by Kresley Cole
“Of course she isn’t on the table,” he said, confused. “She’s right in front of you.”
Glitter flicked Blue Eyes a strange glance. “Was I ever that clueless?” With a shake of his head, he turned back to Breean. “She’s not up for grabs, Goldie. You don’t get her unless she wants you. But who knows? Maybe she’ll be assigned as your guard.”
She’d fought for him, but did that mean she wanted him? he suddenly wondered. Now and always? After the way he’d treated her? He just didn’t know. He needed to talk to her, he thought with a scowl. “You’re not taking her out of this house.”
“Like you can stop me. You want her, you’re going to have to win her.” Glitter grinned, pointed a gun Breean hadn’t known he’d been holding, and fired. “Oh, and come out of stun.”
Before Breean could sidestep, a blue beam hit him directly in the chest, and he found himself locked in a body that refused to obey him. Fury seethed through him as the AIR agents gathered Aleaha and their fallen, as well as him and his remaining men, whistling all the while.
He could have spirit-walked—he was already helpless, after all—but he didn’t want to leave Aleaha’s side. So he endured. And he waited. AIR he could deal with. They wanted to monitor him, fine. They could monitor him. He’d help them since they both wanted the same thing. But if they wanted to post a guard at his side, they had damn well better chose Aleaha, as Glitter had suggested. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have to worry about the Schön queen.
Breean would tear their planet apart.
When Aleaha was next able to move, she was inside AIR headquarters. She hadn’t been incarcerated for aiding Breean, as she’d feared. She’d simply been placed in an empty office. Alone. To think. To agonize. To fume. Her legs were shaky, as if they’d fallen asleep, and didn’t want to hold her weight, but she forced herself to lumber into the hall.
She had to reach Breean. Where had they placed him? What were they doing to him? To his men?
They’d stunned him, that much she knew. She’d heard his conversation with Devyn and Dallas, understood they now wanted his help, but had watched Devyn raise that gun and fire. Never had she felt so afraid. Or guilty. If she hadn’t injured Breean earlier, he would have been at top strength and might have been able to win. Now, he was trapped.
She couldn’t go back and change the past, but she could do something about the present. And the future.
Following the sound of chatter, she skirted a corner and entered the pit, where desks and agents abounded. It seemed like she’d been away forever, but the room was just as she remembered it. People meandered in every direction, while others sat in front of computer consoles, poking at their keyboards. Christmas was only a day away, so decorations were still up. A few agents had small plastic trees on their desks. Someone had even placed mistletoe over her desk.
“Where are they?” she demanded of the first agent she reached.
Hector Dean looked up from a file and eyed her with curiosity. Though he’d been among those imprisoned in Breean’s house, he appeared no worse for wear. Well rested, well fed. “Who?”
As if he didn’t know. “Devyn and Dallas. Where are they?”
He pointed to the break room before returning to his file, and she stomped forward, strength returning with every second that passed. Maybe because her determination was growing.
The door was closed, but she shouldered her way in. And there they were: Mia, Dallas, Devyn, and even Jaxon. The boys were discussing someone’s boob size and Mia was sipping coffee, her black hair hanging down her back the same way Aleaha’s did—when she was herself. God, she already missed being herself.
“Where is he?”
“Well, well, well.” Dallas’s brows rose and he grinned. “Look who Devyn freed from body-lock.”
“’Cause I told him to.” Mia waved her over, a sharp glint in her eyes. “There’s some things we need to discuss, little girl.”
Ignoring her boss, Aleaha walked right up to Devyn, morphing into Breean’s image for added strength as she did so, and slammed her fist into his nose. As his head whipped to the side, she turned to Dallas and did the same before reshaping into Macy.
Though they were bleeding, both men laughed.
Mia clapped her hands, a smile of her own twitching at the corners of her lips. “Knew she had spirit.”
“I need popcorn,” Jaxon said.
“I told you not to hurt him,” Aleaha growled to the agents.
“We didn’t. We stunned him.” Devyn rubbed his bleeding nose. “That doesn’t even sting.”
“You stunned him after you’d hired him! Why couldn’t you have told me that Jaxon had already sneaked inside and you guys were going to take Breean up on his offer to help? Why did you leave me in the dark? I sliced his goddamn throat to set you free.”
