by Mikayla Lane
He stopped to look around the buildings and could see by the flashes through the buildings that the mercenaries were surrounding them.
“Lauren . . .” he began, hoping to convince her to run without him.
“No! I’m staying. Grai will get here,” she said, refusing to abandon him to the people who’d tortured him.
With a heavy sigh, he took off into the woods behind the building, trying to continue heading in the direction of the portal. He figured if nothing else and they came too close, he could force Lauren to hide in the foliage.
They hadn’t gotten far when he saw a flash in the sky, and he looked up to see one of the UFOs bearing down on them. If he wasn’t so worried about Lauren, he’d have whooped with joy.
“Help is almost here,” he whispered as he continued to pull her through the tropical undergrowth.
Moments later, there was a burst of warm wind above them, and he was standing inside the craft still holding Lauren’s hand. He looked around in surprise at the heavily armed men and women in the ship before he was distracted by a pair of stormy, dark eyes.
“Sit down and buckle the hell up!” Grai ordered; he was in no mood to play nice with either of them.
Lauren sat in the first seat she could find and pulled Mikey into the seat next to her. When he looked at her curiously, she shook her head quickly and kept her head down, hoping to convey to him that it was a good time to just be quiet for a while.
Mikey had other plans.
“Would someone like to tell me why the hell I can see through people’s skin? Or through buildings? What the hell happened to me?” he asked loudly, throwing his hands up in the air as he trembled slightly. He wasn’t coming down from his adrenaline rush; he was crashing and burning.
His admission got Grai’s attention very quickly.
“You can see through objects?” he asked, surprised at the news and knowing it was important.
Mikey looked at him like he must be deaf.
“And skin! I saw where they had healed bones! Through their skin! Through it! And I moved so fast and automatically . . . like my body knew what it had to do before it hit my mind,” Mikey said, his body trembling in shock and more than a little fear—of himself.
The cabin of the craft erupted in quiet laughter at Mikey’s outburst; even Grai smiled—none of which did anything to help Mikey’s fracturing mind.
“What? What the hell is so funny? What’s happening to me?” Mikey shouted.
Lauren stood, becoming concerned that Mikey may be in shock.
“Mikey, it’s OK. It’s normal . . .” she began before Mikey turned on her.
The first thing she noticed was that the small hazel dot in the upper part of his eyes was no longer a dot, but a large swirl that traveled around the dark band around the blue in his eyes. He wasn’t fully bonded yet, but was in that dangerous in-between stage and obviously still fighting the bond.
“Normal? You think being tracked and hunted by my own people like a fucking wild animal is normal? Seeing through someone’s skin to defects in their bones is normal?” Mikey turned to the others. “What the fuck is wrong with all of you that you think that is normal?”
“Dude, you need to chill,” Simya said, “We’ve all freaked out over the beast taking over during battle.”
“Yeah, be glad he was looking out for you and your mate,” another added.
Grai saw the shocked look on Mikey’s face and knew the guy was getting ready to freak out.
“Lauren, you may want to grab a relaxer,” he advised.
Lauren blushed a deep red as Mikey swung his gaze to her, his look of betrayal slamming into her heart like a hammer. She was going to explain the mate thing to him once they got to know one another—after he learned to trust her. Obviously that had backfired on her.
“Mates? Like in your history? And you didn’t think I needed to know that?” Mikey roared at her, his fists clenching in anger and embarrassment from the multiple hits to his pride.
Not only did he find out that he’d really had no part in saving them—it was all the creature in his head—he also had to find out in front of a cabin full of hybrids and aliens that the woman he’d just begun to trust hadn’t bothered to tell him that they were mates. He’d been rejected before, most men had, but never quite so publicly.
“Mikey . . . I wanted to wait until . . .” Lauren whispered.
“Until what? Until you were sure you didn’t have a better option? Or until you could kill me off? Is that why you didn’t remove the tracker? Why you took me through the portal?” he asked, wondering if anything between them had been real.
“What? Never!” Lauren retorted, looking at him in horror for even thinking such a thing.
Mikey stood over Lauren, his face flaming with hurt and anger when a guy around his age spun him around. He stood eye to eye with a pair of dark eyes that swirled with fury.
“Look, asshole, you got it all wrong. Now stop being a prick and chill the hell out. If you have no damn idea what your beast is and does, don’t blame it on her; that’s your own damn fault. Ignorance serves no one but the puppet masters, so you only have yourself to blame if someone else is pulling your strings,” Traze growled, itching to plant his fist in Mikey’s face.
Mikey stared at the guy for a moment before his words finally sunk in. He was getting ready to apologize to Lauren when chaos erupted around them. The craft was rocked by an explosion, and he was thrown across the interior, hitting the wall while the guy he’d been talking to caught himself on the straps hanging from the roof and swung with the next impact.
“Report!” Grai roared as he unstrapped himself and made his way to the front of the craft.
“We’ve got jets on our tail! They’re using heat seekers, and I’m betting they found us by that damn tracker!” the pilot called out.
“We’ve got engine damage! I’m trying to reroute power!” the copilot called out.
