The warm sensation in her abdomen intensified, spreading through her legs, her arms, all the way up into her chest. Tentatively she opened one eye. Was he communicating with her?
A stillness resounded in the center of her being, bringing peace with it. Suddenly she knew then that he wouldn't hurt her—she was certain. He couldn't possibly hurt her, not him. Not ever.
Then, before her very eyes, his form began to change, drawing inward as it shimmered into the slowly solidifying shape of a man. When his transformation finished, before her huddled a beautiful, black-haired male, staring back at her with dark eyes, wide-set and soulful, accentuated by high cheekbones.
Each gaped at the other for what seemed endless moments, Kelsey fearing even to blink. Her stranger wore all black—some kind of uniform—with a thick bulletproof vest. He was dressed like a soldier, and he was obviously making calculations as he searched her face: Could she be trusted? Should he reveal more of himself? As he studied her, though, the wariness in his expression vanished, replaced instead by a flicker of deep recognition. She shivered, and not just because she felt that this stranger knew her—but rather because she had the sense that he'd always known her.
But then his labored breathing grew more extreme, his eyes rolling back briefly into his head. Blood seeped from a huge gash across his brow. Lifting a hand, he touched the wound, then stared down at sticky red blood on his fingertips.
"I don't believe it," he half-whispered, shaking his head. He seemed stunned, confused, but also very aware of his predicament.
"You don't believe what?" she cried, her eyes growing wide with a mixture of confusion and fear. Her words seemed to weaken him, and he crouched unsteadily.
"Kelsey." He gasped hoarsely. "I won't . . . hurt you."
"No, see, how do you know my name?" she demanded, struggling to breathe as she rose to her feet. At least she could gain the physical advantage that way. "There's no way you can know my name."
The dark eyes opened, lifting to meet her own, and she saw kindness there. Unsurpassed strength. "You are Kelsey Wells," he answered, reaching a hand to his shoulder. That was when she saw the deep wound there—his left arm, gashed nearly to the bone, dangled useless at his side.
"What happened to you?" Despite her self-protective instincts, she stepped closer. "You're really hurt. Badly."
Her assessment seemed to steal some of his life force, and he almost collapsed, but he caught his hand on the ground between them. "Too weak," he whispered after a moment. "Too weak. Can't hold form." Then suddenly the man vanished, replaced again by the bright wall of energy. Only this time the glow seemed to have faded somewhat. Was he dying?
"Please." Desperate to understand him, she drew closer to the man. "Tell me who you are. What you are. I want to help."
Not safe. The words sounded within her mind. Glancing around them, she shivered.
"No, no," she insisted, lifting a hand to shield her eyes against his brightness. "You are safe with me."
Was he afraid of her? He didn't seem afraid, but as she opened her hands, he withdrew sharply. No! she heard him say, clear as a thunderclap within her mind. No, not touch!
"Okay," she agreed, taking a tentative step closer, until she stood almost at the water's frigid edge. "Okay, I won't touch you."
Never touch.
Still, she did want to touch him—burned to do it, as irrational as that thought was. She ached for more of his heat, for more of the fire he had unleashed deep inside of her body, and it seemed that touching him was the only way.
As if reading her thoughts, he again warned, Never touch me. Yet he cautiously edged closer.
A strange wave of defiance overcame her. "Why not?" She tilted her face toward his brightness, forcing her eyes open.
Because…could hurt you.
"No," she answered on instinct. "I don't believe you would ever hurt me."
In reply, he released a panting sound, his energy visibly dimming in reaction.
Heart pounding, Kelsey took a step closer, ignoring his warnings. "Who's after you?" She searched across the waters. "Please. Maybe I can help."
Silence, gasps, desperate breathing. Then, Yes.
That was the last thing she heard before she felt him enter her. Felt him, like a fanning breeze across her skin, unobtrusive, tender, apologetic.
