by Fiona Roarke
Had the man in question been taken to a hospital? If this spaceman’s injuries were extensive, she’d have to hope she could get him away from the human hospital without having to disable too many folks with her Defender.
Then again, in this wacky town where many people seemed to be in costume, maybe the dude wasn’t even the person she was looking for. She kept the two girls in sight as she followed them to Howlers. If she could time it right, perhaps she’d ask to share a quiet back table with them so she wouldn’t have to eat alone.
If she sat with them, Victoria could likely get the two young women to either verbally or non-verbally reveal what they knew about the spaceman with the bleeding head. Where had he gone? Had someone taken him out of the dive bar? If so, who was it?
Once she knew what the girls knew, she’d ensure no one was looking and use her regulation Defender to keep them quiet. They wouldn’t remember her asking them anything in particular about a spaceman, and she could set the memory wipe for a mere minute so they wouldn’t even remember sleeping.
Victoria might even be the first one back to the rendezvous with one of the downed spacecraft’s missing occupants. Then again, this was all useless conjecture if it turned out the spaceman in question wasn’t one of the three she was looking for, rather just another costumed visitor to Nocturne Falls.
She entered the bar a few steps behind the two girls and had opened her mouth to ask if she could sit with them when a glance into the room made her lips slam shut.
Victoria brushed past the two women.
Stella and a large Alpha-like man wearing a manacle—the prisoner, obviously—walked toward the back of the bar.
Time to catch up with her team leader and give her a progress report.
Chapter Two
<^> <^> <^>
The man woke up sometime later, momentarily unsure of where he was when his eyes opened. The door was closed and the small space wasn’t very bright, but a single dim lightbulb swung gently from a cord directly above. He lifted his head, hoping he felt better after his rest, but no such luck. The pain started pounding a steady beat inside his skull the moment he moved. Worse, he still didn’t know who he was.
He sat up on the low bed, planted his feet on the ground and tried to keep from falling to the floor from a seated position.
He heard muffled voices speaking outside the supply room. A woman and the hairy guy were having a terse conversation.
“…a thousand things to do this morning…don’t have time…please go.”
“…hurt dude…last night…forgot about…he’s in the…room…”
“What!”
He startled in pain at the sound of the strident yell from somewhere beyond the door.
“You did what?” the female voice shouted again.
Suddenly, there were new sentences in his head, like when the big hairy guy from last night seemed to put words in his mind.
You don’t work here, Kevin. You are not a rear-door bouncer. There is no such thing as a rear-door bouncer. Why are you such a pain in the butt all of the time?
“He was bleeding and hurt, Bridget, and all hunched over and squinty eyed. It was more than just drunkenness, and besides, I think he’s a psychic. My werewolf senses were on high alert last night.”
“What!” Bridget’s voice went an octave higher with that single word. “Psychic!” Another octave upward.
“I’m telling you, he read my mind. He knew exactly what I was thinking.”
“There are no such things as psychics, Kevin. And you are not a werewolf with any senses on any kind of alert, no matter how much you want to act the part. You are human. Get used to it.”
Werewolf? Odd place, this Nocturne Falls.
The door to the cleaning room popped open. The brightness blinded him. He put a hand up to block it from his eyes even as a bolt of pain lit up inside his head.
“Who are you?” A woman he assumed to be Bridget marched the three short steps to where he sat on the edge of the low padded bed and crossed her arms angrily over her midriff. He didn’t think he could stand without passing out again, so he remained where he was.
“Who are you?” she asked again, sounding very exasperated.
He tried to look up at her face, but settled for the center of her folded arms. “I don’t actually know who I am.”
Likely story. I’m calling my brother. The sheriff will get a name out of you pronto even if he has to growl it out of you.
“Why does everyone want to call the sheriff? I have a headache, not a weapon. Your brother won’t be able to get—or growl—a name out of me, sheriff or not, because I can’t remember a single thing. Not my name, not where I’m from, not anything.”
“Wha…” She didn’t finish whatever she’d been about to ask. “How did…” She failed to finish her second question.
Kevin, meanwhile, exuberantly danced on the balls of his feet. “Did he just read your mind? See? What did I tell you? I told you he could read minds. He read my mind, too. How do you think he does that? Read minds, I mean. How?”
“Kevin, go call for an ambulance. This man is obviously hurt.”
“But did he read your mind? He did, didn’t he? What did he read? I mean, what did he hear?”
“Kevin. Go. Now.”
Kevin’s shoulders slumped like a scolded ten-year-old sent to the schoolroom punishment corner and left the supply closet.
Bridget squatted down and leaned closer. Arms still crossed, her brown-eyed gaze drilled into his eyes.
“What’s the first thing you remember?” she asked quietly.
“Walking into town and seeing the lights of this place.” He didn’t know why he didn’t tell her the truth. The fact he’d woken up in the woods, unbuckled himself from the twisted metal of the oddly familiar craft he’d been in, seemed somehow unbelievable. He sensed it would be a good idea not to divulge that information. Besides, perhaps he’d only dreamed that.
