"I wasn't thinking that." Shelby reached gentle fingers to the place where his right hip met his muscular thigh.
"What were you thinking, then?"
In a serpentine trail, she outlined the dark green snake that coiled about his right thigh. The tattoo was grotesque, hideous, some gleaming demonic monster that had been grafted onto his body. "I was wondering why, if you think this tattoo's so horrible, you made such a point of showing it to me." She lifted her eyes briefly, then dropped her gaze again.
"Figured it's better you knew what you were getting into, that's all."
"Don't forget," she laughed, "I know you a lot better than you think I do—even though you just barely know me. Thanks to Scott's stay down in the medical area. Yep, I know your ins and outs, baby, and that's a pretty good situation for a girl like me."
"Because you have all the power."
She gave him a smug smile. "Told you, control. That's the ground rule, pistol boy."
He slid off the truck cautiously, careful with his knee. It was already aching enough after the day's long drive. "We better spend the night here. Get a few winks before we hit the road again."
Jake's big idea of catching some sleep roadside had turned out to be cuddling up under a blanket in the back of the truck. He slept the easy rest of a fallen oak, one large arm flung overhead, the other looped about her side, anchoring her against him. It was amazing, really, just how peaceful he could look when he relaxed or rested. Those demons that always seemed ready to devour him vanished. Shelby stroked her hand across his eyebrows, the place where there were normally creases that betrayed his inner turmoil.
She blew out a sigh. Her sad-eyed giant had let himself go during their lovemaking—to a point. She understood his need to be the one sexually in charge all too well, and in Jake's case, she was sure his wounded heart was calloused over from too much loss and heartbreak. And that pretty much worked for Shelby; she wasn't ready to open up to anyone, particularly not someone as emotionally dangerous—and broken—as he was. She'd already been down that road once before and was darned sure not going to make the same mistake twice. The last time she'd let her heart go, and to someone like Jake, it had practically brought the universe down on all their heads.
Beside her, Jake stirred, pinning her closer against him as he murmured in his sleep. Shelby froze: Scott Dillon had done the exact same thing while under her care as a medic, often having orgasmic dreams of being with Hope. She'd even caught him stroking himself in his sleep once, moaning and thrusting his hips.
Jake moaned like that right now. Right in her ear, a slow, hungry roll of thunder followed by a catlike sigh of pleasure that vibrated against her cheek. He's gonna call out to Hope, she thought, emotionally panicked.
He shifted his massive body, rolling his head to the side, "Oh, yeah, baby. Sweetness, yeah."
Shelby's eyes widened, and she was shocked to realize how deeply Jake's ongoing attachment to Hope stung. After all, they'd only just hooked up today. It shouldn't matter that she'd been so attracted to him months earlier, had thought about him way more than she ought to have. None of that entitled her to feeling jealous of the one woman he'd ever truly loved.
And yet she did.
Again he groaned, groping at her restlessly. "Sweetheart, come closer. Yeah, come on."
Come on, Hope. Of course—who else would he be having such lusty dreams about?
"Shelby, come on! Come on, baby doll. Shelby …" He kept on, groaning her name, shifting his hips aggressively, sliding his hands all over her body.
Oh. My. God. He's dreaming all about me. Full-bore panic hit her this time, and not out of feeling betrayed or cheated on. But because she realized that unlike Jake's younger self, Scott Dillon, whose dreams at the medical center had always been about Hope, Jake's dreams were populated by none other than … her.
Then, probably from such extensive physical exertion, Jake bolted upright, one long arm still looped about her. She avoided looking at him, even though he stared down at her with pretty obvious intent.
"I had a dream," he murmured, raking a hand through his disheveled dark brown hair.
"Whew, did you ever."
