by Berinn Rae
Collision
Part 1 of the Colliding Worlds Trilogy
Berinn Rae
Avon, Massachusetts
This edition published by Crimson Romance
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, Ohio 45242
www.crimsonromance.com
Copyright © 2012 by Berinn Rae ISBN 10: 1-4405-5240-1
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-5240-3
eISBN 10: 1-4405-5239-8
eISBN 13: 978-1-44055239-7
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover art © 123rf.com
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Bonus Material
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also Available
Chapter One
Ouachita Forest, Arkansas, Present Day
It wasn’t the first time a good idea had come back to bite Sienna Wolfe in the ass, but it could be the last. After making a quick sign of the cross, she clicked on the flashlight and stepped into the wingless aircraft.
The light sliced through the smoky blackness and fell upon a figure slumped over the instrument panel. The pilot’s dark flight suit and mask surrendered no glimpse of skin, making it impossible to tell if he was badly injured. Or worse.
Shaky with cold and adrenaline, she stepped closer and held out her palm an inch from his covered face. Her skin tickled under the hint of warmth from shallow breaths through the silk-thin fabric with built-in goggles. The breath she’d been holding rushed from her lungs in a frosty puff of relief.
Still alive.
A persistent beep echoed through the cylindrical vessel, grating on her already raw nerves. Inching back to full height, Sienna stopped. What now? It wasn’t every day a plane crashed in her back yard. And, even though she had a pilot’s license and had sat through plenty of training videos during her consulting stints with the military, she was nowhere near ready to lead a rescue mission. She was a desk jockey, making sure the military had response plans for the tiniest probability that there was life beyond Earth.
Then it hit her. She had put together plans for exactly this kind of situation before. All she had to do was imagine this guy was an ET, which, with the way he was dressed and the technology of the ship, wasn’t exactly hard. She ran through a mental checklist and frowned. She had no protective gear, no supplies, and no support. “But I can do this,” she muttered, rubbing her hands together.
While checking the pilot for injuries, Sienna couldn’t help but notice how ripped he was. He had to be military to be in this good of shape, which made sense with how unusual the plane was. So super-secret, the ship didn’t even have an N-number. Adding those facts to a middle-of-the-night low-level flight meant the military was likely testing some new addition to their fleet. Whichever branch designed this thing had access to some seriously high-tech gear. She’d thought she had worked with the most covert units on her job.
She was wrong.
A small sound under the louder beeping distracted her. Shining the beam toward the rhythmic plip-plop, her light fell on rivulets flowing down the wall toward a crumpled mass of sparking instrument panel. Bending down on one knee, she dipped a finger in the liquid and smelled the clear, almost gel-like substance. The smell was foreign, like an exotic nighttime plant. But the slightest underlying hint of kerosene was unmistakable. Some sort of jet fuel.
It was then the sound clicked something in her brain. The beeps were speeding up, what used to be a second pause between each was now half that. In one of the Star Trek movies, the sound had been a self-destruct sequence. Couldn’t be. But what else could the sound mean?
“Oh, hell.” The plane — or whatever the black egg-shaped ship was — was going to blow. “Shit, shit, shit.” In a rush, Sienna fidgeted with the seamless seatbelts that had no visible latches. She heard a snap, and in a blur the belts retracted into the floor. The pilot crumpled forward, and she slid her hands under his arms to keep his head from banging on the floor.
At the risk of hurting him more, she pulled the unconscious man — who was a lot bigger than her average-in-every-way, five-foot-seven frame was built to handle — toward the door. His rubber-soled boots dragged across the floor, the friction making her job even harder. Her hands slipped, and the pilot fell with a thud.
She winced. “Good thing you’re unconscious, buddy. Although a better thing would be you walking your own ass out of here.” She bent over to get a hold of him again, but stopped cold when movement caught her eye. The trail of fuel had now become a river. The ship may not last until those beeps ran together.
Adrenaline lit her veins on fire. Latching her arms around his stomach in a Heimlich-style maneuver, she put everything she had into getting them out of there. With every ounce of strength and a small miracle, she hefted the brute through the doorway and outside the ship. But they were no way out of danger yet.
Her arms burned. Her legs shook. Her back felt like it could give out at any moment. She gasped for air but refused to let go. The whole event felt like one of those news stories: the one where the mother miraculously lifted a car to save her child after a crash. Maybe this guy wasn’t an automobile, but right now he felt easily as heavy as one.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Startled, she dropped the pilot and snapped around to find a man nearly hidden by the shadows. Where had he come from? Maybe he’d also seen the crash. Didn’t matter. His timing was perfect. She let out a breath. “Thank God you’re here. I need your help. He’s hurt bad. We’ve got to get clear. This ship could blow any second.”
No response.
Sienna narrowed her eyes to make out the man’s form in the darkness. He was large, easily as big as the pilot, so moving the unconscious man would be a breeze. Yet he just stood there. She motioned to him. “What are you waiting for? Help me. Please.”
