Forget his age, or how sexy the man is and get down to business. You have friends to save.
Wynter still found it difficult to believe there were shapeshifters in the world. Yet, here she was, standing with several people who claimed to be just that. Although, none of them had changed into anything but another set of clothes since she’d met them. And there was that alien thing Tabitha mentioned.
“Here are the GPS coordinates. It appears to be a large warehouse on the top of a mountain in North Carolina.” Rowen handed Geno a small piece of paper.
“North Carolina!” They must have moved after I escaped.” Wynter met Geno’s gaze. “I swear I didn’t think we’d have to travel that far.” How could she ask them to drop everything and take a road trip to North Carolina? They had wives, families, and Reno’s wife was expecting their first child.
“I can’t ask you to drive all the way across the country to help a bunch of strangers.” She closed her eyes and shook her head, her heart heavy with the knowledge that she wouldn’t be able to help Ryder and the others after all. “Besides, there’s no guarantee that they’ll even be there.”
“The vehicle you used in your escape is there. The chances are, your captors will be there as well. Even if they’re holding your friends somewhere else, they might have abducted more people to experiment on after you escaped. It’s worth checking out.” Ceno was the voice of reason when all she wanted to do was cry.
“Don’t worry about the distance, Wynter.” Geno pulled her back into his embrace. “We have a way to get there and back faster than you might expect.”
“You said the place is on the top of a mountain?” Geno led Wynter to a chair and waited for her to sit. “Is it remote, as in, there are few people around?”
“It seems to be.” Rowen opened his laptop, typed something quickly, and then scanned the screen. “It looks like a ghost town to me.” He turned the computer so they could all see the satellite images. “There are buildings, but no people and the road is a bit overgrown.”
“Perfect. We can take my craft and be there in no time.”
“Craft?” Wynter frowned. “Oh, right. You have a space ship. Is it big enough for all of us?” Her heart stuttered at the thought. She hadn’t minded riding in the shooter, but it had only risen a foot or two in the air. Being thousands of feet in the sky, with nothing between the plane and the ground, terrified her. But if she had to fly to save her friends, she would do so. They had to rescue Ryder, the dragon twins, and anyone else those crazy scientists and their gaggle of goons had snatched off the street.
“Don’t worry, takana. My ship is big enough to fit many more than us in it.”
The men gathered around Rowen and his computer. They stared at the screen for a moment.
“We could set down there, hide the ship, and go the rest of the way on foot. If we split up, we could surround the place so no one could get out without our seeing them.”
“We could go in at night. There’s more than likely fewer guards on the night shift, and if not, we’ll at least have the cover of darkness.” Reno stared at the screen. His eyes narrowed before he pointed at a spot in the center of what appeared to be an aerial photo. “What is that? It looks like a friggin’ roller coaster.”
“I think it is. Is there an abandoned amusement park on top of a mountain in North Carolina?”
They all squinted at the screen as they attempted to see more.
“I don’t know, but I sure as hell want to go check that out,” Ronin said just before he crammed the last of his sandwich into his mouth. “That looks like a bumper car track. What the hell. We might be able to have a little fun exploring while we’re there.”
“Whatever it is, there’s a lot of places to hide on the mountain. We’re going to have to be careful when we go in. At least we have one break. The warehouse where the cars are parked is down the side of the mountain. We won’t have to worry too much about people hiding in those buildings.” Geno scowled at his sons. “If you all want to go exploring abandoned amusement parks, you can do so after we’ve rescued the others.”
“Of course.” Deno gave his father and then Wynter a sheepish look. “They will be our first and only priority until we can get them all aboard the ship. Then we might like to go back out and have a look at that ghost town.”
They argued back and forth a bit before finally agreeing on a plan of action while Wynter sat and watched. She marveled that one man could sire and raise so many sons and still look so young. Hell, his youngest sons were nearly thirty. Though, she wasn’t sure if she really believed that. The pair looked and acted about seventeen.
There was something in the water in New Mexico because it seemed as though the seven men had found the fountain of youth.
She just hoped they’d let her stick around long enough to get a couple of swallows of that magical water. If she was going to attempt to raise six-year-old twins by herself, she was going to need it.
Chapter Sixteen
“CAN WE TALK?” GENO rested his arm on the door frame and met Wynter’s gaze. He wanted to talk to her about his ship. He wasn’t sure how much she remembered from her visit and didn’t want to frighten her.
The way she talked, it was obvious she thought it was something small. He couldn’t fault her for that. She’d only seen the medical bay and one of the smaller spaces on board. Things would have been easier if it had still been light out when they left, and she could have seen it the day before.
The main problem was that he didn’t know what Tabby had told Wynter about their tech and how they got it. He cursed himself for not speaking to his daughter-in-law about it.
“There are some things you need to know about me.” He grimaced. “About us. My sons and I.”
“I know that you all seem to be good men.” Wynter smiled up at him and set the book she’d been reading aside. She sat with her feet tucked up beside her, leaning against the arm of the overstuffed chair she occupied. “I also know that all of you are about to set out on a quest that none of you really have to be part of, and I thank you for that.”