She eased out of his grasp, staring at the sky overhead. A sparkling tapestry of stars glittered above them, and some part of her wished she could see all the way across the galaxies, could make a wish on Refaria. It was a thought that saddened her deeply, made her long for her sisters, forever lost to her in the war. They'd gone missing years earlier, several seasons before she'd joined the military—in fact, their disappearance had been the driving force behind her desire to join Jared's resistance. She'd transformed from a rebellious teenager, one who ventured into militarized zones if the parties were good enough, into a committed soldier and medic.
And never once had she been able to time walk effectively enough to learn where her sisters might be. Dead, alive, murdered, or lost, she could never unravel their whereabouts. It had torn her apart, bit by godsforsaken bit, before she'd ever landed on Earth. She was the oldest, meant to protect them from the war's growing shadow, and she'd failed. Totally failed them both.
Jake rolled onto his side, leaning on his elbow, oblivious to the melancholy pall that had come over her. This was the way she often felt after having sex … like no matter how much she yearned for connection, there could never truly be the depth that she needed.
"So you really are a time walker?"
She nodded wordlessly, still staring straight overhead at the stars.
"Why's Jared got you in the medical complex, not spending 24-7 trying to glimpse what's coming down the line?"
It wasn't a question she was prepared to answer, at least not so early in their relationship.
Jake laughed, twirling a lock of her hair around his fingertip. "Ah, so it's not just me who's totally shut down, is it, sweetheart?"
"There are reasons that Commander doesn't expect me to do it, that's all. It's not a gift I can operate in very … reliably."
"Why not?"
She stared at the sky, avoiding his searching gaze. "You're not the only one who's lost people you love, Jakob. That's all."
Jake bent over her, hovering, but she shut her eyes. She didn't hear him move at first, but then there was a rustling noise, and he covered her with his jacket.
"Get some sleep. You need it … hell, we both do."
She rolled onto her side, away from him, but then his husky voice pierced the desert quiet. "Who did you lose, Shell?"
She drew her knees to her chest, feeling protective, but he would have none of it. "Damn you, woman. You want me to stop grieving, but what about you?"
"He was killed in the fire," she blurted. "At the Texas facility."
"Everyone was killed in the fire down there, far as I know—except you. And I've wondered about that, how it was you escaped."
She scurried out of his grasp, taking his jacket with her, and sat on the back end of the truck. Jake pursued her, utterly determined. "Why did you get out of there? How?" He dangled his legs off the end of the open gate. "Did you see it while time walking?"
She shook her head vehemently. "I never saw none of it."
And that's when she knew Jake really got it, the reason why she was so shut off. "My gift failed to reveal the attack," she said.
"You can't blame yourself for that. Our gifts come from All; he puts them inside of us, but that doesn't mean we see everything. You weren't supposed to see the attack."
"That's not it," she practically croaked, hot tears streaking her face. "Don't you get it? I loved someone there. I had friends there."
"And they died."
She shook her head vehemently, clutching at her throat. "We were going to be bonded," she admitted, hanging her head, "but … the attack."
Jake reached for her, but she shook him off, unwilling to accept his comfort—not when he didn't understand. "You don't get it. You don't realize who he was. Who Nate was."
"What was Nate's Refarian name? Maybe I k
new the guy." She could tell by his expression that Jake was scrolling through men he'd known in the ranks over the years.
She lowered his jacket, turning to face him. "That's not the question you should be asking. It's not the right question at all."
"Then what is?"
"He was Antousian. My lover was an Antousian spy, Nahim Lalihim."
"For All's sake," Jake hissed, actually pulling back from her. It was a name they'd all learned in the aftermath of the Texas fire.
"And I loved him. With all my heart I loved a man who betrayed us all—and yet chose to let me live."
The images of the colossal Antousians, their massive height as they stormed the facility that day, the weapons, the smell of them in her nostrils—all the memories overcame her like acrid smoke. She coughed, rubbing at her chest, remembering. They'd entered the main engineering quadrant, not in their humanized bodies, but in their natural ones—taking the substantial size and height advantage their Antousian forms had offered.