Nothing in her twenty-eight years had come close to the sensations she experienced instantly. She sensed him moving within her, felt her chest tighten, her whole body trembling. Like burning fingers, he caressed all the way into her very core. "Amazing," she whispered, wondering how he maintained a distance of at least four feet yet seemed somehow to enter her body simultaneously. But then he was speaking inside her mind, so why should this surprise her?
Touching her abdomen, she felt his fire build there, and she cried out in response, sliding to the ground. "Please," she moaned, lying back on the earth, feeling him everywhere. God, he'd set her on fire, teasing her toward an unseen edge. Like some erotic torturer, he kept setting her ablaze, even as he demanded her silence.
Danger here, he cautioned hoarsely; then all the heat and intensity of his touch flamed cold. Done. As quickly as he'd begun doing something she might dream about until the end of her days, he had withdrawn himself from inside of her.
Staggering to her feet, she reached toward him, but he spun from her, diminishing to the smallest of radiant lights. From above she heard a quiet whirring sound, and as her gaze lifted, she glimpsed a large cloaked craft almost visible against the dark night sky. It came so stealthily, so imperceptibly, she would never have spotted the thing if not for the dull humming sound that accompanied it.
And then, just like that, he soared out of sight, swallowed into the belly of the craft. The ship lifted, leaving her on the shore, and she raised her arms, still trying to reach him. He'd been inside of her, touched a yearning place where no other man had ever been—yet he'd never once allowed her to touch him in return.
"Please, sir!" came a shout.
"Out of the way!" thundered another, a voice Jared recognized as one of the medics'. A group of them knotted around where he'd collapsed on the transport floor, carefully maintaining a safe perimeter apart from him. His energy ebbed low and cool, a fact that had to be obvious to every one of the soldiers on the cruiser.
Scott Dillon's worried face appeared in his line of sight. "Jared, what happened?" his best friend demanded, kneeling beside him.
But he didn't even possess the strength to reply. Refarian words flew about the deck, panicked cries for their fallen leader, but he hardly heard them, the pain had become so overpowering.
Yet in his delirium he remembered the girl. A human girl, maybe a woman, though younger than he. How could she not have been frightened? She had no idea who or what he was, but had opened herself completely. Uncharacteristic for a human, he thought, but not uncharacteristic for her. He absolutely knew it to be an essential part of her nature—but how? His thoughts were too confused by his injuries. Focusing his energy inward, he fought to shift back into material form.
"No, Jared," Scott urged. "Stay like you are. You're too weak to shift right now."
"Sir, we'll work on you this way," one of the medics assured him, but Jared was no fool—he knew that his natural form was all but impossible to treat. The sooner he could shift, the sooner they would be able to save him.
"Have to," he murmured weakly. "Have to change."
"If you change," Scott explained in a fierce voice, "it might kill you, Jared. Don't. Let them work on you first."
Even after so many battles and firelights, their leader's safety was sacred to these soldiers, and a hush fell over every last one of them. Finally, Jared gave his assent, still thinking of the human on the earth below them. She'd offered to help, and he'd accepted—but in doing so, he'd seen things inside of her that even she had no idea were there. Things he doubted he'd forget anytime soon.
On the periphery of his mind, Jared sensed the vanishing darkness belo
w—and sensed her there, innocent arms still outstretched. Gods, he marveled, feeling consciousness ebb, the human wanted to touch me. More than life itself, it was what she'd wanted, and she'd hardly been afraid, even though she had many reasons to be. That kind of bravery was rare in any species.
And he'd wanted to touch her back; even injured and close to dying, he'd been more than aware of that fact. So alien, so incompatible with him in every possible way, but he'd wanted every touch that she offered him.
"Next time you do that," Scott swore, pacing the length of Jared's bedroom, "I'm out of here. Or I'll kill you myself, and take the Antousians' bounty as a bonus."
"Those weren't Antousians," Jared said, closing his eyes. The cool pillow against his cheek was a welcome relief both from the excruciating physical pain and from his best friend's tirade.
"Then who the hell were they?"
