by Stacy Jones
The thought of falling in love with Mira, of becoming her mate, only for her to die was absolutely terrifying.
Unwilling to contemplate that any further, he concentrated on the cell phone and stubbornly put it out of his mind. Surely, if he could persuade her to go to Duras with him, their scientists could develop some solution.
Some time later, an animal thoughtfully screeched to warn the other forest inhabitants that sunrise was imminent. Unfortunately, its timing was off. There were hours left until daylight and all the overeager animal accomplished was to scare the hell out of Mira. Zaek jerked with surprise when she shot upright with a gasp, like someone had just electrocuted her.
She glanced around wildly, but calmed when she spotted him staring at her from across the fire.
“How long was I asleep?” she asked around a yawn, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her palms.
“The sun will not be up for hours yet,” he rumbled, eyeing her hair in wonder, utterly confused as to how it had managed to become so unruly in such a short time.
We will just have to brush it again.
“Have you slept?”
“No.”
“You should. I’ll keep watch,” she offered, already sitting up as if it were decided.
“I am fine. You should sleep more.”
“Nuh uh, I insist. You’re the one doing most of the work here, so we need you to be well rested.”
“Really, I am—”
“What if you fall asleep while flying and we plummet to a bloody, gruesome death because you were stubborn?” At the look of horror that spread over his face she cocked a brow and nodded. “Exactly.”
He grumbled but obediently laid down when she knee-walked around the fire to him. He allowed her to cover him with the blanket, but he didn’t sleep. Instead, he watched her through his lashes while she made a trip to the woods then returned and ate a quick snack before starting to work on the beacon.
Though he could tell she was still tired, she worked diligently… with the exception of the periodic glances she threw his way.
Those looks got progressively longer until she stopped working altogether and stared at him thoughtfully, her lower lip caught between her teeth. The fact that he’d done the exact same thing while she slept wasn’t lost on him, and he wondered if her thoughts were at all similar to his. He hoped they were.
He caught the flush that painted her cheeks when her gaze tracked down his body and halted at what he was positive was not his stomach. He hadn’t been completely sure where her gaze was aimed the last time she stared at his lower half, but he was sure now.
She is definitely looking at my cock.
His heart was thundering in his chest, but he stayed perfectly still, keeping his breaths deep and even, watching her watch him.
When she looked away, and he calmed back down, Zaek eventually succumbed to sleep. He dreamed of her on Duras. They were in his aerie and she was lying in his bed, her pale skin shining in the light of the moons as she beckoned him to her. There was a raccoon perched in the window and a pair of bunnies hopping across the floor, but these things made perfect sense as such things do in dreams.
What stayed with him, even after waking, was the sense of utter happiness the likes of which he’d never felt before.
21
Zaek
Zaek sat up with a groan and stretched his arms and wings out wide.
“So. Aliens snore, huh?” came a laughing voice.
Cracking open one eye, he gave her a look and stated indignantly, “No, we most certainly do not.”
“Do too,” she smirked.
He huffed and rolled his eyes, then wrapped his wings around him like a blanket and peered at her over the top for a long moment, before climbing to his feet and stumbling off to make use of a tree.
When he got back, he found a small pile of candy, a bag of beef jerky, and a water bottle waiting for him next to where he’d been sitting.
“Thank you,” he rumbled in surprise.
“No problem,” she answered, glancing up at him with a smile before bending back over the beacon on the ground in front of her.
“Making any progress?”
“Mmhm. I don’t know how much more I can get done without access to more tools and some electricity to test the device, but… ” she trailed off with a shrug.
“Beacon,” he corrected around a mouthful of candy.
She snorted a laugh and shook her head.
“I also made some progress on the cell phone while you were sleeping. I assumed the goal was to modify it so we can listen in on the security teams’ encrypted channel.”
He nodded in agreement and leaned over to pick it up and inspect her work. Cocking his head in confusion, he glanced at her and found her a little too focused on what she was doing.
“Mira. If I am not mistaken, this does not require any more modification. It should work.”
“You think so?” she asked, but he could hear something in her tone that told him she already knew that.
“I do. As do you. So why have you not tested it?”
Her shoulders slumped and she sighed. She put down the battery-powered soldering iron she was using and looked up at him, admitting quietly, “I’m afraid of what I’ll hear. I know you said they put out a kill order on both of us, but hearing it directly from them… I’ve worked with, or at least around, these people for the last two years. I don’t want to believe they’d think I’m a traitor so easily.”
“Ah. I am sorry, Mira,” he said lowly.
“It’s not your fault, Zaek.” At his look, she amended, “Well, not completely your fault. If they hadn’t tried to shoot through me to get to you, you wouldn’t have kidna— saved me.”
“That is true. Damned dishonorable males,” he muttered under his breath with a scowl.
They both let it go after that, and instead of checking to see if the phone worked, he gave her time and set about making something resembling a meal while she continued tinkering with the beacon.