She'd been in the hangar with Nate, trying to make plans for later that night, and they'd stormed in like a massive army of locusts. The fire, the explosions.… She'd been temporarily blinded when a grenade detonated nearby. Nate had crawled with her toward the hangar door, dragging her. One of the Antousian soldiers, seeing Nate, had spun on him and Shelby was sure he would be killed. That they were both as good as dead. Then, in that garbled, vibrating voice that all Antousians possessed, the man had saluted Nate, asking, "What shall I do, sir?"
In her memories she clutched at Nate, hardly able to see, feeling hysterical as he issued an order. "I want you to get this Refarian out of danger, Lasvan," he said. "Now!"
"What's going on?" Shelby asked, shaking her head as rough Antousian hands clasped her arms, dragging her to her feet. "Nate! What's happening?"
"I'm sorry, Shelby," came his reply, only the words had the same garbled, distorted sound that his comrade possessed. Blinking, her eyes watering, she got a look at Nate as his form stretched and changed, pulled and distorted, and he loomed over her like the dreadful, monstrous Antousian that he truly was. She'd screamed until her throat went raw, his accomplice dragging her from the warehouse to safety.
"Stay here," the soldier told her with a primitive grunt, shoving her to the ground behind an Antousian transport. With a dim glance about the nighttime, she could sense dozens of air transports hovering just overhead, could hear their quietly whirring engines, and she could see a few more land vehicles all around them.
But when she looked back at the hangar and warehouse, nothing could have possibly prepared her for the giant ball of flames that fireballed out of the roof, and then the answering explosions—a series of them, rending the night—until the entire facility was engulfed in a massive, incendiary blaze. As much as she should have hated him, she'd fallen to the ground, weeping for Nate and her lost friends. He'd betrayed them all; he'd never loved her—but he was dead.
Over the years she'd come to believe that in some way, some twisted, half-decent Antousian sort of way, Nate must have loved her. He would never have risked setting her free otherwise. She ran that night—ran and ran until her feet bled, until her very life force gave out, until she couldn't see anything but the exploding warehouse and hangar, filled with her closest friends.
She had kept on wandering; for months and months that was all she did. She waited tables around Houston, did housework in Galveston, kept moving, and all the while her Texas accent kept getting thicker. It had taken a year before she'd had the nerve or the heart to seek out her own people again. She was convinced that she'd failed them by not seeing Nate's betrayal for what it was.
"I'm Antousian," Scott whispered into the darkness between them. "As you well know."
She stared into her lap. "You reckon that matters to me?" Her voice came out dull, much more muted than she meant.
Jake slid a hand about her shoulder, gently rubbing her neck. "Yeah, I do, actually. I figure it matters a whole damned lot."
She turned to him, tears blurring his moonlit image. "It's me, Jakob. Just me. Please don't make this about who or what you are."
Stricken, he turned to her, not bothering to mask the pain in his eyes. "I know what it is to lose the person you love, that's all." His voice was unnaturally quiet, edged with tightness.
"Are you feeling guilty because we just made love?" she asked gently.
He raked a hand through his hair but said nothing at first. "I'm still in love with her. I probably will be for the rest of my life. So there's not much here for you, Shelby, that's all I'm saying."
"I don't believe that. I felt your passion a little while ago."
He laughed darkly. "I'll say."
"It's been five years since you lost your family, Jake. You can't grieve them forever, dying a little more yourself every day."
"This coming from you? The woman who just told me all about the man she still loves?"
"I don't love him anymore," she said. "He betrayed me and so many of my friends. That's not love."
"All right, then, let's call it heartbreak. Something we have in common."
"You're just twisting my words around."
He gave her a bittersweet smile, one that said he was shutting down to her emotionally. "Like I said, you need some sleep. Tell you what, let's crawl inside the cab and get the heater on. That'll warm us both up."