Grai turned to Mikey as he tried to stand back up.
“Someone, I don’t care who, get that damn tracker out of him now!” Grai roared, knowing the combat medtechs would take care of it.
“Wait! No! I’ll do it! Just knock him out!” Lauren called as she tried to unbuckle her harness.
She was stopped just in time as the craft took another powerful hit and Mikey was again thrown into a wall. This time he was thankfully knocked out.
Lauren was held in her seat by Simya and Crator as the medtechs began the minor operation to remove the tracker. The craft continued to shake, a telltale sign that the craft sustained too many hits.
“Damn!” one of the techs called out, scaring Lauren.
“What’s wrong?” she called out, trying to slap away the hands keeping her in her seat.
“It’s fine! He’s OK. It’s just hard to make a clean cut in a rocking craft,” the tech called back.
“Grai! We’re not going to make it!” the pilot called out.
“Where are we going down?” Grai asked, immediately calling out to Dillon for backup to come.
“The mountains past Alamo, Mexico. It’s the closest land I can make,” the pilot called out.
Grai relayed the information to backup and prayed they could get the craft down without any injuries. They would need to be on the move the minute they hit the ground; Grai had no doubt the military would be on their trail pretty quickly.
“We got it!” the tech called out, holding up a small, bloody plastic-like disc.
“Destroy that damn thing!” Grai called out as the craft was struck by another impact.
Lauren watched as a small spark erupted from the disc as it was destroyed. It was too late though; the craft had sustained too much damage, and the smoking trail spitting out of the damaged engines was giving the military an excellent trail to follow.
“Strap in! We’re going down!” the pilot called.
Grai reached Traze and threw him into a seat, strapping him in as they hit the tops of the trees, the impact throwing Grai, Mike
y, and the two techs around the cabin as the strapped in personnel tried to catch them.
The next explosion ripped a hole in the lower right hull of the craft as Grai grabbed an unconscious Mikey and wrapped his arms and legs around him to keep him from being battered as the ship blazed a path through the jungle.
Moments later, there was a loud crunching sound and everyone was thrown forward as the craft came to a shuddering stop.
“Get out, get out, get out! Medics!” Grai ordered as he let go of Mikey and rolled him over to check him.
Grai stepped away as the medtechs ran back to Mikey to seal the wound in his groin where they’d removed the tracker.
“Get him up as quick as you can! Everyone out!” Grai ordered again, knowing they only had minutes before the military started shooting at the ship with heavier artillery.
Lauren quickly unstrapped herself and ran across the oddly tilted floor to Mikey’s side just as the techs finished sealing the wound. She ran scans while they put a mediband on the area and pulled his pants back up.
Although the incision was a little ragged, Lauren saw that it was healing properly, and she sent medicine through the band to wake him up.
Mikey’s eyes popped open, and he turned his head slowly, watching the others filing out of the craft, fully geared. He took in the odd way the floor of the craft was tilted and the pain in his groin before he saw the tear in the hull.
“We’re down,” he said, looking worriedly at Lauren.
“We need to get out of here. Can you stand?” Lauren asked, knowing he could physically; she was asking if he was mentally ready.
Mikey took a quick assessment of himself, and while he felt like he’d been kicked in the balls, he knew he could walk, and he nodded. Mikey looked up as Grai held his hand out to him, and he took it, letting the large man help him to his feet.
“Thanks,” Mikey said, a little embarrassed at the way he’d lost it in the ship.
“We need to move; they’re coming back,” Grai said simply, forcing a rifle into Mikey’s hands before gesturing to the open hatch.
Mikey took the weapon in his right hand and gently pressed the other against Lauren’s back, urging her to the door. They moved to the door, and Mikey looked out on a jungle terrain before he had to shield his eyes from the sun.
He helped Lauren down to Traze before jumping out to the jungle floor. Mikey could see that everyone was spread out in the jungle around them, hiding in the foliage from the three helicopters circling above them. He could hear the jets in the distance and knew what had happened while he was knocked out.
He quickly moved Lauren away from the wrecked craft while the pilots and Grai jumped out and headed towards them.
“We’re on our own for a while, guys. There’s no way to safely get an evacuation craft in here without going head to head with the military. Any other time that wouldn’t be a problem, but we’re in the middle of an occupied area, and the debris could endanger thousands of innocent people,” Grai said, making sure everyone understood before continuing.
“We need to get away from the ship so we can dec charge it, and we need to get to an extraction point 32 miles north where our people will meet us. Between us and them is a drug cartel, the Mexican military, and the US government. It may be difficult to tell who’s good and who isn’t, but you’re the best for a reason, so try. Now move out,” Grai ordered.
Lauren was surrounded and led deeper into the jungle while Grai grabbed hold of Mikey and turned him to face him.
“I don’t care what your issues are with bonding, your government, or you and your mate. But the objective is to get Lauren and my people out of here alive. I suggest you figure out really quick if you want to live or not, because we could use your gift to make that happen,” Grai said, giving Mikey a hard look before he followed after the others disappearing into the heavy jungle foliage.
