COWBOY ROMANCE: Justin (Western Contemporary Alpha Male Bride Romance) (The Steele Brothers Book 1)

by Amanda Boone

  “What stupid, human doctors.” Coel turned away from her, huffing out breath after breath as he paced back and forth.

  A wave of guilt washed over Sarah as she watched this. A small branch came crashing down right beside her, having been severed from the tree. “I’m sorry, Coel. I really am.”

  He turned his sight on her, eyes wide with wonder. He shook his head vigorously as he approached her. “No. No. No. This isn’t your fault.” He placed a hand on either one of her shoulders. “This isn’t your concern. You have done nothing wrong.”

  Sarah knew she should have looked away, taken herself out of the influence of his gaze, but she just couldn’t manage it. “I burdened you with this.”

  “How would you leave me without telling me?” Wrinkles of anger covered his face, the creases deep as canyons.

  “How can you be so angry?”

  “Because you’re my only friend here.”

  Sarah wanted to cry from happiness or sorrow, she couldn’t decide which. “Why did I have to meet you now?”

  But when she looked back up at him, he seemed removed, his eyes staring off into the distance. “How long?”

  Sarah bit her lip. She wanted to kiss him, as crazy as it sounded. She wanted to forget all about her obligations and all about staying away from him and just wanted to let loose with him. To forget with him. “Two months maybe? It’s hard to tell. For some reason, it’s always been hard to tell with me and doctors.”

  “Of course not. Doctors can’t understand your kind.”

  Sarah furrowed her brow. He had struck a chord, ignited a long since dormant part of her mind, the part of her that questioned her own identity. How could he do that when he barely knew her? “What do you mean: ‘your kind’?” She asked, training her eyes right at him.

  His eyes flashed wide for a short second, as if he hadn’t expected her to question his words. Then his face fell, as if with some kind of understanding.

  “Coel?”

  It was clear that he didn’t want to explain himself. He just pressed his hand into her cheek, a desperate grip.

  “What did you mean by that?”

  As if to shut her up, or satisfy some urge, he pressed his lips against hers. Sarah melted.

  Her whole body lost its form, sliding into his. He pressed her against the trunk of the tree as she received him, her hands on the back of his neck, her breast jammed against his chest. The grass grew a little thicker where she stood.

  He drew away from her, far too soon, then looked down at her. “I’m sorry.”

  But Sarah had grown tired of apologies and being careful and being afraid and being tired, so she reached up for him and she kissed him. This time, his arms snaked around her waist as his tongue slipped inside her lips.

  Her chest heaved, a sigh slipping out of her. It had been months, almost a year, since she had had a chance to be intimate with anyone. Yet, here this man stood, gorgeous as ever, encasing her with his perfect body. His lips slipped down to her neck. Her eyes rolled back as she placed her hands on his shoulder.

  “What is all of this?” She whispered.

  He sucked on her skin, the suction of his lips tearing at her flesh. The burn made her yearn from him. It no longer felt like an option. He lifted his head up just as Sarah took it in both of her hands. “I can’t let you go.”

  A single, dry sob, heaved from the Sarah’s gut, found its way out of her mouth. “You don’t have to.”

  Then he kissed her again.

  She pulled at his jacket, peeling it off of him and letting it pool around his feet.

  He slammed her against the bark of a tree. Another branch fell. It crumpled into ash as soon as it hit the ground. “I can’t let you go.” He croaked, taking off her jacket and throwing it out of the way.

  Sarah felt exposed in all of the best ways. The downpour soaked her blouse almost immediately, her nipples poking out through the green cloth. He grabbed her breast, his finger flicking at her nipples.

  She bit her lip, her hands clutching the neck of his sweater, ripping it off of him. She traced the side of his neck with her tongue, taking his ear into her mouth.

  She felt the tremble travel up his body before he slammed her against the wood yet again.

  Her head spun. “I can’t let you go.”

