Page 54 of Dark Princess Emerging

As they headed toward the front door, Kian noticed several curtains twitching in nearby houses. News traveled fast in the village, and everyone was curious about their new neighbors, even though they had all met them during the cruise.

"Let me give you a tour," Gabi said, taking Aru's hand and leading him up the front steps. The god followed, looking around and grinning like someone who had just won the lottery.

Well, he had.

Finding his true love mate on Earth was like winning a galactic lottery, and then being able to move into their community was a boon on top of that.

The house was similar to most of the homes in this part of the village in terms of its floor plan and amenities. Its exterior sported one of the handful of specs finishes that the architect and Ingrid had put together. Similarly, it had Ingrid's interior design touches that varied a little for this model, making it both elegant and homey. None of the homes in the village, Kalugal's being the exception, were nearly as high-end as the penthouses the gods had just vacated.

Still, Aru seemed happy, and the other two couples who had joined them for the house tour were commenting excitedly about how nice everything was.

The tour of Dagor and Frankie's house next door went similarly, though with considerably more squealing from Frankie as she showed off every feature. Then, it was Margo and Negal's turn.

"We should head to my mother's," Kian said after they'd completed the final tour. "She's eager to welcome you properly, and the Odus have been cooking all day to prepare a feast for you."

"Will Ell-rom and Jasmine be there?" Margo asked.

"Of course," Syssi said. "And Morelle and Brandon. For now, they are still staying in the Clan Mother's house, but I expect them to move out soon. Morelle will probably move in with Brandon, and Ell-rom and Jasmine will need to choose a home."

Kian wondered if Brandon would be willing to host the other couple. The twins would most likely want to live right next door to each other, and there were no more vacant homes in their part of the village.

32

MORELLE

The world had taken on a pleasantly fuzzy quality as Morelle followed Brandon into Annani's living room. Her limbs felt lighter than usual, and warm contentment had settled over her—aftereffects, she assumed, of the delicious drink called margarita that she'd shared with her new friends.

She would definitely need to ask Annani's Odus if they knew how to make it. The combination of tart and sweet, with that interesting salty rim, had been utterly fascinating. She'd never tasted anything like it before.

As Morelle settled onto the couch beside Brandon, she noticed that Jasmine seemed far less affected by the drinks despite having consumed just as many. Her brother's mate was radiating excitement that was somehow contagious even through Morelle's pleasant haze.

"I can't wait for you to meet these three fabulous gods." Jasmine settled onto a large armchair with Ell-rom. "They helped me find your pod. Without them, it wouldn't have been possible, even with my scrying stick." She chuckled. "Negal carried me on hisback most of the way because I somehow managed to twist my ankle." She smiled at Ell-rom. "I was never the outdoor type."

Morelle frowned, old suspicions rising through the margarita-induced warmth. The head priestess's warnings about the duplicitous nature of gods echoed in her mind, but then these gods were mated to Margo, Frankie, and Gabi, so they couldn't be too bad. Maybe they were rebels like her father and his followers. "I'm missing parts of the story, and it just occurred to me that I don't know why these gods wanted to find the Kra-ell settlers."

Brandon's hand found hers, his thumb rubbing soothing circles on her palm. "Perhaps we should start at the beginning. Aru and his friends only arrived on Earth five years ago."

It suddenly occurred to her that Kian had said something about the gods arriving only recently from Anumati and reporting about the progress there, but later, she'd learned that there had been no contact with Anumati for thousands of years.

"How did they get here?" She turned to look at him. "You said that communication with Anumati was severed a long time ago."

"To most Anumatians, that was true." Annani turned to face her. "But the Eternal King secretly sent patrol ships to this sector from time to time, and small scouting teams were sent to check whether the missing settler ship arrived. Aru's team was the last one, and they found Kra-ell settlers, but only those who had already awakened from stasis on their own. They found us only after we freed those Kra-ell from Igor's oppression."

What Annani had just said made little sense to Morelle.

"Who is Igor?" she asked.

Ell-rom leaned forward. "Our mother wasn't the only one who smuggled people on the ship. The Eternal King smuggled Kra-ell assassins, who were supposed to kill our father and the other gods who supported him, but since the ship was lost in space, he kept sending scouts to find out whether it had arrived on Earth. Aru and his friends are the last such team, and they discovered that the ship had finally arrived, but it exploded. It managed to release all its life pods beforehand, but only a few of them opened, and not at the same time. Several groups of Kra-ell woke up from stasis and tried to make sense of what happened to them and survive. Igor was in one of those pods that opened, and he was one of those assassins. When he realized that Ahn and the gods were gone, he decided to become the king of the Kra-ell, and since he was a powerful compeller, he forced his pod mates to obey him, get rid of the males of the other pods, and take the females. His goal was to change the normal ratio of Kra-ell males to females and equalize it."

"That's absurd." Morelle waved a dismissive hand. "That's how nature made the Kra-ell. Was he a scientist? Did he know how to manipulate genes like the gods?"

"No," Brandon said. "He was just trying to reverse the natural order of the Kra-ell and subjugate the females to the males. He was a bad male who had no regard for honor or life."

The room seemed to tilt slightly, and Morelle wasn't sure if it was the margaritas or the horror of what she was hearing. "How did he find the others? How did he know when they awakened?"

"Trackers," Jasmine said. "All the settlers had trackers implanted in their bodies. They were only activated when they woke up from stasis."

"We don't have them," Ell-rom said quickly. "Mother made sure of that when she smuggled us onto the ship at the last moment. I assume that we took the place of two Kra-ell who were supposed to be there."