Alien Romance: The Alien's Wonderland: A Sci-fi Alien Warrior Invasion Abduction Romance by Ruth Anne Scott Page B

end, it did. She couldn’t force herself to lie there any longer. Life demanded to be lived, even if you lived under the ocean with a symbiotic algae feeding oxygen into your cells. Not even a fantasy world could take the place of movement, life, purpose.
    She got up and got dressed. She would have to get Deek to explain the secret of how he washed that dirt off himself. She couldn’t exactly take a shower under the sea, could she? Yet her body begged for one to refresh her after last night.
    She worked around her house for the rest of the day until she happened to glance through the door and noticed Trin crossing the meadow in her direction. Trin stopped in front of Frieda’s house. “I’ve come to bring you to the gathering.”
    “You didn’t need to go to the trouble,” Frieda told her. “I can find my way on my own.”
    Trin shook her head. “Guests should be escorted through the door. Call it a tradition.”
    Frieda laughed. “Kind of like the groom carrying the bride over the threshold?”
    Trin frowned. “The.....what?”
    Frieda waved her hand. “Never mind.”
    Trin watched her set the room to rights before she left. “What are you doing?”
    Frieda swept a bunch of fabric scraps into a pile on her table. “I’m working.”
    “Working?” Trin repeated. “What kind of work is that?”
    Frieda blushed and dropped her eyes. “I’m learning to sew.”
    Trin’s eyes widened. “Sew? By yourself?”
    “I thought I’d give it a shot,” Frieda explained. “I’ve never done anything like this before. I’m all thumbs.”
    Trin glanced down at Frieda’s hands and blinked.
    Frieda shifted on her feet. “It’s an expression we have on Earth. It means I’m not very good at it.”
    “That’s exactly why you should get someone to teach you,” Trin pointed out. “You should tell my mother. If she can’t teach you herself, she will find someone who can.”
    “I’m sure she could,” Frieda replied, “and I’m sure I would make better progress if I had someone like that to teach me. But I can’t do that—not yet.”
    Trin stared at her in blank wonder. “Why ever not? How long to you plan to stumble along by yourself before you ask for help?”
    Frieda smiled at her. “I’m not afraid to ask for help. It isn’t that. I’ve just never worked with my hands before. I want to try it on my own before I set out to learn to do it right.”
    Trin shook her head. “I don’t understand you at all.”
    “I’m not trying to be an expert sewer,” Frieda explained. “I just want to start on something. It doesn’t really matter what. I don’t know if I’m really even interested in sewing. I just want to do something with my hands, and I’m not ready to learn from one of your people yet. That would mean....” She stopped herself.
    Trin waited. “That would mean....what? That you’re really Aqinas now?”
    Frieda looked down at the floor. “Something like that.”
    Trin pursed her lips. Then she took a step across the room and took Frieda’s hand. “Never mind. You’ll never be Aqinas until you decide for yourself that you want to be.”
    She guided Frieda out of the house and into the meadow. Frieda surveyed the familiar scene. “I must be crazy not to want to stay here.”
    “I understand why you don’t.” Trin shrugged. “I mean, I understand why you haven’t made up your mind to. I wouldn’t want to leave to go live on land. Making the adjustment from land to the ocean must be very difficult. If I left the ocean for the land, I don’t think I would ever stop dreaming of a way to go back.”
    Frieda cast a sidelong glance at her. “Not even if you found a man you loved there?”
    Trin squeezed her hand. “It’s hard to say, since I’m mated here to a man who matches me perfectly. On land, you don’t have the water to match you with your mate. You might mate with the wrong man. But yes, even if I found a man I loved on land, I would still want to come back. I belong to the