  His kisses covered her face and neck. He knelt in front of her, the mud and soggy ash pooling around him. The stuff rained from the sky, along with water, the fog and the steam covering everything.

  He lifted her shirt from over her head and her breasts bobbed out, her wet bra offering little to no support. He pressed his lips against her belly, his tongue trialing a path. Sarah ran her fingers through his thick hair as he ripped her pants off, taking her underwear with it. She spread her legs just as he shoved his face in between them. Her whole body shuddered at the sensation.

  Her heart pounded against her chest. Goosebumps covered her skin. Her spine shook with ecstasy. He continued, her leg hitched on his shoulder as he took her into his mouth. Spasm after spasm shot through her as she stared right over his head and into the mist that had surrounded them. She pulled him up and kissed him again, tasting him, tasting herself.

  While their tongues danced together, she reached down and unbuckled his belt, then undid his button, then his zipper. His pants fell of their own accord. She felt his warm, throbbing penis poking out, jabbing her in the belly.

  Sarah grabbed it, jerking him off while he tugged at her soaked hair. He hitched her on his waist, his penis sliding in between her legs. She drove her teeth into his shoulder, reveling in the shudder it caused.

  He lowered the both of them onto the soft grass and mud. No sooner had her back begun to sink into the ground did he enter her. The piercing pleasure shot right through her as he rammed himself into her over and over and over again.

  Her heart thudded irregularly as her blood ran hot, the thin liquid sloshing through her veins. A film of sweat appeared on her forehead. It covered every inch of her body, making her chest slick as it slid up against his over and over again.

  He rammed himself into her, deeper and harder every time.

  Her nails found the skin on his back, digging deep, drawing thick red blood.

  He used his free hand to grab at her face, pushing her down into the mud. Her legs wrapped tightly around him, as tight as she could get it. Her groans matched his grunts as she felt the pressure in between her legs reach a charged climax. She felt it deep in her gut and as far as the tips of her toes.

  He ripped himself out of her almost as soon as it happened.

  And all of the sudden, Sarah couldn’t feel a thing.

  His image grew blurry, mixing as his hands shook and she felt a warm liquid splatter across her chest.

  Her eyes flicker shut just as he began to shake her.

  Chapter Four

  Coel carried her naked body over his shoulder. There was no time for the polite gesture of putting her clothes back on. He needed to get her to his raider so that he could figure out what had just happened to her. His time with her had rapidly begun to wane and he felt like nothing more than a fool if he just stood by while she died. He only hoped no one would see him on his way there.

  He burst through his door and dropped her onto the bed, rushing to his small kitchen and lab without missing a beat. He needed his x-ray scanner and his AED. He came back into the room, part of him hoping she would spontaneously awaken, but he disappointed to find her just as lifeless as ever.

  He let out an anxious huff as he knelt by her side. “Sarah.” He hissed, shaking her.

  But her body just stupidly followed his movements. He pressed his hand against her chest. A faint heartbeat greeted his palm. She would be fine.

  I wonder…

  He rushed back into his lab and came back with a sterilized tool kit. One short moment later, he had lifted her off of the bed. He set up his small scanner, training it on what he needed to see the most.

  There it was: the liver.

&nb
sp; He furrowed his brow. The human doctors had been right about that. The thing decrepit thing hardly still classified as living tissue. He stuck his probe into her, his mind running in circles, but his hands as steady as a machine’s. He needed a sample of her flesh. He would never be able to forgive himself if he didn’t at least try to save her.

  He had managed to remove the sample of liver tissue and take it to his microscope in less than twenty minutes. He gave her an extra sedative to keep her under while he analyzed it. Once his machine spit out the results, everything from red and white blood cell count, pathogen and toxin scan, as well as protein markers, he ran it again.

  His heart fluttered in his chest because he couldn’t believe it. His reservations about her Kaharan blood had been nothing more than his own flimsily crafted excuse to continue to see her. His reservations about her lineage were mere speculation at best. But now he stared at a readout on a machine that revealed her Kaharan bloodline.