“What?” everyone asked in unison.
Mia’s mouth fell open in shock. “Yeah. What? He didn’t mention you had done anything to him.”
So they’d tried to talk to him. Had they interrogated him the usual way? She’d heard agents liked to stick pins under the suspect’s nails, dunk their heads in water, and break their bones.
Breean was now their ace, and they had to realize that, Aleaha thought, calming slightly. Surely they wouldn’t have done anything like that to him.
“You heard me. To escape, I sliced his throat.” Her cheeks burned bright with shame. She might never forgive herself for that.
“Lolli doesn’t fit as a nickname anymore,” Devyn said. “Maybe now we should call you Slash.”
Her hands fisted. “I did it for you, each of you, but you didn’t need me.”
“If you wanted in on the plan,” Mia said, crossing her arms over her chest, “you should have trusted us with the truth about yourself and not picked your boyfriend over your coworkers.”
“And I still pick him over my coworkers! Like you did your boyfriend, as I hear it. But you know why I kept silent about my own abilities? You’re the freaking AIR. Lethal enemies of all things different. I did what I had to—”
“Macy!” a hard voice shouted from the pit.
Her breath caught in her throat. He was here. Breean was here! And he didn’t sound as if he were in pain.
Dallas grinned slowly. “I guess Stud Muffin heard you’re up and around. Before you go, though, you should know we had a chat with him, put him through a lie detector, had him show us some of the things he can do. He’s not a bad guy, as far as interloping otherworlders go.”
“Hey,” Devyn said. “I resent that.”
“Macy!”
Aleaha shifted impatiently from one foot to the other, but she stayed where she was. “So you have no plans to hurt him?”
Mia shrugged. “As long as he proves useful . . .”
“What the darling girl is trying to say,” Devyn added, “is that Breean is far more useful than even she realized. In the forest that night, someone threw her and a few others into another dimension. Breean had some interesting ideas about that and offered to help discover the truth. Mia needs him like she needs Kyrin to screw her blind. And we all know she needs that desperately.”
This was better than she had hoped. “I’ll be his guard. I’ll give you daily reports on his actions, if you want. But I’m telling you, he means us no harm.”
“We know that. Now.” The words grumbled out of Mia. “Still. You’re not objective, so, no. You can’t be his guard.”
“Then I’ll give the reports.” Dallas tossed up his arms, the picture of exasperated male. “Not like I’ve got anything better to do with my free time.”
Aleaha could have kissed him.
Silence filled the room, an eternity passing. Then Mia sighed. “Breean’s already been warned, but I’ll tell you as well.” Her eyes narrowed. “If he does one thing wrong, one damn thing, I’ll have him strung up without thought or hesitation. Whether I need him or not. Got me?”
Aleaha nodded. “What about his men?”
“They’re being
questioned one by one, but will be released once that’s completed. As things stand now, they’ve all agreed to work for us. We’ll pair them with other agents so that they’re monitored, too, but it looks like we’ve got an army of eager new hires.”
“Macy!”
Could things have turned out any better?
“Get out of here.” Grinning, Mia waved her away. “Go to him. His voice is giving me a headache.”
Grinning herself, she sprang from the room. Breean was still in the pit, looking left and right and ready to toss a few desks over his head. The agents must have been told to leave him alone, because they kept their distance, even backing away from him. A few had pyre-guns trained on him, though.
“Macy!”
“I’m here.”
His gaze latched onto her. He settled in place, chest rising and falling rapidly. “I’m sorry,” he choked out. “I’m sorry. I should have let your friends go. You were right. I would have done exactly as you did. I—”
Audience forgotten, she ran to him and threw herself into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist and dropping kisses all over his face. “Don’t ever refuse to snuggle me again.”
That earned her a strained chuckle. “Never,” he vowed. “I want to be your man, your protector.”
“I don’t need a protector, but I do need a man,” she said, tangling her hands in his hair. “I’m sorry for what I did. I wish—”
“Speak of it no more. We both hurt each other, but we will start over. I wanted to die when they took you from me. You’ve become my entire reason for living, woman. I am nothing without you.”
She melted into him. “Talk about the best Christmas present ever. I finally got what I wanted.”
