
to ignore it for awhile while she was distracted but now that everyone was
heading to bed, she wanted nothing more than to do the same for herself.
     
    When she tried to move away, he kept her in place and looked
right into her eyes. “Saffron? I should like to join you tonight.”
     
    “What?” her mouth fell open in shock. She could hardly
comprehend what he just said, it was so much what she had been wanting all this
time. And yet, now she didn’t think that she could! He was too busy. He had
such a duty to perform and such a following to keep happy, there was no way he
could deal with all that while trying to have a relationship with her. Even if
this was just a one-time offer, she had no idea how doing that would affect his
status.
     
    She couldn’t risk everything he’d worked for, everything
he’d struggled to accomplish. No, daydreams would just be daydreams. There was
no way around it.
     
    Every word from then on felt like she was being torn in
half. “Oh, I’m not sure.” She hesitated, swallowing hard. “I think I just want
to go to bed.”
     
    With any luck, he would just assume that she was being
naïve. The look in his eyes said that wasn’t going to be it, however. He
dropped her hand and back away, his wings jostling against his arms. Every part
of him seemed to bristle with hurt. “Oh. Yes, I see. That’s fine, then. I
wouldn’t wish to keep you awake.” The rejection in his voice was so painful,
each syllable a stab to the heart, and she immediately changed her mind just so
he wouldn’t have to hurt.
     
    But by the time she finished saying, “Wait!” he had shot up
into the sky and was gone.
     
    Some of the Icari standing nearby turned to look at her with
their eyebrows furrowed, but she ignored them. Lowering her head, she trudged
to her room alone.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter Eight
     
    Eban seemed to have decided it was for the best that both of
them pretended that his disastrous attempt at flirting never happened. While it
hurt to have to pretend, to basically lie to him, that she had no interest,
Saffron knew that was really for the best.
     
    In any case, she threw herself as deep into her work as she
could. Deeper than ever before. She wrote out lists of new instructions and
heavily discussed them with the young woman in charge of the bakery. She was
all for it, as Eban had said she would be.
     
    “Now, you’re sure that all this is going to make everything
better?” She blinked up at Saffron from beneath a furrowed forehead, strands of
scarlet hair dangling down in her eyes.
     
    Saffron nodded very eagerly. “It will, pretty quickly. I can
work with you on that, if you want.”
     
    The girl was practically head over heels at that. “You will?
Fantastic!”
     
    From then on, for about a week, she divided her time between
taking samples and teaching the Icari how to accomplish their actual physical
work. Much to her surprise, they caught on pretty quickly and treated her with
a