"Our buddies from over at Warren."
Scott paused at the foot of Jared's bed, surprised. "USAF?"
Jared rubbed a weary hand across his burning eyes. "They caught me flying out of Mirror Lake."
"They don't know about that site," Scott argued. "Never have."
"Apparently"—Jared sighed, thinking of the hotshot pilots who had missile-locked him last night—"they do now."
Neither spoke for several moments as the serious implications of last night's events became clear. To call Mirror Lake crucial to their revolution was an understatement so drastic it would have sounded absurd. They had hid the best of their technology there for at least two centuries. Protecting the mitres ranked above life itself for every last one of them fighting in this war.
At the foot of the bed Scott paced, hands behind his back, deep in thought. Finally he stopped and faced Jared with a resolute expression. "And so they know," he said in a hushed voice. "We deal with it."
Jared nodded, blistering pain shooting through his shoulder. Scott noticed him flinching as he sat up in bed. "You had no business going out on that mission, sir."
Jared hesitated, not wanting to offend his second in command. "There was no one else I'd have given the job to."
Scott's face flushed hot. "Oh, really now?"
"I couldn't risk your life," Jared continued, telling the truth. "I was the one."
Scott's tense voice softened. "And if you'd died out there last night?"
"You're more than capable of leading, Scott," Jared answered, feeling older than he had in a long time. The constant warfare and uncertainty of his warrior's life had begun to take their toll lately—and on his weathered body. At thirty years old, Jared yearned for rest, for a peace he'd not been born into. By his tenth birthday he'd been a reluctant leader, and by his eighteenth, a fearsome warrior. Lately, though, all the years of fighting had begun to wear him down.
"Last night was"—Jared hesitated, thinking of how easily the air force jets had overtaken him—"a mistake. It won't happen again." He'd been growing careless lately, and even if Scott wouldn't say as much, he knew it was true.
Pulling a chair up beside the bed, Scott straddled it. "Tell me what went down out there."
Pressing his eyes shut, Jared willed the blinding headache to subside. Images of being shot down—his craft rolling and pitching beneath him, the black earth rising quickly—assaulted him. He had shifted then and there, before his physical form grew too traumatized, but not before a jagged piece of the craft's torn hull had slammed him hard in the face. Not before the same piece had managed to tear through his shoulder. And those wounds had repercussions on his most basic molecular level, no matter what form he assumed. The medics had healed him, but he would always bear the hidden scars, just as he did all the others he'd accrued over the years of warfare.
"There was a woman," he answered, ignoring Scott's original question. "Her name is Kelsey Wells. She lives in Laramie. She's a student there. I want more information."
Scott studied him as he might an Antousian wellabung: one part interest, one part amusement, many parts disgust. But he would never challenge his leader. "Okay," he answered simply.
"She's critical to us now," Jared continued, even though he knew it was only partially true. They needed her, yes, but Jared's personal interests ran deep as well. Far too human for you, far too unaware of this war, his inner voice cautioned, even as another part of himself—the lonely warrior—ached for what he had felt when they formed their connection last night. Ached for more of what he'd glimpsed inside of her: her strength, her beauty, her tenaciousness.
Scott drew his chair closer beside the bed. "Why?"
"I had to do it," Jared confessed, staring at the pine ceiling overhead. "I had no other choice."
"I'm not getting this, Jared."
"I bonded with her," he admitted softly, closing his eyes. "There on the shore last night."
"You what?" his captain roared, practically knocking his chair over as he leaped leapt to his feet. "I'm praying I didn't hear that right the first time."
"I had no choice," Jared repeated, fighting the headache that swelled behind his eyes.
"No choice but to form a bond with an alien, sir?" Scott bellowed. "In a war zone?"
"I had dismantled the codes from the mitres," he explained, and Scott's eyes widened, bright as lasers, the seriousness of the situation coming clear. They'd been working on the codes for at least two years. "They nearly captured me," Jared continued. "It's never been so close. The humans had me, but I think they knew the woman was there. I know they'll be back, looking for me. They might even question her."