Mikey stood there for a moment as he watched the military helicopters flying around them. He knew Lt. Col. Ballard would be in contact with the Mexican government to get permission to rappel from the choppers so they could give chase. They didn’t have long before that would happen.
“You’re an asshole, and I’m liking you less and less. So if you don’t get up there and protect our mate, I will take over again. The leader, Grai, is right; I can help make that happen since all you want to do is whine about being different,” his beast roared in his head, the disgust clear.
Moments later, gunfire erupted from the helicopters, and Mikey began running towards the others as the 50 caliber bullets ricocheted off the downed craft. He would have returned fire on the bastards if Grai hadn’t already warned them that there were innocents in the area.
With every step he took and every ping of bullets he heard against the metal of the craft, the more he realized what an ass he’d been. How wrong he’d been about so many things. Like the rest of the world, he’d been blinded by the lies and illusions fed to him by the governments and those in charge.
It wasn’t only what they’d done to him, it was the fact that the aliens, the supposed bad guys, were the only ones thinking about the innocent while the helicopters sprayed bullets into the craft and a wide area around it.
He looked up as he heard the jets fly overhead, and he felt a ripple in the air around him moments before his beast called out a warning in his head.
“Grai said the dec charge is going to blow. Brace yourself,” his beast said.
Mikey grabbed a tree as the explosion of the craft became a deafening sound behind him before the percussion wave roared through and past him. He stood there for a moment, his mind in shock as the blast not only didn’t hurt him, but the energy caused his eyes to look through the jungle foliage enabling him to see the others.
He heard and felt the secondary explosion as one of the helicopters was caught in the blast. He looked up in time to see the chopper coming at the ground right at him, and he took off towards the others, surprised at his strength and speed.
He slowed as he caught up to the two men protecting the rear of the group heading deeper into the jungle to the extraction point.
“Glad you got out of there. You should head up front; we’ll cover our rear,” Simya said, encouraging the kid to go up to Lauren.
Mikey tried his best not to think of Lauren, who the voyeur in his mind called his mate. He couldn’t deny he was drawn to her and had feelings for her, but he needed to better understand who he was. What he was. And more importantly, how to gain control of his abilities. He needed a crash course from someone other than Lauren or Grai. Besides, he wasn’t too sure that Lauren even wanted him.
He turned to Simya and Crator as he kept pace with them.
“I need help understanding what I am. I read all the stuff you tell the kids, but I need a little more than that. Can you guys answer some questions for me?” he asked quietly, hoping no one else would hear.
Simya looked to Crator and shrugged.
“Yeah, if we can answer we will. We got nothing to hide,” Simya agreed, wondering what the kid would want to know that he hadn’t already learned from Lauren or one of the others.
Mikey took a deep breath.
“How do I turn the super powers on and off?” he asked.
Mikey blushed a deep red when he heard the laughter filtering back to him from those further up. The two Valendrans just grinned at him.
“Man, we had a hard time figuring that out when we first bonded with our beasts too. That’s why everyone is laughing; we all had the same question at one point or another,” Crator explained.
Mikey began to feel better the longer he spoke to the two aliens.
Chapter Nine
They’d been moving for several hours, the heat and humidity wearing on everyone and their nerves. It didn’t help that they’d seen the military personnel rappelling from the helicopters an hour earlier, and they knew they were back to being hunted.
Mikey had stayed behind with Simya and Crator, who helped him fine tune his abilit
y to speak on the Shengari’. It made him feel a lot better to not hear the laughter of the others over his many questions.
He’d learned a lot. Mostly that if he wanted any control over his unique abilities, he’d have to bond with the parasite in his head to make that happen. He wasn’t the least bit happy to hear it since he, and the creature hadn’t spoken since it warned him that the ship was going to detonate.
Obviously the creature didn’t hate him enough to want them both dead, but it didn’t bode well for Mikey making amends with the thing. Especially when Simya and Crator told him that the creatures have thoughts and feelings, and that Mikey’s repeated rejection had probably offended it.
Mikey sighed heavily as he caught a glimpse of Lauren’s blond hair through the jungle ahead.
I think I’ve managed to offend everyone at this point, he thought. Damn, if she is my mate then I can understand why she wouldn’t have brought it up.
She was beautiful, smart, and had been so kind to him. And he’d acted like a petulant ass. Not only to her, but also with everyone else—including the thing in his head. Mikey shook his head at his own thoughts.
Not gonna make friends by continuing to offend the people I’m trying to make friends with, he thought.
“Crea . . . uh, beast. I’m sorry for offending you and being such an ass. I know you don’t like me too much right now, and I don’t much like myself either, but I hope you can learn to forgive me,” he said in his head, hoping to begin making amends.
Silence hung in his mind for so long he didn’t think the beast was going to respond, which is why he jumped when he heard the voice in his head.
“I will believe you mean that only when you allow the bond between us. Until then, it’s more bullshit coming out of your mouth,” the beast responded.
Mikey sighed again. The beast was asking the one thing that he was still having a problem with. Although Simya and Crator talked glowingly of having a bond with their beast and how easy things were for them after the bond, Mikey was still hesitant to allow it.