As he stepped forward, she reached into her pocket for her cell phone. Coverage was spotty in the woods, but her satellite phone worked better than most. She punched in 9-1 —
The newcomer swiped the phone from her hand.
“Hey!” Any more complaints were swallowed when she looked up and finally saw the man who had emerged from the shadows and now stood in front of her. Tall as a professional wrestler and nearly as broad, he wore a strange soldier-meets-gladiator outfit. His silver hair glistened in the moonlight, reminding her of what a fey would look like if one existed. He held her phone in one hand and what she assumed to be a gun in the other, and he didn’t look one bit pleased. But t
hat wasn’t the scariest part. It was the flesh-like, tattoo-covered wings that spanned behind him.
It wasn’t Halloween.
If this guy was trying to be scary, it was working. She held up her hands to show she was unarmed. “Listen. I don’t know what game you’re playing, but this is serious. We’ve got to get away from this crash site.”
“This is serious,” the strange man agreed. “You’ve seen things you should never have seen.”
Oh, shit was the first thought that came to mind.
He crushed the phone. With one hand. Before she could react, he dropped the pieces and grabbed her wrist. “Come with me.”
Sienna clawed against the iron grip, but the man dragged her toward the darkness, her struggles not hampering his stride in the least. “Let go!”
Grabbing a tree not much larger than a sapling, she held on tight. The small branches cut at her skin as she was pulled away. She went tumbling toward the man at the same time a blast of heat shot past her. The grip on her wrist loosened. She propelled backward and fell to the ground, autumn leaves breaking her fall. Rolling onto her knees, Sienna looked up to see her assailant lying on the ground with smoke rising from a gaping chest wound. She jerked her attention back to the pilot, who was now conscious and shakily holding a weapon that looked eerily similar to the one the newcomer had held moments earlier.
Keeping her eyes on the pilot — and the gun — she gingerly leaned over the newcomer to check for a pulse. Not that she needed to. A hole had been burned straight through his chest. The guy never had a chance. No regular bullet could have done that.
Sienna’s finger brushed a wing as she leaned back on her heels. Running a hand over the flesh-like material, she leaned down to examine it more closely. This was quality work. The material covering the wing looked — and felt — like skin. It even carried warmth as though blood had flowed through it as well.
Implants? Maybe. She’d seen some interesting experiments in the military. And an Icarus experiment didn’t seem too far out. One thing was sure — she’d tumbled into a tar pit of dangerous secrets. Coming to her feet, she focused on breathing, all the while thinking of ways to get out of this cluster fuck. Her eyes must’ve been the size of saucers as she turned to face the pilot who had managed to pull himself up on an elbow.
“He’s dead,” Sienna said flatly, feeling numb to the onslaught of emotions.
The face mask blocked any expression.
She took a step closer, careful not to make any sudden moves. “We have to get out of here.” She motioned cautiously toward the wreckage. “The ship …”
Instead of a reply, he aimed the gun upward, directly at her heart.
Sienna didn’t think. Didn’t even realize she’d lunged forward, swung out, and kicked the pilot in the head. The weapon flew from his hand. A whimper escaped her lips as she lunged for the gun nearly buried by leaves. Standing above the pilot, she gripped the weapon with both hands and aimed at his chest. Waited a moment. Nudged him with the muzzle. Waited another moment. Nudged him again.
In the distance, she could still hear the beeps, only now they were closer together.
Too close.
Leave him.
That was the logical thing to do. After all, the guy was going to shoot her. And he’d just killed a man, although he could’ve been trying to save her at the time. But leaving a poor bastard to bleed out in an Arkansas forest went against everything Sienna stood for.
Tucking the weapon into the back of her cargos, she somehow managed to hoist the pilot onto the back of the ATV she’d rode in on, his legs left dangling over the sides of the rack. She leapt onto the seat in front of him and gunned the throttle. The engine roared, tires kicking up dirt and pine needles. Tearing around trees and slashing through gullies, she ignored small branches whipping at her face. After driving several hundred feet to what she estimated to be a safe distance, hope stirred in her heart.
Made it.
A massive boom rocked the ground, and a blast of air shot out of nowhere. A shockwave nearly sent her tumbling from the ATV. Then, as if she was no more than a sliver of metal drawn to a magnet, heat sucked her back toward the explosion. There was no air to breathe, let alone scream. She hunkered down over the handlebars with a death-grip and pushed the throttle in all the way, holding on for dear life. The ATV chewed its way forward inch by inch through the ravenous suction.
Then, as suddenly as it came, the wind vanished and the woods hushed, like someone had hit the mute button. Slowing the ATV, she looked over her shoulder and then slammed the brakes. She hopped off and stood there, staring blankly at the crash site. She took off at a jog, then a sprint, back toward the site before coming to a stop. It was what she didn’t see that frightened her. No fire. No debris. No sign of wreckage. No body. It was as if nothing had been there, like the ship and the shredded trees around it had imploded into nothingness.