His head hurt so much he couldn’t be sure what the truth was and what it wasn’t. It was better to say as little as possible until he remembered what was going on.
“How did you read my mind?”
He paused, looking into her eyes as he answered, “I don’t know.”
She said a rather coarse swearword silently, but he heard it and cracked a smile.
An appropriate phrase entered his mind from the fog of his memories and he said, “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Nothing came out of my mouth.”
“Well, I’m certainly not going to repeat what I heard.”
“I’d say that’s very wise.”
He shrugged. “Why does Kevin think he’s a werewolf?”
Bridget rolled her eyes. “He’s just goofy and young, but essentially harmless.” Her eyes suddenly narrowed as if thinking about werewolves brought on a different line of questioning. A sudden rush of words echoed in his mind.
Let’s do a test of the emergency Bridget broadcasting service.
“A test?” he asked, “What kind of test? And what in the world is an emergency Bridget broadcast service?”
Wow. What kind of Supe are you?
“Supe? What’s a Supe?”
Her eyes narrowed again but this time in frustration. The next silent words puzzled him. She sent lots of words his way. Unfortunately, trying to hear what she was thinking took some extra effort on his part.
The words didn’t make much sense either, and he was weakening from the exertion to see inside her head and listen to her thoughts. More words came inside. He felt woozy, and black spots crowded the edge of his vision. He snapped his eyes shut, but swayed a bit to one side, trying to stay conscious as Bridget filled his mind with all of her broadcast thoughts.
Supe means supernatural being. For example, I’m a wolf shifter. If you are a wolf shifter, how do you not remember? Plus, the only reason I can think of that you’d be inside my head is if we are somehow wolf shifter mates. But that can’t be, can it?
There was a blessed pause in the stream of words blasting inside his head after her mental question. She looked him over from head to boots and back again, seemingly finding him completely unacceptable as a possible mate.
I don’t understand how you are in my head. We aren’t even in wolf form.
“Wolf shifter? Wolf form?” he managed, but it took a lot out of him. He was fading.
And another thing, you’d better not be my wolf shifter mate. I’m dating Sam. I really like Sam.
She stared deeply into his eyes with a vibrant intensity as if willing him to dare comment on what she was thinking. His eyes opened to see hers filled with expectation. They stared at one another for a few seconds. The woozy sensation came back and he knew he was fading.
“You’re a wolf shifter and you think I’m your mate?” he asked. And promptly blacked out.
<^> <^> <^>
Victoria exited Howlers after the conversation with Stella and headed to the town’s hospital to discover if what she’d learned was in truth the lead she’d just told her team leader she had.
She walked along the main thoroughfare, people-watching as she went, trying to remember the best way back to the hospital she’d seen during her initial canvas of the town.
Stella’s revelation about the Defender possibly not working on some of the people here in town was bothersome, but maybe that was a good thing. Victoria didn’t wish to deploy it and have it fail when she needed it.
She’d have to work the old-fashioned way and hide any hint of her alien origin as well as the crash victim who’d been taken to the hospital. Since Stella had the prisoner, the injured man at the local human hospital was either the guard, Riker Phoenix, or the pilot. She knew what Riker looked like. He was The Calderian, head of Alpha-Prime’s Royal Magistrate Guard. Probably everyone from Alienn knew what he looked like.
Stella had the prisoner, Draeken Phoenix, in hand and shackled, which was the most important part of this mission, in Victoria’s opinion. However, if the pilot was the one who’d been sent to the hospital, she didn’t know his name or anything about him besides his chosen profession.
After retracing some steps, Victoria finally came to Nocturne Falls General Hospital. Straightening her clothes, she conjured a quick story about how she’d become separated from her cousin. That he left early from their rental cabin to pick up some food and hadn’t come back. She also thought to throw in that they’d planned to go to a local famous waterfall for a picnic so as to sound more authentic, like they were out-of-town tourists and not aliens from another planet hiding in plain sight on Earth.
She would use all the acting skills she possessed to explain she’d fallen asleep, and that was why it had taken her so long to realize her cousin hadn’t come back. Practicing the few lines in her head, she would need to give her “cousin” a name. She’d read the minds of several people in the bar on her way to talk to Stella and picked up one thought in particular from a bartender behind the counter.
The woman had been thinking about the man in the torn-up spacesuit, like she was going over the story in her head to tell someone. Her brother, maybe, or the sheriff. Whatever.
Anyway, Bridget the Bartender believed the man who’d had a bad headache didn’t remember his name. If this was either the pilot or the guard, Victoria was certain he would pretend to have no memories as a ruse to keep anyone from learning about aliens on Earth.
Victoria also caught Bridget’s memory of the man in the spacesuit passing out cold right before the ambulance came for him. Another great ruse, since people couldn’t ask any probing questions about your planet of origin if they thought you were unconscious and unable to communicate.
That was rule number one for those living on Earth—conceal their existence at all costs. No one could find out about Alpha-Prime. No one. And absolutely no one could find out that aliens lived in plain sight in Alienn, Arkansas, either.
