“What happened?”
“They were able to get Jessie settled in the house with Sara. She is consuming Rowl and responding. They think she will be alright, given time. They swung pass Tina’s house. She is missing. Her neighbors said she went off with a man who they had seen around lately, but they are not sure she went willingly.”
“You have to love the ‘don’t get involved’ feeling people have.”
“They’re elderly. It’s probably why the created left them alone. They presented no threat to Him.”
“Why didn’t the scientists create any females?”
“We all have a different theory. Some claim to know, but they say nothing.”
“What’s your theory?”
“I go between power and control. One is the flip side of the other. Some days I think they thought they would be able to control us if we had no one. They could use the thought of creating females for us to keep us in line. Other times I think it was a power play. You will never have what you crave. Again, a way to manipulate us. It brings us back to control.”
“I guess it doesn’t really matter. I am thinking that they figured you would just die off after you finished fighting.”
The hands that had been rubbing her shoulders dropped. Niko walked across the room and looked out of the window.
“Niko, what’s wrong?” He stood still, looking out of the window. “Are you dying?”
Her mind went there. Wasn’t it a fact that aliens weren’t able to exist on other planets? Hadn’t Neil Armstrong walked on the moon? He had been in the bulkiest protective suit ever made. He would have died without it.
Even in the movies humans had to build domes to live on different planets. Yet, here he was living like a human. Had his life been cut short because of it? Would he have to leave?
“Niko?”
“I am not dying.”
Males! Why did they have to make everything so difficult? Did he think she wanted something to happen to him? He was still staring out of the window. What could be wrong?
“I am not dying and neither are you.”
“Of course I am not dying. I most definitely do not have a death wish.”
“No Dee. You’re not dying any time soon.”
“Meaning I should live a long life? Another fifty years, sixty if I am extra careful?”
“More like a thousand or four or five.”
She was sitting in a chair, but really was that close enough to the ground? She slipped out of the chair and moved to the floor carefully. That was better. Was it April? Nope. Guess this wasn’t an April fool’s joke. Did he even know about that holiday? She would have to ask him later.
“Kitten, are you ok?”
He called her kitten. That meant he had delivered all of his news.
“Explain.”
“I don’t think our long lives is what the scientists intended. They wanted a weapon they did not have to worry about perishing quickly on the battlefield. So they manipulated us so that our cells continually regenerated. The DNA that was used was from beings who already had exceedingly long life spans. When combined with their manipulation, our life spans became un-chartable.”
“So you’re going to live what may feel like forever and I will die, leaving you behind for some other woman to have?”
She was proud of herself. Her voice had been nice and even. Voices could be deceiving. She was seething with anger over something he couldn’t help.
“You’re not going to die kitten. Your life span is linked to mine. It may even exceed mine. We are not sure. As far as we know, Aran and I are the first to be mated.”
Tears ran down her face, silently of course. Her body shook and she had a watery smile. In other words, she was a mess and she knew it. Part of her was happy she would not be leaving Niko, but the other half was scared of something that looked almost like eternal life.
How long could you live without getting bored or thinking in your head that you’re a god and everything should be for your pleasure?
“I am ok. How would that work? How could we stay here without being discovered?”
“It can be done. Some have spent many years here without being discovered, but we don’t have to stay. We can go anywhere.”
She looked at him with fear in her eyes.
He crossed the room and sat on the floor next to her, taking her head and placing it in his lap.
“The hardest thing about living a long life is having no one to share it with intimately. I have had my brothers. Still, I craved someone to love. Now I have you, and kitten, you have me. We will laugh, love and go on adventures. It will not be as disconcerting as you think.”
She nodded her head and breathed deeply, drawing his smell in. Her life had just changed again. The way she viewed life was changing. She found her stability in Niko. He would be there. Together, they could weather any storm.