“There’s more.” He made his way into the room and sat on the coffee table facing her. He clasped his hands between his knees and took a deep breath. Where to begin? “We’re not from here.”
There! He’d said it. Now she could think what she liked about them. He only hoped she could handle the truth. A takana was rare enough. There was no such thing as a third chance mate.
“I know that. Tabitha already told me.” She stared at her hands, clasped in her lap. Why wouldn’t she look at him?
“She did?” Why did he sound like an adolescent talking to his first crush? Geno knew he was more articulate than a love-struck teenager. However, for some reason, he couldn’t seem to string more than a few words together at the moment. “I didn’t know she told you that.”
“How did you expect her to explain your replicator without telling me what you were?” She chuckled and shook her head.
Geno took another deep breath and closed his eyes, thankful that he didn’t have to break the news to her. Things had been easy with his first mate. Rowninda had known he wasn’t from her world. He had no reason to fear her rejection because her people had been aware of aliens for generations.
“So, what’s the problem?” Her brow creased. “I don’t understand. What difference does it make where you’re from? I’m no bigot.”
“I never thought you were. I just thought you might like to see who, exactly, is helping you.” He’d never meant to insult her, but she reacted as though he had.
“I don’t know what you me— Oh, my God. You’re blue! I could handle someone telling me you’re from another planet. I could even handle the weird technology. I think a part of me didn’t believe Tabitha when she told me. I’m not sure I can...” Her eyes widened when she glanced his way. The color drained from her face, and her eyes rolled back in her head as she tipped forward in a faint.
Well, he’d shown her what he was, and a
ll he’d had to do was relax his guard and let the glamor spell Topper taught him how to perform fall away.
Geno jumped to his feet and caught Wynter before she hit the floor. Her eyes were closed, her face slack as he stared down at her beauty. One whiff of her delicious scent and every muscle in his body hardened. Goddess, he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted any woman—even Rowninda.
Closing his eyes, he mentally apologized to his first mate before he carried his takana to the sofa, and sat down with her in his lap. He planned to lay her down, but couldn’t bear to let her go. No doubt, Wynter would force him to release her when she regained consciousness. That would be soon enough.
The sensation of her warmth pressed against him had every nerve ending at attention. His muscles clenched, and his cock hardened again. After thirty years of being impotent, the tightening in his loins wasn’t unwelcome, no matter how wildly inappropriate it was to lust after an unconscious woman.
Unfortunately, only a few minutes passed before she stirred and moaned. Wynter opened her eyes and met his gaze, holding her hand to her head.
“What-what am I doing in your lap?” She stiffened in his arms and slid to the floor. Pushing herself to her feet, she swayed a bit before resting a trembling hand on the arm of the couch.
Releasing her had been one of the single most difficult things he’d ever done. He wanted to hold her, to tell her everything would work out in the end, but how could he when she stood in front of him with fear filling her expression?
Now she was afraid of him, damn it. He just couldn’t win. Geno’s heart sank.
“I guess I didn’t believe Tabitha when she told me what you are.” She crossed her arms and backed away, her eyes wide.
He recognized the defensive posture.
“I’m a man.”
“No, you’re not. You’re an alien.”
“I’m still a man.” He was the man who would care for her for the rest of her life if she would allow it, but Geno couldn’t tell her that. Not yet.
He shoved his fingers through his hair. He should have gotten some advice from one of his mated sons on how to deal with this. How had they broken the news to their females? “I’m just not human. But then again, neither are the men you left behind or have you forgotten that?”
“Well, they certainly weren’t from another planet.” Brows drawn down, she pressed her lips together, and her chin went up a notch or two. “I don’t even know if it’s legal to associate with you guys. Shouldn’t the government know you’re here?”
“Why, so they can put us in laboratories like the one you just escaped? Besides, how do you know your friends weren’t aliens? Do you know for a fact that shapeshifters evolved here on this planet? We evolved on Zolon. We have our history texts to attest to that. What is there here to prove that your shapeshifter friends come from Earth? What proof other than legends, folk tales, and speculation?”
His last question seemed to take the starch right out of her. Her shoulders slumped a bit, and she sighed.
“Does this mean I could be part alien now, too?” She flopped back into a chair on the other side of the room and stared at her clasped hands. “As if I wasn’t enough of a freak before, now I’m an effing shapeshifter who could have alien DNA.”
Geno couldn’t stand the sight of her slumped shoulders and dejected expression. She was his mate, and it was his responsibility to make her happy. But how could he when she was so determined to think the worst of herself?
She was a beautiful woman and had no reason to have such distressing thoughts. He scrubbed his hands over his face and cursed her dead husband. Never before had he wished to bring a dead man back for the sole purpose of killing the bastard all over again.
Standing, he crossed the room and knelt in front of the chair. Brushing Wynter’s unruly hair away from her face, he hooked his finger beneath her chin and tilted her head up enough to look him in the eyes.