  Her blood cells held Kaharan protein and so did parts of her liver, so her body had begun to attack itself. Her liver fought back, initiating its own, unorganized regeneration. The growth spiraled out of control. The pullups on its surface were just as much Kaharan as they were human.

  Coel knew exactly what he had to do. The problem sat right in front of him. The solution: obvious. He would have to kill every human bit of her to let her alien blood do its work. He would have to destroy her to save her.

  Talking to her about it was out of the question. She didn’t have time for him to explain to her the intricacies of her bloodline, didn’t have time to convince her heart and her emotions that her survival depended on this.

  So he fetched his full surgical kit.

  He gave her another dose of sedative, just to keep her under a little more. He couldn’t deny the excitement coursing through his veins as he prepared the materials: Kaharan plasmid harvested from him, the proteins chemically isolated and then amplified. He would inject the mixture right into her liver.

  Coel used the scan to monitor his movements, watching the serum coat her liver. It targeted her fragile, human cells, destroying them while regenerating on its own. Blood flow slowed to a halt, her heart rate dropping even more. But the sight of rapidly forming Kaharan cells invading their human counterparts consumed Coel so much that he hardly noticed. Her extremities faded to a bluish color.

  Coel pushed the scanner away. He needed to keep her heart beating so that he could keep blood filtering through her liver. So, he shot her with adrenalin. He witnessed no immediate change in her appearance. Her skin remained its olive color, her lips their blushed pink. She laid as still and human as she could be. After two hours of induced, rapid dialysis, Coel began to think he had failed.

  ***

  Sarah’s eyes flashed open. She glanced down at the bed she laid in, at the satin sheets and the blank walls. A sigh slipped out of her lips and with it, the word, “Coel.” She understood now. He must have taken her back to his place.

  She gazed around at this temporary arrangement, wondering how he could have possibly managed to set up a camp like this when she could barely manage the tent she had haphazardly erected for herself.

  When she tried to get up, she noticed something strange. Her whole body ached. Her skin felt tight and stretched. Her heart thudded in her chest and yet energy poured out of her. In one subtle movement, she had climbed out of her bed.

  She towered over his room, forced to duck her head to keep herself from hitting the ceiling. Had she grown taller? Everything looked brighter, sharper, as if she looked through the lens of glasses for the first time. She stumbled through the small cabin with jerky, awkward movement until she found what she searched for: a mirror.

  “What the hell?” She whispered as she got a good look at herself.

  She pressed her dark green hands into her dark green face. “Oh my God.”

  None of it made any sense to her.

  Chapter Five

  “Sarah?”

  She turned to find Coel standing in the center of the room with a bowl in his hand. He looked almost apologetic.

  But he wasn’t the man she had spent the better part of a fortnight with. He was the man she had dreamed about with the skin and the eyes and…

  He had turned her into him.

  Her skin crawled. “What did you do to me?”

  He shook his head as if he didn’t understand. “I saved you.”

  The warring urges to slap him and to get as far away from him as possible possessed her. “No, I don’t fucking understand. What is this? What are you?”

  “I’m a Kaharan,” He said, his voice even with caution.

  “What is that?”

  “I’m here to find others like us.”

  Sarah shook her head. “Oh no, no, no, no. I am not like you. You did this to me. You changed me.”

  “I only enhanced what was already there.”

  Sarah glanced back at the mirror, her eyes stinging with tears. What was already there? No. She refused to believe it. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Your human was killing you.”

  “You had no right!”

  “You were going to die!” He yelled.

  Sarah flinched. “And I’m not now? Now that you destroyed me?”

  “I figured you would be stronger this way. I wanted to see if your Kaharan DNA was enough even if you only had half of it. I didn’t know if it was going to work.”

  “Right. So that’s what I am: a little experiment for you.”

  “No. No, you’re more than that.”

  “How long?” She asked, approaching him with arms crossed.

  He shook his head in confusion. “How long what?”

  “How long did you know this about me? Was this whole seduction just so that you could kill me?”