“Impossible.”
Aside from the eerie absence of nighttime forest noises, everything appeared normal. Nothing to even hint that a ship had crashed there minutes earlier.
Sienna didn’t know how long she stood there in open-mouthed shock. Was this all just a crazy nightmare? One quick glance back at her passenger proved that couldn’t be the case. Spinning on her heel, she headed back to the ATV, unhooked bungees from the front rack, and tied down the pilot. It wouldn’t hold him long, but it would buy enough time for her to reach the gun in case he awoke.
Her heart felt like it pumped lead, making it hard to catch her breath. Without her phone, her only option was to head back to her place, stabilize the guy, and hope he didn’t die before help arrived. Shaking off a shiver, she climbed back on the ATV and drove the ten interminable minutes through the woods, clutching the handlebars the entire time and glancing back every few seconds at her unconscious passenger and the dark, empty woods.
When she finally pulled up to the front steps of her cabin, adrenaline still surged through her veins. She knew the feeling all too well. She’d been in the middle of a half dozen civil conflicts in as many Third World countries. But she’d never, ever looked down the barrel of a gun before. It was a feeling she hoped to never experience again.
Willing herself into action with a mental punch, with a grunt, she dragged the pilot off the ATV and up the stone steps, the smooth material of his flight suit making her job all the harder. Seconds felt like minutes as she hauled the dead weight into her home. By the time she reached her bedroom, her muscles shook with fatigue. Sweat ran down her temple and tickled her cheek.
Dropping him onto the bed as gently as she could a two-hundred-pound gorilla, Sienna collapsed onto the mattress next to him, one hand reaching for the gun. She swept back hair that had become plastered to her face.
Her mind raced.
In a flurry, she jerked open the nightstand drawer and pulled out her Glock. Scanning the room, she finally settled on hiding the pilot’s gun in her closet. With shit hitting the proverbial fan, she needed a weapon she knew how to use.
A flicker of movement caught her eye. Glancing toward the man, she saw a finger twitch. Sucking in a breath, she yanked out two old flannel shirts hanging in the closet, gave the fabric a quick tug, and leapt back to the bed. She set the Glock down long enough to grab one gloved wrist at a time, pulling each toward the headboard, and tying it with a shirt.
Once finished, her stomach churned as she checked, double-checked, and triple-checked the restraints. Confident the old flannels would hold, she grabbed the gun, headed to the bathroom and grabbed anything that could be used as a medical supply, barely taking her eyes off the man on the bed. Her legs didn’t want to move, but she willed them forward, edging closer and closer until she bumped against the bed and dropped the supplies into a pile on the nightstand.
She was no medic, but the first rule in any accident was to stabilize the patient. Then she’d figure out how to get help here. Hopefully before he woke up. Or died.
With a humorless sigh, she turned her a
ttention back to her patient. His breathing was steady, although not strong by any means. He likely had internal injuries. She felt around his neck for the edge of his mask. Ever so carefully, she rolled it up, and then yanked it off.
That’s when she saw it.
His skin looked like he’d taken a shower in liquid gold. Dark tribal-style tattoos swirled over shimmery skin, but there didn’t seem to be a specific design to the way they curved around his neck and onto his face — a face that was masculine and perfect; well, except for a nasty bruise forming around an even nastier swollen eye that was no doubt caused by her boot introducing itself to his face. She brushed his bruised cheek with the back of her fingers, his skin cool to the touch.
Holy. Shit. First the guy with wings. Now this.
Tattoos were one thing, but she’d never heard of skin dye before, not like this. Even so, this glistening King Midas gold was too pure to be some kind of dye. Even if there were, there seemed no military reason for the anti-stealth glimmer that covered his skin.
No way was this guy real. Despite a successful career in selling the possibility of it, she never really believed in it. There was no such thing as an … an … she could barely even think the word.
Alien.
Chapter Two
Sienna snapped around, expecting to see a cameraman pop out and yell “surprise!” But no one did, which meant she was alone with a man who was like no man she’d seen before. She had assumed military, but the two men could also be members of some rival cultish gangs or guns-for-hire. Regardless, she was in way over her head.
And she’d seen plenty of crazy in her life. For her first eighteen years, she’d followed her parents across the globe with their humanitarian efforts. After a relatively normal college career, she spent the next ten-plus years with the military’s elite 51st Division, which was a close tie to the shit she’d seen with her parents. But this guy … and the other guy …
A shiver ran across her skin as fear seeped through her. If only she had her phone. To call for help, to call her mother, hell, to even call her late husband’s pal. Her mother — who’d always gone by Kat because she thought Mom made her sound old — could be stuck in the middle of a bloody coup, and she’d simply pin up her hair and get to work with a transceiver in one hand and a medical kit in the other. She always knew what to do.