“You are not a freak, Wynter.” Maybe it was a good thing he’d knelt in front of her before he studied her face. The abject misery in her expression would have been enough to bring him to his knees. “You are the most beautiful and courageous woman I have ever met. You are not, however, a freak, and I will kill any man who says otherwise.”
“You-you wouldn’t!” She stared at him for a moment and then looked away. “You would, wouldn’t you?” She sighed. “I don’t want you to hurt anyone for me. I just want...” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I want my friends freed from that horrible place, and after we get them out of there, I don’t ever want to see the people who kidnapped us ever again. Is it too much to ask to be able to live the rest of my life never having to worry that those scientists will ever find the boys and me? And I want... something that I think is impossible. At least it seems impossible for me.”
“Nothing is impossible, Wynter. You merely need to tell yourself it’s yours, and it will come to you.”
“Right.” She laughed derisively. “I’ll be sure to remember that when I’m old and gray and living with thirty cats.”
“What’s wrong with living with just one?” He wanted to be the cat living with her when she turned old and gray.
“Having a lot of cats is called being a crazy cat lady.” She pulled a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. “It’s what a lot of lonely old women do here.” Wynter’s hands trembled as she twisted the thin cloth-like paper.
He wanted to grab her, pull her close, and tell her he wanted her with him for the rest of their lives, but he knew she wouldn’t believe that—not yet. So instead of telling her the one cat that she could live with was him, he kept his mouth shut and tried to think of a way to make her see that they could make a family together.
It was what he wanted and what she wanted. Not to mention, it was best for the boys to have both a mother and father figure in their lives. He’d raised boys by himself. It wasn’t an easy task for anyone.
“I never asked for much. Just a family of my own.” Tears filled her eyes. “That’s not too much to ask, is it?”
“You have a family, takana.” Using his thumbs, he gently brushed the tears from her cheeks. “You have Nicky and Noah.” He glanced back toward the bedrooms where the twins slept. And you have me.
“Yes.” She swiped the back of her arm over her eyes and wiped her nose with the mangled tissue. “I suppose you’re right. I do have them now.”
When her tears didn’t stop, Geno stood and pulled her up into his embrace. “You also have me.” He didn’t want to voice that so soon, but he couldn’t stand to see her cry, and he couldn’t bear the thought that she could think so little of herself. It was as though she had the ridiculous notion she had no value.
The center of his chest ached at the thought that she could deem herself so worthless when she was everything to him.
“I don’t even know you.” She leaned away to look into his eyes. The fact that she didn’t pull away from him gave him hope.
“Perhaps not, but I think I should probably tell you about my people.” He held out his hand and waited for her to take it. He didn’t say anything. He wanted her to take his hand because she chose to, not because he coerced her in any way.
After a moment’s hesitation, she placed her hand in his. The ache in the center of his chest eased, replaced with a blossoming of positive energy.
With that one little show of trust, his second-chance mate had thoroughly claimed his heart, and he knew there would be no trip back to Zolon unless she accompanied him. Escaping this life through the cal’tratu was no longer an option now that he’d found Wynter.
Chapter Seventeen
“IS THAT WHAT I THINK it is?” Wynter pointed at the large craft, her mouth open and eyes wide. She couldn’t believe what stood right before her. They had hidden the entrance door behind a pile of brush, and part of it appeared to blend into the mountainside.
How had she missed it before?
“It’s not...” She shook her head before glancing at Geno. “Do
n’t tell me that’s your—“
“Spacecraft?” Deno finished for her as he strode by carrying two good-sized boxes in his arms and what looked like a huge duffle bag strapped to his back.
Talking about someone having a spaceship was a lot different from looking at one and contemplating flying across the country in it.
Deno’s wife, Tabitha, carried what appeared to be an overnight bag while her husband had humped everything else up the mountainside to the ship.
Looking around, she noticed that all of the women carried next to nothing while the men seemed weighed down like pack mules with all of the belongings they planned to take with them. If she had tried to make Ben carry that much while she brought nothing, there would have been hell to pay.
If Wynter had expected Ben to carry anything, she had better have been hauling just as much weight as he did, or he would have rubbed her nose in her laziness the entire trip.
However, with the Brewers, or Brewerigerons, as they said was their real name, it was different. They were appalled to think anyone would expect a woman to carry their supplies. Truth be told they could have knocked her over with a feather when they had informed her they only expected her to cart her purse up the hill—not that she had one. She’d left hers at the warehouse when she escaped. At least she thought it was at the warehouse. She hadn’t seen it since before she’d been kidnapped and chloroformed, or whatever.
“Yeah. I guess that’s what I’d call it.” She studied the huge silver... thing she’d been staring at since Geno opened what he’d called the boarding hatch.
There had been no seams, rivets, or anything that would attest to humans, or anyone else, having manufactured it. The sleek silver ship didn’t resemble a plane or even a helicopter. It looked more like the UFOs people had reported seeing over the last few decades, except it wasn’t round and saucer-shaped.
If forced to describe it, Wynter would say it appeared more like a long, silver cigar. Maybe it looked more like a small chrome-covered submarine. She blinked when it started humming, and the lights flashed on.
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