But Shelby knew the conversation was far from over, and more than that, she knew that Jake's own demons had just been called out of the mountains. Thanks to her, and her horrible revelations about his own kind. Still, she didn't have the strength to heal him, not tonight when her own heart felt so battered itself.
Chapter Nine
Marco stared through the dusty window of Jake's pickup, worried at first that something might have happened to the couple within. Thea had helped him find them, locking in on Jake and Shelby's coordinates with her sharply honed intuitive skills. The transport had made their drop by following her specs.
Pressing his face against the glass, Marco was relieved—and a little shocked—to discover Jake and Shelby inside the truck, wildly entangled in each other's arms. Jake leaned against the far door, Shelby nestled between the large man's spread thighs. It was a Rubik's Cube of arms and legs and torsos that Marco couldn't begin to solve, not in the predawn darkness. He heightened his vision, throwing the inky landscape into hazy relief. Clearly his assigned pair were now lovers, and he tried to figure the best way to rouse them—especially without making the situation even more awkward than it already was.
He was about to rap on the window when a rush of emotion from within the cab zeroed in on him like an out-of-control missile. The shock wave was so intense, it was more like a psychic tsunami; he actually staggered backward slightly, battling his empathic gift's mad gyrations.
What is this? He wondered frantically. His gift never acted up when the other parties were asleep. That had never happened, at least not since he'd come of age and learned to fully master his problematic ability. Bending over to catch his breath, he gasped as if he'd just run eight or nine miles, bracing both hands atop his knees while he tried to gain control again. The splintering migraine took no time to attack, swooping in like a vulture, clawing at his thoughts.
"Damn it all to hell." He gave his head a slight shake, thankful that everything was so dark. These headaches could be more than a little debilitating. Once, while sick with a particularly nasty one, he'd even become nauseous just from looking at a bright yellow sweater. The only trigger, ever, was intense emotion that he couldn't effectively block. In this case, what could have prepared him?
Straightening up, Marco approached the truck once again. Barricading his mind with a strong defensive barrier, he banged on the window. Loudly. Muffled shouts answered from within, and it occurred to him that if he weren't careful, he just might get himself shot. He'd been so blindsided by his empathic diffusion, he'd totally forgotten standard approach and protocol.
Dropping to the ground a
nd shielding himself behind the truck's front bumper, he identified himself. "McKinley! It's Marco McKinley, king's Madjin."
From within the truck burst a string of Refarian expletives, punctuated by feminine laughter. "McKinley!" Tierny roared, the sound more like the explosion of a grenade than an actual spoken word.
Marco rose to his feet, inching cautiously along the edge of the truck lest he wind up with a luminator pointed at his face. He knew what an itchy trigger finger Dillon had and doubted that his future self was any less into weaponry.
"It's McKinley," he repeated, stopping just beside the rearview mirror. "Sorry I came up on you guys like that."
The heel of one large cowboy boot slammed against the window, then retracted until Jake's merciless face appeared in the window frame, all scowls and accusation.
Ah, shit. Marco braced himself for a serious dressing down, the kind Dillon occasionally delivered to the corps.
Finally, the door creaked open, Jake Tierny practically tumbling out of the cab. Seated inside the truck, Shelby raked her hands across her long, disheveled hair. As if a neatened-up ponytail could conceal the bare-skinned evidence of what the pair had been up to.
Tierny staggered a step, then regained his equilibrium, and Marco's heightened vision didn't miss Jake's unzipped pants.
"Hang on," Tierny grumbled, turning away as he yanked at his shirt and made quick work of his pants' zipper.
Shelby made no move to exit the truck, just sat staring neatly forward, both hands positioned beside her legs.
Jake faced him, hard. "Look, McKinley, you've gotta be out of your fucking mind to come up on me like that. I could have—"
He bowed his head. "I apologize, sir."
"I'm not your superior officer," Tierny practically spat.
"You're correct," Marco replied cautiously. "I don't answer within the chain of command."
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