Khol (Rescued by the Alien)

22. Khol

Chapter 22

Khol

I slept on the couch again. I wouldn’t go to her bed until she invited me. And if she never did, well, I’d slept in worse places after leaving the Dastalon Clan and wandering across the sea on my raft.

When Nancy crept from my room early the next morning, I sat up and gave her a grin. If only I could lay her on the cushions and lick her again. But I wouldn’t dare do anything like that when her youngling daughter might walk from her room and see us.

“Morning,” Nancy said, and the light in her eyes when she looked at me stunned me. I didn’t think she’d wake with regrets—not really. But I’d worried. Were we taking this too fast?

It felt right to me, but I respected that it might not be right to her .

She glanced at Flora’s closed door before sauntering over to where I sat on the couch. Bracing my shoulders, she leaned into me and kissed me. “A very good morning.”

“That it is.” My face hurt from my smile’s stretch. I held her hips, wishing I could draw her down onto my lap and show her pleasure once more. She deserved it every day of her life.

When Flora’s bedroom door opened, Nancy eased away.

“Morning, sweetie,” she said brightly. “It’s Christmas eve. Well, tonight is Christmas Eve.”

“Santa comes tonight.” Flora danced over to stand by the sofa. “Will Santa come for Khol?”

“He sure will,” Nancy said. “What would you like for breakfast? How do eggs sound?”

“Yum.” After patting my arm, Flora rushed over to the table and climbed into her chair. “Can I have scwambled eggs?”

A plate eased up from the counter.

Nancy shook her head but smiled as she collected it and placed it in front of Flora. An eating implement appeared, and the youngling started eating, swinging her feet to the tune she hummed. After each bite, she sang a bit about a creature named Frost-ee, a male made of snow.

“What would you like, Khol?” Nancy asked, returning to the counter. “I think I want scrambled eggs too. Toast? Jam if you have it. And a big mug of hot tea.”

“I’ll have the same.” I came up behind her and leaned over to kiss the side of her neck. That was all it took for my cocks to catch fire. I beat them down mentally, telling them to behave.

Leaving her plate where it was, Nancy turned in my embrace. “If you’re a good boy, Santa will bring you a present tonight.” Her sparkling eyes met mine.

“I’m always a good youngling,” I said with a grin, kissing the tip of her nose. I wanted to shift her plate to the side, lift her up onto the counter, and step between her parted thighs, but I couldn’t do that in front of Flora. Zuldruxian couples showed affection to each other often and when around others, but we didn’t do anything intimate where others could see.

“If you bad,” Flora chimed in around a bite, “you get coal. Ha. Coal for Khol! It funny, Mommy.”

“It sure is.” Nancy shot me a grin that made my heart roar and lowered her voice. “Show me how good you can be later?” She closed one eye, opening it quickly, and her grin told me this was part of her tease.

“I’m going to hold you to that, sweet,” I said, kissing her mouth, wishing I could linger.

I stepped away from her and collected our plates, bringing them over to the table. We sat and ate as a family, and I couldn’t be happier.

“After breakfast, we’re going to make cookies,” Nancy said. “Does your oven work when it rains?”

Even now, it drummed on my sturdy roof, but the wind had died down, and I was sure the storm would be nearly over before our special eve.

“I built it beneath an overhang on the back of my house,” I said. “It’ll work fine. We’ll bake the coo-kees? ”

She nodded, chewing her bite and swallowing. “After we finish them, I need some time alone.”

“Why, Mommy?”

I cocked my head, curious as well.

“Christmas is coming. That’s all I’m going to say.” She looked my way and closed one eye again before opening it.

“Is your eye oh-kay?” I asked, concern growing inside me. Was she sick? I hadn’t . . . hurt her last night, had I?

“My eye . . .” Her frown cleared, and her low laugh rang out, tickling down my spine. “I was winking. That means we’re sharing a secret.”

A secret?

“Ah,” I said. I propped the lids of my right eye open and closed my left. “A secret.”

Her laugh only grew louder.

“I need time too,” Flora said. “I need ta make pwesents.”

“We’ll see what we can do, sweetie,” Nancy said.

We finished our meals and went to the counter.

“Hey, smart house,” Nancy said. “I don’t suppose you could play some Christmas carols, could you?”

“Carol is a name, isn’t it?” I asked, studying the mix of ingredients in the bowl that were supposed to be soo-gar cook-ees. I’d dipped my finger in the soo-gar, and its sweetness held promise. I was curious to see how we were going to turn this big mass of dough into individual bites, which was how Nancy described cook-ees.