After they’d eaten, brushed their teeth together in an odd but enjoyable moment of intimacy, and cleaned up, there weren’t anymore excuses left to delay the inevitable. At her nod he turned it on.
It took longer than he anticipated, but once they found the correct frequency and channel for the soldiers they sat side by side and waited tensely for someone to use their radio. It took a few minutes longer for that to happen, during which time Mira fidgeted. When she started gnawing on the blunt claws tipping her little fingers, he reached over and lowered her hand from her mouth, worried she’d hurt herself. He didn’t let go, just in case she tried it again, and she didn’t pull away. Perhaps it was wishful thinking on his part, but he thought she seemed comforted by his touch.
Finally, something came through. Mira tightened her hold on his hand as they listened to the soldiers communicating with each other and with their commander back at the base. They’d found the cabin and knew he and Mira had broken into those stores. They’d lost the trail after, but speculated they were headed north.
Zaek heard Mira’s sharp intake of breath when that calm masculine voice came over the speaker, telling the men to track them down before they made it out of Nevada. He authorized use of satellite and radar to find them and reiterated the kill and recover order.
“That will make flying difficult. We will have to fly very low or walk when necessary. If left with no other choice, we could acquire a vehicle—assuming you know how to drive one—but they will know our exact heading when we are forced to abandon it, unless we take the time to detour and throw them off.”
She nodded but didn’t say anything.
There wasn’t much more to learn from them after that and he hated the look of fear and devastation on her face, so he switched channels until he found the one for the security team still at the lab.
This time they didn’t have to wait for messages to come through.
Her colleagues and the guards were going through her desk and fil
es, commenting on the fact that she’d made more progress with the device than she’d let on. They found some written records of her discoveries, but knew she used a voice recorder to keep the majority of her notes.
There was a significant amount of cursing a few seconds later when they located that recorder in her purse only to find it had been destroyed by a stray bullet. Zaek sighed in relief at hearing that. If they had too much information on the beacon he’d be forced to go back and destroy it.
They came to the conclusion that she’d been in alliance with the extraterrestrial for some time, otherwise she would’ve reported her findings. At that Mira snorted derisively.
“Ha! More like I didn’t want Calvin to take credit for my findings or remove me from the project and steal my notes,” she muttered angrily, but he saw her chin wobble and her bright, blue eyes were shiny with tears. “I just wanted to be taken seriously.”
There was speculation as to what she’d been offered to turn traitor and none of the ideas they threw around were things males should say about a female. Zaek growled low in his throat, appalled and revolted by the derogatory remarks.
A tear overflowed and slid down her cheek before she quickly swiped it away and raised her chin to prevent any more from falling.
Her sadness hurt something deep inside him. He wanted to protect her, to stop her from feeling betrayed by her people and to rip their tongues out for saying such despicable things about her, but he couldn’t and that made him feel helpless.
So, he did what he could and turned the fucking phone off before he yielded to the urge to hurt them in return for hurting her.
When she glanced at him he muttered in excuse, “We should not keep it on for long in case they can track us. We will turn it off and only use it for short periods. With Lar’s blessing, that will keep them unaware of our spying.”
“Good idea.”
Zaek stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm when she started to stand and offered softly, “People make up lies for what they cannot or will not understand.”
She met and held his gaze. He couldn’t quite decipher the expression on her face, but it felt both penetrating and vulnerable. It made his heart pound and his tail twitch.
“Thank you, Zaek. Despite all this, I’m glad I got to meet you.”
With that, she got to her feet, but before she moved away, she took him by surprise and leaned over to place a quick kiss on his cheek.
Reaching up, he touched the spot where her lips had been and watched her wide-eyed as she moved about packing up.
We love her.
What? Do not be absurd. We cannot possibly love her. We met her two days ago!
No no. We are sure of it. We love her.
22
Mira
Mira couldn’t stop thinking about what they’d overheard. The beautiful nighttime scenery passed by unnoticed beneath her as she clung to Zaek, aided by a harness he’d fashioned from torn strips of jeans. It made the flight infinitely more comfortable, but not having the distraction of screaming muscles and the fear of falling to her death meant she had room to think of other things. Like what the hell she was going to do at the end of this impromptu adventure, whenever that end might be.
She hadn’t asked Zaek what his plans were, yet, but she couldn’t imagine they fortuitously included a feasible solution to the predicament in which she found herself. So, how was she going to convince the powers that be that she wasn’t a traitor, not to kill her, and—just in case that wasn’t asking enough—could they also give her her job back?
Maybe I can convince Zaek to let me take the device back when he’s done with it. He seems pretty attached to it, but it couldn’t hurt to ask. Might help convince General Harrison, the murderous asshole, I’m not a traitor, if I also have a record of observations about an extraterrestrial. I could ask Zaek to share details of his physiology and society that wouldn’t compromise him or put his people at a disadvantage or risk their safety.