"So she has them now?" Scott asked in a cautious voice. "The codes?"
"All of them, yes." Jared felt terrible guilt well within him. What a thing he'd done to her, and he'd never even asked her permission. Well, not in any way she could have understood, at least. There'd been a moment, one when he should have turned away, but she'd been so…open. So eager.
"Then damn straight we need to locate her," Scott thundered. "Because I'm getting that data back."
Jared shot out a hand, clasping Scott by the forearm with swift force. "No," he said in a still voice. "You will not. It stays inside the woman for now."
Scott's dark eyes narrowed, gleaming with an almost supernatural energy. "Why?"
"Because it's safer that way." Jared sank into the pillows. "And so is she."
"She?" Scott sniffed the air in disdain. "You're worried for the human's safety?"
"Yes because that human might have saved my life last night," Jared answered. "And right now, she's the only one protecting the mitres. For that, I owe her everything. We all do."
Chapter Three
Kelsey slid several geological samples across Dr. Carrington's desk. "They're from Mirror Lake. I need to know if there's anything unusual about them."
Carrington's warm eyes fixed on her. She was his star student in the graduate geology program, and he almost always took her seriously, but today she glimpsed doubt in his weathered face. "Kelsey, I'm not saying I don't believe you—" he began, but she cut him off.
"I did see something there."
"Even if you did," he continued, "what makes you think you'll find sedimentary proof?"
She thought of trying to explain her hunch, as outlandish as it might seem, but decided against it. "Could we just send this most recent batch in for testing?" she tried again, her voice filled with undisguised frustration. "Then maybe you'll come out there with me."
He nodded. "What if you do find something, Kelsey?" he asked. "What then?"
Recalling the stranger by the lake—the way he'd affected her—she could only shake her head. "I'm not sure what I'll do," she said, pausing in his doorway. "But I have to know who he is"
"He?" Dr. Carrington asked in surprise, but she was already leaving, eager to get away from her mentor before he asked any more questions she didn't want to answer. Pretending she hadn't heard him, she sidestepped another graduate student who was busy texting someone. As she angled out of the way, she nearly bumped into a tall man with black eyes, wh
o for a moment gave her a kind of pause. The skin on her neck prickled, and she turned back for another glance at the stranger, but he was gone—no one stood where he'd been at all. With a shiver, she walked onward down the polished floors, the echo of her footsteps the only sound behind her.
"She's been taking rock and soil samples." Scott watched Jared across the meeting table where the mitres drawings were spread. "Turned them in to one of her professors at the university."
Jared lifted his eyes, and Scott answered his unspoken question. "She's a geology student. Graduate level." He nodded, turning his attention back to the schematics. They'd paid for these blueprints with blood many times over, smuggling them away from their enemies. All in hopes of gaining access to their own hidden technology—technology left here on Earth some two hundred years ago, at a time when many of the Antousians had still been their allies.
Jared studied the various chambers on the pages, the mapped catacombs, but his mind strayed again. Back to the human. All his life he'd been set apart; few spoke to him without filtering every word, which meant that few truly touched his soul. Yet she'd opened to him—and easily. Oh, far too innocent for this conflict, he chided himself, thinking of what a gift such innocence would be. And far too alien.
Should he ever form a match, there would be expectations. And, by the gods, he knew exactly what they were, as surely as he saw his dear cousin Thea eyeing him from across the meeting room. She tucked an errant blonde curl behind an ear, looking—just for a moment—more like a female and less like a soldier. Just a moment, but it was enough that he could infer her thoughts at the moment. He frowned back at her sharply, and repressed the urge to growl his dismay aloud. She quickly gazed away, red blotches coloring her fair cheeks, and he felt horribly cruel. She was a good woman, and he did love her. Just not in the way the council hoped and urged at every given opportunity. Theirs was a bond of bloodline and experience—but never could it be the love shared by bondmates.
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