Victoria waited rather impatiently in line for her chance to speak to the nurse behind the counter about a missing injured man. According to Bridget the Bartender’s thoughts, the man had been bleeding from the head when the ambulance came for him.
Whoever this Alpha was, he was certainly clever with the amnesia ruse and faking unconsciousness. It might be The Calderian. Riker Phoenix was very smart and suffering from memory loss was the perfect disguise and one he’d surely use as a cover.
The young couple ahead of her in line tried to get in to see their uncle, but the reception desk nurse turned them away. “Sorry,” she said, pointing to a sign. “Visiting hours aren’t for another ninety minutes, and only immediate family is allowed at this time.”
What? Only certain people were allowed in to visit patients? Spuds.
Not only will I have to be a close relative, I’ll have to be an immediate family member. Being his cousin likely won’t get me inside.
Victoria turned and left the lobby to get some time to rethink her plan. If they let her in during visiting hours, she’d tell them she was his sister. Was that a close enough relationship? If it wasn’t, she couldn’t very well say, “Well, then, how about if I’m his wife? Now can I get in?” That would likely get her hauled in as a troubled soul. Maybe she should just start with being his wife instead of his sister.
If memory served, Riker Phoenix—who was a very attractive man—was engaged to some debutant on Alpha-Prime, but not married quite yet. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t like Victoria got to marry him just because she fibbed and said she was his wife in a human hospital on planet Earth.
This particular fib—okay, it was a big, fat lie—was simply to break him out of the hospital before anyone discovered his true nationality, which was Alpha alien from another planet.
She strolled around the block slowly a few times to pass the ninety-minute wait until visiting hours began. She also thought about the story she’d spin regarding why she hadn’t come looking for him last night, along with a storyline to fit her being his immediate family and wife, of course, and how she was so worried about him.
Victoria looked up in time to see a whole family of cowboys—and cowgirls—cross the street headed toward Nocturne Falls’s main thoroughfare. The littlest family member, a small boy about the age of five, marched along, a serious expression on his face. He wore a Stetson hat that was almost as wide-brimmed as he was tall, but he was so cute, and so serious. The sight brought a quick smile to her lips. And a small respite from her worries over the acting she was about to do in order to free the wounded Alpha.
For all the strange Halloween antics this town had to offer, the hospital was the first place she felt out of her element. She’d never been a fan of hospitals from a very young age and earthling hospitals especially. They had a particular smell, staying well inside her memories, even all these years later.
She’d been to a human hospital once before. As a child, her older brother had pushed her off the diving board at a community pool during a summer outing. They’d been fighting about who got to go first when he shoved her shoulder. Victoria had fought to keep her balance, but ended up cracking her head on the edge of the diving board on her way down right to the pool’s surface, falling unconscious as she dropped into the water.
Victoria had woken up in the earthling hospital with all its odd smells and been instantly afraid. Seeing her parents stressed and worried hadn’t helped.
Some well-meaning earthling had called an ambulance before her mom and dad could stop it. Her mom and dad hovered over her like the very definition of helicopter parents, snatching her away from the human caregivers to return to Alienn, Arkansas, for treatment from one of their Alpha doctors as soon as they were able to go.
It was the last time her brother had roughhoused with her. She suspected her father had put the fear of damnation into him during the trip from the community pool to the hospital, following the ambulance all the way to the grand town of Skeeter Bite.
After that, Victoria had avoided human hospitals, but now she’d have to
get over her old fears to rescue her fellow Alpha and keep their alien secret.
She went over in her head what they might ask of her. His name? She’d make one up. What does he look like? I have no earthly idea. She’d have to get access to Alpha-Prime files and information. She started to send a message, but then her communicator signaled a waiting message. Elise had found the guard, who had been carried into the forest by unknown persons. They would be on their way to the rendezvous point as soon as they left a thank-you note.
That meant the pilot was in the hospital. It would be better if she knew what he looked like. She couldn’t very well go in urgently looking for the love of her life and not be able to describe him. To free him, she needed to know more beyond, “He’s big—because he’s an Alpha alien.”
With Stella currently managing the prisoner and Elise bringing the guard in, she decided to call Cam and ask for information on the pilot.
She sent the alien version of a text on her communicator, briefly explaining the situation and that she needed the pilot’s name and physical description to convince the staff at the human hospital to release him into her care.
A couple of minutes later, Cam sent a complete profile and several additional warnings to ensure any blood samples the hospital may have taken for analysis were retrieved. That might be a tall order, but she messaged back assurances she’d do her best to strip the pilot’s entire visit from the records.
The file Cam sent contained the pilot’s name. Holden Grigori. Nice name.
Victoria opened the electronic dossier on her communication device and sucked in a breath of surprise when she saw Holden’s photo. It was his official Royal Magistrate Guard graduation picture, dated five years ago. She didn’t know what she expected, but was pleasantly shocked nonetheless. Dark hair, blazing sky-blue eyes and the kind of fit muscular body every earthling she knew strived for but most every Alpha had naturally.