“Yes, Carol is a name but, in this instance, it means music.” Nancy sighed. “I don’t think the water spirit knows any carols. ”

“We can sing, Mommy.” Flora stood on her chair I’d pulled over to the counter, mixing the ingredients at her mother’s direction. “Jingle bells, jingle bells,” she cried out. “Jingle all da way!”

Nancy joined in, and after a few rounds of the lyrics, so did I, all of us laughing as we sang the carol.

I’d never had more fun in my life. Imagine, this could be my life every single day. Kissing Nancy in the morning, playing with Flora and being the male she needed as a father, and taking Nancy to bed each evening. Nothing could be better than that.

While our cook-ees baked and the storm continued to rage outside, we sat, snug inside the home I’d built myself, sharing stories. Nancy told us about a greench who hated Christmas and how he discovered he had a heart bigger than he’d ever imagined. I made up a story about a grundar who discovered Christmas for the very first time. I dreamed up the tale after Nancy shared that on Christmas eve, the animals could supposedly speak.

“Do grundars get out in da rain?” Flora stared out the front window at the rain coming down in torrents and the jungle trees swaying around us in a lavender wave. “They get wet.”

“They’ll be fine,” Nancy said. “They have fur coats to keep them comfortable and warm.”

Flora turned and stared at us with concern. “I want a grundar.”

“You created a monster,” Nancy said with a wink. I now understood the gesture, and while I couldn’t do it myself, I was going to practice because I found it very appealing .

“I’s not a monster.” Flora stomped across the room and slumped on one of the smaller chairs in the living area. “I’s a pwincess.”

“It’s a saying that means things are getting a little out of control.”

“I’s in control,” she said, crossing her arms on her chest.

“Sometimes, I completely agree,” Nancy said with a sigh. She stood. “We should check the cookies.”

“I’ll go with you.” I’d do it myself and she could stay dry, but I wasn’t sure how to tell if they were finished cooking.

We went outside and found the first batch of cookies ready to be removed from the oven. They smelled amazing, and I couldn’t wait to taste them.

Flora stood inside the open doorway when we hurried in that direction, me holding the stone slab with the cook-ees while Nancy shielded them from rain with a big leaf. Wind gusts smacked my sides and back, and it was hard to keep the cook-ees from getting soaked.

Inside, Flora shut the door while we hurried to the kitchen. I laid the slab on the counter, and Nancy scooped the cook-ees off, placing them on a plate she requested from the water spirit. After, she loaded the slab with the final batch of cook-ees and we repeated the process, her covering them with a big leaf while I carried them out and placed them inside the oven.

We ate cook-ees, and they were the best thing I’d ever tasted.

“I could eat them all,” I exclaimed .

“Save some for Santa,” Flora said. “We need ta leave some for him tonight.”

“Alright,” I said with a dramatic sigh that made them laugh.

We spent the rest of the afternoon playing games, reading books, and telling stories.

“Normally, I’d be preparing my feast for tomorrow,” Nancy said. “It’s strange that I can ask someone else to present what I’d like to eat.”

“What do you normally eat to celebrate the holiday?” I asked.

Flora slumbered, leaning against my side, her thumb in her mouth. We’d have to wake her for dinner soon, though I wasn’t sure she’d eat much after the cook-ees.

“Ham or a turkey.” Nancy stroked her daughter’s hair. “Funny how your water spirit won’t present us with meat yet the meals I always prepared for holidays centered around it. There are always side dishes, of course, but the presentation seems to be all about the dish of meat.”

“I can hunt for something. Grundar, maybe. It’s quite tasty when roasted.”

“A grundar sounds a bit like an extra-large guinea pig to me. Kind of a pet.” She grimaced. “I know I eat meat that comes from animals many consider pets. I guess I should think more about that.”

“We need meat to remain strong.”

“You’re right. It’s a source of protein, which is one of the nutrients in meat, but I feel better eating fish for whatever reason. ”

“I could set some traps near the shore and catch fish for tomorrow’s meal. Or fish in the morning if the storm has ended.”

She glanced toward the window where rain continued to pelt that side of the house exposed to the small meadow. “How much longer do you think the storm will continue?”

“I assume it’ll end during the night, but sometimes, these things are hard to say.”

“On Earth, we have technology that looks at satellite images and can give predictions about storms. We know they’re coming days before they arrive.” She explained how this was done, though she admitted she didn’t have much science background, and she was sure her explanation wasn’t quite correct.

