Chapter 30

Beverly sat in stunned silence, staring at Hudson, shocked at what he had told her, and any fear she had left slowly trickled away.

“So, even though you know this, Beverly, you can’t say anything to anyone when you settled in a new place. It’s so dangerous for you, and for us as well. I would hate to see anything happen to your pretty little self. So please, promise me.”

She nodded her head, and she had a thought. “Faith and Abby? Are they from…SR44 as well?”

Hudson shook his head. “Faith isn’t. Faith is human. For her story, you can go ask her. And Abby…” he took a huge breath, “Abby is my daughter.”

Could this get any weirder?

“Your daughter?”

Hudson nodded.

“But you two are practically the same age!”

Hudson gave her the little smile she loved so much, the one with the dimple. “Not really. There’s actually quite an age gap between us.”

“How old are you? And where’s Abby’s mother?” she whispered.

“We’ve been here on Earth for two hundred and twelve years. I’m somewhere between eleven hundred and twelve hundred years old, although I actually quit keeping track of that long ago. I’m supposed to live until around two thousand, give or take a century or two. And Iris was Abby’s mother.”

She looked him over from head to toe. Eleven hundred years old had never, ever looked so good.

And to think she had been worried about how she would look at forty.

Abby was Hudson and Iris’s daughter. The way they spoke to each other made so much sense now, it was crystal clear.

So she was sitting here having a chat with a being from another planet. An alien. An extraterrestrial. Who had a daughter who looked and seemed so…normal.

She had never given much thought on whether she believed in such things, but she supposed that at this point, she didn’t need to give any thought to the belief, because the proof was sitting right in front of her. The doctor in her was speaking volumes, wanting to get her hands on the potion or herbs, time machine, or whatever he used to heal himself so quickly.

“How did you heal so fast?”

“Cohen has special healing abilities. It’s complicated, but involves combining the energy of the injured along with Cohen’s, and he’s able to heal us.”

She imagined the implications on the human medical field, and goose bumps rose on her flesh.

On a personal level, she thought about the past few days and her ignorance of what she had been living with. She had found them all so kind, so bonded, so much a family. It was something she had wanted again, and she found it very comfortable to be among them. Even if they had sort-of kidnapped her.

These…people? Beings? They were generous and kind. They loved each other with ferocity. They were what she could only hope to have one day.

“Do the other’s eyes turn yellow, too?”

Hudson shook his head and explained that each had their own unique SR44 color.

“If I went upstairs right now, what would I see?”

“You’d see a bunch of guys with dark eyes. We have special contacts that Talin developed to help dull the glow of our eyes.”

“Where are yours?”

Hudson pushed back a piece of hair that had escaped from his ponytail and looked down at the floor. He cleared his throat. “Being the intelligent guy I am, when I woke up I thought it was seven in the morning, so I took them out. I’ve never slept through the day like that, but then...”

After a beat of silence, she asked, “But what?”

He looked back at her, and after a long pause, he said quietly, “But I’ve never had such an amazing night as last night.”

Beverly felt the heat rise in her cheeks. She felt the same. Hudson was everything and more than she had ever experienced or imagined. He was an incredible lover, concerned about her needs before his own, and he was also very skilled, because he found her buttons quickly and pushed them frequently.

She also loved the talks they had had throughout the night. His confessions about Iris were surprising, and she knew that he would never love anyone again. Which hurt, because she was beginning to have serious feelings for him, not just blatant lust of a beautiful man. There was much more beneath the stunning exterior that was Hudson.

“Me neither, Hudson.”

As she stared at him and the warm, yellow glow emanating from his eyes, she wondered what this screw-up meant for Hudson.

“What are the others going to say when they know that I know?”

Hudson shrugged. “What can they say? They’ll probably curse at me, but then that will most likely be the end of it.”

Beverly nodded, feeling brave. “Should we go up and see exactly what happens?”

Hudson let out a laugh. “You just want to watch me get my hide torn to pieces.”

Beverly looked at him. That was the last thing she wanted. She actually was thinking that maybe everyone would go easy on Hudson because she was there, hoping that the “be polite in front of the company” rule held fast in this house.

Wasn’t she becoming protective.