He grinned and squeezed her tight. “My cock?” he whispered into her ear. “I know how much you wanted me to give it to you. You hinted enough.”
“That, too. God, Breean. I love you so much.”
“Thank you,” he said, expression softening, tenderness gleaming from him. “I love you, too. So much I ache.” Never looking away from her, he called, “I’m taking her home.”
“I expect you both back by eight tomorrow morning,” Mia replied.
“I guess that means I’m leaving, too,” Dallas said, and it was clear he was trying not to laugh. “I have to monitor the man’s every move, after all. God, I hate my job sometimes.”
“This sounds like a flat-out dirty mission. You’ll need backup,” Devyn told him with a pat on the back. “I’m going with.”
They must have followed her from the break room, the perverts. “Stay where you are.”
Amid cheers, Breean carried her out of the building into the twilight. “I’ll lose them,” he said, and then he ran, just ran, as fast as he could go. They were ensconced in his house in minutes, where he quickly undressed her, threw her on the bed, and dove on top of her. She cast Macy’s image aside and donned her own.
“I meant what I said. I love you.” He kissed the dark strands of her hair, then smoothed them from her brow. “I think I loved you from the first moment I saw you.”
“Same here.” She cupped his face and peered up at him. “We’re in this together. You and me.”
Slowly, he grinned. “Always. Just . . . next time you try to kill me, make sure it’s with pleasure.”
She returned the grin, glad that he’d truly forgiven her. That they’d made this thing work between them and even with AIR. “Kill you with pleasure, huh? Give me half an hour,” she said, rolling him over and kissing her way down his body.
“Love, I think you’ll only need five.”
That made her laugh. “Merry Christmas, Breean.”
“The sound of your laughter is the best present I have ever gotten. So yes. Merry Christmas, Aleaha.”
Aleaha. Yes, she was. Now and always. With him.
EPILOGUE
Two weeks later . . .
OKAY. So. Aleaha’d had the best Christmas ever. She’d rung in the New Year properly, meaning she’d had an orgasm last the entire countdown. Dallas treated Breean more like a friend than someone to watch closely, Mia treated him like a pet, his men were happy with their situation, and now she was snuggled in her man’s arms, naked—a common occurrence—and completely sated.
The Schön queen hadn’t arrived yet, and no one knew when she would finally make her way here. But AIR was prepared, and so was Aleaha and Breean. Meanwhile, when they were off the clock, he was helping her look for Bride.
Being Aleaha Love, soon to be Aleaha Nu, was pretty damn awesome.
“I’ve been thinking,” Breean said, grip tightening around her waist.
She grinned. “You know I love it when you do that.” Always ended the same way. In bed. Oh, wait. They were already here. Maybe they’d end up on the kitchen floor this time.
“I know it bothers you, not knowing if you are human or alien, and I do not like when you are bothered. As your warrior, it is my duty, no, my privilege, to give you everything that you want, meet all of your needs, and—”
“Be my slave,” she finished for him.
His lips twitched with his amusement. “Yes. So I have been thinking long and hard, and I do not think you are alien, after all. I think you are human.”
“Why do you think that?” she asked, brow furrowing.
“Aliens have been here for many years, yes?”
“Yes.” According to Bride, aliens had been visible for around eighty years but had snuck onto the planet long before that.
“Well, I think humans are evolving, developing abilities to help protect them from this new, possible threat.”
Now that made a lot of sense. Except— “I can be stunned,” she told him. “Stun never works on humans, yet it works on me.”
“Stun doesn’t work on the average human, no, but you aren’t average. Far from it.”
She rose on her elbow and peered down at him. The sight of him never failed to delight her. All that golden skin, those bedroom eyes, those plush lips. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He reached up and traced a fingertip along the curve of her jaw. “Either way, though, I love you.”
“As I love you.”
He jolted up, tossing her under him and pinning her to the mattress. She laughed, and his expression softened as it always did when she laughed. “Now, time to do what we always do when I am done thinking.”
“Insatiable,” she tsk ed as if such a thing were a curse.
“I know you are. I can barely keep up.”
Another laugh escaped her, and she wound her arms around his neck. “Try.”
“With pleasure.”