Page 16 of The Alien Who Saved Christmas

“My people are talented at war. It is all we are known for. What we excel at.” He paused for a long beat, a strange expression on his face. “But I prefer ranching.” He said abruptly.

“You prefer ranching to war?”

“Yes.” He braced himself, like he expected her to be scandalized by that admission.

Sadie had no clue why he thought that was some dark secret. It just seemed logical to her. “Of course you do. I think that job would fit you perfectly. I can totally picture you in a cowboy hat.”

“Rtaharion males are not supposed to prefer anything to war.”

Oh! She got it now. This was some “making your kid play football, when he really loved to paint” macho bullshit. His home planet forced Xane into a box where he didn’t quite fit. He was trying to share something with her, but he wasn’t sure how she’d react.

Sadie kept her attention locked on his wary face. “I don’t care about the cultural norms of your planet. As the woman who chose you as her maybe-husband…”

“There are no qualifiers necessary for my title. It is a matter of law that I am your husband.”

“… I would prefer a rancher.” Sadie went on, like he hadn’t even spoken. “I wouldn’t like to be left alone, while my maybe-husband went off to intergalactic war. That sounds scary.”

“There is no ‘maybe’ to our arrangement.” He insisted again. “Just as there is no worry I would ever leave you, unless I had no other choice.”

“Great! We agree then. Ranching over interstellar Seal Team 6. Sadly, gratmyrr herding is not going to help us escape this Hell Planet, though. Military stuff might, so we need to try it. Luckily, you can do both.”

He frowned, trying to follow along with her zigzagging conversation. Xane was a very linear thinker. Sadie wasn’t. It was good they both had roles in this relationship. She came up with the brilliant ideas, and he terrorized people into doing what she wanted. It was a dream team!

“So, if my plan to free slaves at the salt mine wasn’t impossible… how would you go about pulling it off?”

“I’d scout the area around the mines and look for perimeter flaws.

” He began ticking off steps on his clawed fingers.

“Then, I would attempt to gain access to the guard tower. Then, I would kill the guards there. Then, I would use the controls to open the gate to the mines. The remaining guards would rush out of the tunnel, but I would win against them. The mine has only one entrance, which would mitigate their numbers.”

Sadie beamed at him. “Perfect! That’s a very fair compromise.”

Her wide grin seemed to daze him. “What?” He said in a vague tone, his eyes laser-focused on her face.

“We’ll go to the blue salt mines. You can show me why your plan to save Jynn is impossible and doomed to fail. Meanwhile, I’ll try to see some way to make it work.”

He gave his head a quick shake. “What? No! You are attempting to confuse me, again. I am not falling under your very attractive spell.”

That made her grin deepen. “You still think I’m very attractive?”

“Of course, I… No, stop that.” He pointed a finger at her lips. “No smiling. It makes it hard to recall why I am refusing to go along with your insanity.”

Sadie eased closer to him, which made his whole body stiffen.

“ You’re the one who came up with the jailbreak idea.

” Her eyelashes fluttered. “Are you sure we can’t reach a compromise?

” When you were the only girl in the solar system, flirting was like a superpower.

Especially when your alien victim thought you were very attractive.

And especially when you thought he was very attractive, too.

Xane wasn’t quite sure what to do in the face of her feminine wiles.

Imagine how lost he’d be if all her makeup weren’t light-years away.

Presently, she was barefaced and dressed in oversized clothes that she cleaned with weird alien soap.

Decked out for a real date, she’d wow the guy.

Sadie Malone wasn’t normally a girl who wowed men, but she’d wow Xane. She could feel it.

His chest heaved up and down, as he drew in oxygen. “There is no compromise to be had.” He tried a little frantically. “Elf is the only thing that will make that idea actually work.”

It was Sadie’s turn to stare. “An elf?” She asked in total bafflement, jolted from her very fun flirtation.

Xane seemed confused by her confusion. “Yes. Elf is the key.” He lifted his shoulders in a “It’s so obvious!” kind of multi-armed shrug.

“Okay.” She would keep moving forward, no matter how bizarre things got. “Sure. Let’s go get an elf then.” They’d just theme their next kidnapping to the holiday season.

He scoffed like that suggestion was preposterous, even though he was basically the one who’d just suggested it. “There is no way in the six-tiered heavens I would ever even attempt…”

Sadie cut him off. “It would make me happy.”

Xane gazed down at her with a kind of hopeless expression.

She smiled winningly. “ Really happy.”

With a frustrated curse, Xane sighed and turned towards one of the spaceship’s control consoles. He began jabbing at buttons, using more force than was probably necessary to do… whatever it was he was doing.

Sadie wrinkled her nose, curiosity getting the better of her. “What are you doing?”

“I am going to send a message to Hathgarr, before we begin this madness.”

“You’ll call your brother for help?” Sadie asked excitedly. “Really? You were against that idea before.”

“I have considered our conversation from yesterday. I should not have stormed off Hathgarr’s ship and left him with no word of my fate.

” Xane made a face, like admitting he’d been wrong was a bitter pill to swallow.

“Now, when I am killed, at least my brother will know where to look for my body.”

“You really think an elf is going to kill us?”

“Oh, I’m sure I’ll die this day. You will live, though.”

“How am I going to survive, if an evil elf murders you?”

He glanced her way. “Because I will always make sure you survive.”

And Sadie felt her heart go boom .