  “I did not kill you. Please do not reduce my actions.”

  “You made me hideous. Change me back!” She yelled, shoving him.

  Coel took a step back to steady himself. “I can’t!”

  Sarah ripped the bowl out of his hand and chucked it at the wall behind him, the shards raining down behind him.

  He grasped her shoulders with both of his hands.

  She shrugged out of his grip, surprised at her strength, her speed. “Why not?”

  “Because this is who you are. You can try to deny it because you’re afraid, but there is no turning back. Your only options were death or this. So get a hold of yourself.”

  Anger turned Sarah’s vision red. She shoved him, watching as he flew across the room. The entire raider shook. “You don’t get to tell me that!” With that, she turned and made her way to the door.

  “Sarah no! You can’t be seen!” Coel lunged after her, grabbing her arm.

  “Oh fuck you!” she screeched as she yanked herself out of his grip, opened the door and ran out into the evening anyway. She ran through the small clearing and into the dense coverage of wood. Dry air filtered through her body as she sprinted, going faster than she ever thought possible.

  But she could feel Coel right on her heels, could hear his breath. It sickened her. She started to harness her strength, deliberately manipulating her environment. One tree came crashing down, then another, then another. It was all calculated at first, but then she lost control.

  As she continued to run, kicking up mud and ignoring Coel’s pleas, things started to fall around her of their own accord. Branches and leaves rained down on the both of them, the ground trembling below their feet. She travelled up and around the mountain, tears covering her face and dry sobs filling the air. She paused on the ledge of a large platform to catch her breath.

  “Sarah.”

  He sounded desperate and out of breath. His voice stirred a sympathy in her that she wanted nothing more than to crush as soon as possible. She raised her arm, her lips pursed as she brought the biggest tree down between them. As the dust settled, she could hardly see him on the other side of the fallen trunk.

  She sat down, catching her
breath, but her relief was short lived.

  The ground began to rumble beneath her, the dangerous purr foreshadowing until, just like that, the dirt split from beneath her. She plummeted down into the dark hole, instinctively reaching up to grab the edge of the trunk, but her hands slipped off almost immediately, snapping a nail off.

  Coel’s surprised scream echoed through the darkness before a deep thump cut him off.

  She slid through the natural tunnel, her skin scratching against the hard, rock surface as the gravity threw her against the walls before spitting her out of the mouth of the tunnel. A shot of sharp pain rushed from her back up her spin as she hit the ground.

  She heaved dry coughs, clouds of dust forming around her lips. No sooner had she managed to sit up did a second rumble catch her attention. Rocks and debris came rushing through the short tunnel, plugging their only way out.

  Chapter Six

  Coel’s eyes flashed open. It took him a short moment to adjust to the darkness. He flexed his jaw, sucking on the cut in his lip. His aching hands found the ground as he managed to push himself up. The stale, moist air told him they only had a limited supply. He wandered away from the plugged tunnel and into the large space before him.

  Stone markers dotted the area with carvings in them. He approached one of them, running his fingers over the groves in the rock. “Unbelievable,” He whispered at the sight of Kaharan writing. After sweeping the area with his gaze one more time, it became obvious. He had fallen right into a tomb.

  He continued on, weaving in and out of the markers, until he saw something glinting in the starved sunlight that streamed through the tunnel. He rushed towards it: a medallion lodged into a marker. The Noble Settler had worn this pendant, but Kahara so despised him that it kicked him out of her planet and exiled him on earth.

  This was his colony.

  But they were all dead.

  “Coel!”

  Sarah’s broken voice reached him easily.

  “I’m all right!” He screamed back, but he went deeper into the tomb.

  “Coel come back! Help us get out of here.”

  But Coel couldn’t answer to her, at least not yet. He was too mesmerized by what he had fallen into. The farther back he went, the more densely packed the stones became. Before he knew it, they weren’t just stones. Dusty jewelry and shoes, Kaharan novels and gadgets covered the ground.