“I can tell when a storm is coming by watching the sky and the creatures and vegetation around me. The beasts prepare as well, storing food in their burrows or building their nests higher. The vegetation responds to the wind. Someone once told me that when the leaves were turned upside down, it meant it was going to rain, and that’s often true. I can also smell it coming in the air.”

“That’s amazing. You’ve heightened the senses that we, on Earth, tend to ignore.”

“I’m grateful if it helps me keep you both safe.” I looked down at Nancy, and my heart turned over. I adored her already in an almost overwhelming way. I would protect her until my dying day, shelter her in my arms and in my heart, and support her in whatever she chose to do. If she still wanted to go to the Indigan Clan to settle, I’d travel with her. She was my home and my heart, and I couldn’t imagine trying to find happiness without her.

She gazed up at me, and I swore I saw the same feeling in her eyes. It heartened me, giving me hope that what we were building would only grow stronger.

“We should wake Flora,” she finally said, sliding off the couch. “I’ll make something to eat, though you should expect her to be sleepy and cranky. Or wound up like a spring. She’s power-napping and the end result could be just about anything.”

She stooped down in front of her daughter and stroked her face. “Sweetie? Time to wake up. We need to have dinner, and then you can go to bed.”

“Don’t wanna go to bed,” Flora said, stretching. Her eyes opened, and she stared around. “Almost time for Santa. I’s gonna wait for him.”

Nancy’s sparkling eyes met mine. “If he sees you’re awake, he won’t come.”

“That’s right,” I said, rubbing the youngling’s back. “Once he knows you’re asleep, he’ll slip into the living area and leave presents.”

Ours already sat beneath our tree, and I’d never seen anything prettier—outside of Nancy and Flora—than the tree we’d decorated with ornaments made with love in our hearts.

“Okay,” Flora said with a sigh. She slid off the chair and walked into the kitchen, climbing into her seat that shrunk to accommodate her tiny size. “I’s want pizza!”

A dish slipped up from the counter, and I retrieved it, frowning at the circular food with a light base topped with splotches of various colors. “Here you go.” I placed it in front of her.

“I’s want peppa-oni,” she wailed.

“It’s a spiced meat,” Nancy said. She rubbed Flora’s back. “This cheese and veggie pizza looks almost as good. Try it; you might love it this way too.”

“But der’s no peppa-oni.” She sniffed and swiped the tears off her face. After shoving the dish away, she dropped her upper body onto the table, sobbing about peppa-oni.

“Oh, dear,” Nancy said with a wry smile. “Maybe order something else? The water spirit can cook you almost anything. That’s a true gift.”

Flora lifted her head, tears trailing down her pink cheeks. “Ice cweem. Cake. I want sompin’ sweet.”

“You can have another cookie for dessert, but no dessert until you eat at least a little dinner,” Nancy said firmly. She lifted her voice. “I’d like a similar pizza, if you please.” The dish appeared on the counter, and she brought it over, sitting across from Flora. Leaning forward, she sniffed the meal. “It smells delicious.”

Flora heaved a sigh. “I’s guess so.”

“I’ll have the same,” I said, bringing my meal to the table and joining them. “It looks tasty.” I lifted the entire thing, folded it in half, and took a big bite.

Flora gazed at me with wide eyes, her tears forgotten. “You gotta cut it.”

“Why?” I asked, munching through the bite. It tasted wonderful. Vanessa had made pizza when I stayed with the Indigan Clan for a few days during my travels .

Even when I felt I didn’t deserve anything further in life, I’d missed people. It was nice talking with someone other than myself, and I’d enjoyed soaking in their cave pools.

“’Cuz you do,” Flora said. She frowned at her pizza. “Mommy, you gotta cut it.”

Nancy collected one of my stone blades from the kitchen. I’d brought them with me when I left the Dastalon Clan who was supported by stone spirits. After slicing Flora’s pizza, she took her seat again and did the same with her own meal.

Flora lifted a triangular chunk and bit into it. “It’s okay,” she huffed. “Needs peppa-oni.”

“It’s yummy,” Nancy said around a bite. “This vegetable,” she pointed to a circular slice, “has a spicy flavor a lot like pepperoni. And no pig had to die to make it.”

“Pigs die for peppa-oni?” Flora gaped down at her pizza before pushing it away again. “I can’t eat cute pigs!”

She burst into tears once more.