Mira knew there was no way they would just take her word for it. She would have to return with information they would want. Otherwise, it would be more convenient to kill her. There was no one to miss her or alert the authorities if she disappeared and no one to care if she showed up dead, not that they were sloppy enough to allow her death to look like anything other than an accident.
Going into hiding in another country was a brief and quickly dismissed idea. Growing up as an orphan made her street smart, but she didn’t have the resources, contacts, or funds needed to create a new identity or live off the grid.
That meant her best chance at living through this was returning to Area 51 with evidence that she’d been held against her will.
That felt like a betrayal to Zaek, but she couldn’t think of anything better. She hated the thought of painting him as the bad guy and didn’t particularly want to go back to work with people who thought so little of her and were so damn quick to order her killed. But, she had to at least get them to remove her criminal status before she could quit, move far, far away, and never work for the government ever again.
Watching him from the corner of her eye, she decided she would bring it up when they stopped for the night.
They’d walked for hours through the woods with minimal breaks to rest, bypassing any towns and people, until night fell and they could fly without being spotted. That was at least two hours ago.
She hoped he found something suitably safe and secluded soon, because harness or not, her neck was sore and her ass and the backs of her thighs had taken more than a few lashes from the tops of the trees since he had to fly so low to avoid being spotted on radar. Every time that happened, he yelled profuse apologies and tried to wipe the hurt away. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that vigorously brushing his huge hand over her butt and thighs, after being whipped by a tree branch, wasn’t actually effective. Besides, those touches in conjunction with the intimate position in which she was strapped to his chest made it exceedingly difficult to keep herself from thinking of sex.
Mira had come to the conclusion that Zaek was a little kooky. Thankfully, what she’d seen so far was cute crazy, instead of back-away-slowly-without-making-eye-contact crazy. She got the sense he hadn’t had much in the way of social interaction in a while, and more than once now, she caught him talking to himself. That, in and of itself, wasn’t all that alarming or even odd since she had a habit of that, as well, but she was pretty sure he outright argued with himself.
Potential insanity aside, he came across as very capable. He had a way about him that reminded her of someone with a military background, but without the coldness in his eyes that most of the soldiers she’d met had.
She thought it was in part because of his quirks that she liked him. He was kind, had a protective streak two miles wide, and was sexy as hell in an alien lumberjack sort of way. He was also smart and funny which were crucial qualities in her opinion, but it was the little hints of crazy that drew her in and made her want to get to know him better. What was his life like? Why was he on Earth? Where did he come from? Who was he?
Is he single?
At that, Mira turned her head and eyed him surreptitiously, which was when she realized she wasn’t the only one lost in her thoughts. He looked like he was trying to solve a complex math equation in his head. His brow was furrowed and his lips were set in a contemplative frown. It didn’t occur to her that she might be the focus of his thoughts until he snuck a peek at her while she was watching him. They had a hand-in-the-cookie-jar moment when they caught each other staring and started speaking at the same time, voicing shouted, unintelligible excuses before they both fell silent.
“Apologies. Did you want to say something?” Zaek asked loudly to be heard over the wind.
“Oh, no! Did you want to say something?”
“I, uhh, was just going to ask if you were in need of a rest.”
“Oh! Yeah, that’s what I was going to ask, too.”
Zaek frowned. “I thought you said… ”<
br />
“Right. Ha ha. You’re silly.”
Oh my gosh, when did I get so awkward?!
He looked suitably confused at that since her response made exactly zero sense and answered hesitantly, like he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to reply, “Thank you?”
“Yep. Anytime,” she chirped, and because she’d apparently lost her damn mind, finished that up with a wink.
For the love of Einstein, just stop talking. This is why I’m single.
“Do you have something in your eye? Should I land? Does it pain you?” he yelled, squinting at her worriedly.
“Huh? Oh! No, that was a wink. It’s a thing people do… ” she trailed off with a grimace because no matter how she tried to spin it she was positive it wouldn’t make this any less weird.
He didn’t look like he fully believed her, but he let it go which was a good thing, because if her blush got anymore intense, she’d have permanent damage.
They flew in silence for a while after that exchange. That gave her time to switch from worrying over her future to obsessing over that cringe-worthy interaction. Why she habitually lost all ability to be even remotely cool the second she admitted she liked a guy, she didn’t know, but it was damned irritating. Even knowing she didn’t have a chance with Zaek wasn’t enough to prevent her from reverting to her sixteen-year-old self when boys became enticing mysteries she wanted to explore instead of gross weirdos. It didn’t help that he’d caught her staring just as she was wondering if there was a Mrs. Zaek back on his home world or, worse, here on Earth.
Okay, she may have also been speculating on what he looked like unclothed. Again.
Note to self, stop being a perv. It makes you awkward.
23
Mira
When they stopped a while later, they turned on the Frankenstein-ed phone first to make sure they were in the clear. From what they heard, the security team was still back in Nevada trying to pick up their trail. They were far enough behind that Zaek deemed it safe to take a break.