Suddenly the screen bathed us in a sea of red light.
Crackling on the coms, then hissing snarls in Tigerese. “Hrasshikrrrssaaaaa!”
I silenced the coms with a swipe, laughing. “Nope. No surrender for you!”
And suddenly I saw the gleam of instant death as the screen pulsated lights in alarm — a fucking missile. Alarms blared. They’d fired a holedark missile and it was heading towards us.
“It’s hot!” yelled Red.
No coordinates. No destination. “Go,” I screamed, and the engines screamed with me.
We jumped.
New stars appeared all around us.
All the adrenaline rushed out of me. The Gs stopped and I was weightless once more. The gravity generator kicked in, and I slumped back in my seat, savoring deep, beautiful breaths of life and freedom.
I laughed and punched the air. Crazy holedark luck had liked my moves today. “Now that was fun.”
Red groaned. “I think I left my stomach behind.”
Looking over at Red, I saw she was bit pale, the opposite of what her face usually was after drinking, which is how she got her nickname, but no worse for the wear. Top of her class, but this was her first real mission. I think it might have even been her first real dogfight.
“The Princess?” I asked, knowing it would help Red focus.
She sucked in another breath and straightened before reaching out to tap a screen. “Looks like she’s asleep.”
“You okay back there, Your Majesty?”
When he didn’t reply, I turned to look at him. His eyes were closed, gritted teeth and muscles tense as he continued gripping the armrests. I don’t know if he had moved a single muscle since I’d last looked at him. So the werewolf Prince could hold it together? It actually made me respect him, but only the tiniest bit.
His voice trembled, with rage or nausea, I couldn’t tell. “You’re psychotic.”
Outflying others always made me feel like I was the cleverest pilot in the universe. I took the high line. “Sorry. Not really used to flying with passengers.”
His blue eyes opened. “What do you mean you’re not used to flying with passengers?”
Red grabbed a floating screen and pulled it down to her. “Captain was a Starbolt pilot.”
“Starbolts,” he repeated. “The Coalition’s super-secret deep space fighter that didn’t officially exist until a year ago?”
I had been grounded since I disobeyed orders and crashed my Starbolt. But he didn’t need to know that. I had to end this conversation before Red started blathering about my crash record. “Red, go check the engines.”
To vex me further, the prince moved into Red’s vacated space like a wolf on the prowl. “So the Coalition risks a former Starbolt pilot to come to our aid. Did you have to go to a special flight school where you earned PhDs in Deep Space Physics and Interstellar Avionics?”
I let myself look at him for a moment. He was a sarcastic bastard. It was a sin how some people got all the pretty in their genes. “Is there something you need, Your Majesty?”
There was the barest flash of a strange look on his face, but it was gone before I could figure out what it was. “The correct address is Highness.” He paused. “You’re not what I expected a Starbolt pilot to look like.”
Oh please. Don’t tell me he thought like a First Earther. I was fit, but completely the opposite of their old-fashioned standards of beauty: a curvy girl with big everything; ass, boobs, arms, and legs.
“And what is a Starbolt pilot supposed to look like?” I paused. “Your Majesty.”
His gaze intensified. He glanced at my hands. “Not like a woman who has pink fingernails.”
I leaned back in my captain’s chair, trying to appear as relaxed as possible. He might have been a prince, but he was not my prince. I was the captain and this was my ship.
“Hey, I like my pink fingernails, thank you very much.” I went back to my screens. “You can go now.”
“I want to speak with your superiors.”
Again with the demands. This was getting old. Lightspeed fast, I swiveled my chair to face him. “Is this an official request?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll have to submit it in writing.”
His eyes turned gold.
“I might even be able to dig out some actual paper and print them out for you.”
All that seething angry power tensed.
“Trouble is, I just don’t think I have any paper writing instrument on this ship.” I smiled slowly. “I suppose I’ll just have to settle for you asking nicely and saying please.”
He placed his rather large, dirty hands on my armrest, invading my personal space. It was an Alpha shifter trick. That much, I had been warned about.
I should have been prepared for his scent. Of fresh soil and greenery, the kind of smell that reminded me what it was like to live in sunlight rather than the chemical rankness of deep-space artificial habitats.
He smiled at me, baring his teeth. “For every ‘please’ I utter, there will be a time when you will return them to me tenfold.”
I rolled my eyes, because clearly, that’s the only logical way to confront an angry werewolf. “Is staring and making baseless threats the best you can do, Your…Highness?”
He smiled through clenched teeth. “Please.”
Was he grinding his teeth? Or were his teeth getting longer?
The grinding sound stopped. “Put me in touch with your superior officer in the United Coalition. Immediately. Please.”
I turned my back to him. “I’ll send out a message.”
“Where are your quarters?”
In tiny transports like these, captains typically gave up their quarters to high ranking passengers on deep interstellar flights. I usually didn’t mind, but the thought that this jerk of a prince would be in my cabin, in my bunk, made me want to punch whoever started that stupid tradition. It wasn’t worth a diplomatic incident. I threw my head back in my chair and let out a sigh.
“Behind the cockpit. The blue door on the right.”
I went back to my screens. His tall reflection remained in the window beyond the floating grids in front of me.
“You still haven’t told me your name.”
I tightened my grip on the yoke. “Captain.”
“That’s not your name.”
I pulled up a display grid to block his reflection. “While we’re on my ship, that’s what you’ll call me.”
“And when we’re off the ship?”
A million light years would pass before I ever got off this ship and went anywhere with him.
I wasn’t that stupid.
Click here to find out more about Wanted By the Werewolf Prince!
Wanted By the Werewolf Prince: The Space Shifter Chronicles 1
She's bold, fearless and disobedient--which always gets her in trouble.
He's controlling, demanding, and superior--which always gets him what he wants.
Captain Skye Daring is a space fighter pilot without equal. Rescuing a foreign werewolf prince and his sister from behind enemy lines should be a breeze.
Prince Ral doesn’t take orders from impudent humans. He’s determined to save not only his sister and but his people they left behind. The only thing in his way is a sexy pilot too stubborn to acknowledge his authority.
Stuck in a crippled ship and hunted by tiger shifters, Skye and Ral must stop fighting each other and battle the enemy -- together. Will the prince and pilot drop their guards long enough to conquer their dislike…and desire?
Would you like to know when my next book is available? You can sign up for my new release e-mail list at www.karalockharte.com, follow me on twitter at @karalockharte, or like my Facebook page
Acknowledgements
Thank you to awesome beta readers, Musings of a Romance Junkie, Mayanna Jerome, Zea Chin and Patricia Layne for your feedback. Shoutout to all my girls at Romance Divas who were so awesome at showing me how self-pubbing is done right.
Last but most importantly, thanks to Mr. Lockharte who helped make it all possible.
About the Author
Kara Lockharte is the author of the Space Shifters Chronicles. She loves writing romances with sexy alpha shifters and the strong heroines who can't resist them.
She lives on Planet Earth.
Copyright
The Boy Who Came Back a Wolf: SpaceWolf Chronicles: © 2015 by Kara Lockharte.
Cover by Croco Designs
All Rights Are Reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
The Boy Who Came Back a Wolf Page 5