The computer screen flicked on.
My body flinched even though it couldn't cough up a chuckle moments ago.
Thomas' face consumed the rectangle. "Raven, I see you're comfortable down in the cellar. But things have just changed."
Yes, like my privacy has been invaded.
"I know you're angry, Raven. I know you want to curse me to high heaven. But I need you to listen to me."
He's so brilliant. Good lord. "Nobody cares about heaven, AEI, Thomas. Besides, what do you want to say? I'm going to turn this computer off. If you have even a sliver of sense left in one brain cell, you will leave me alone. Or I will smash this computer monitor."
He threw up his palm. "No, Raven. Please listen. There are signs the aliens are active on the ground and planning to do something. Most likely come here--"
"You really are crazy." I should have road out earlier. On Colt's horse! "You're just saying that to get me to do what you want."
"No." He wagged his head and set his jaw. "I'm serious. I know you're strong-willed. It's one of those traits that's allowed you to survive and become the strong independent woman I wanted you to be."
If he thinks compliments are going to soothe things over between us, he's going senile fast. "If you thought that, you would have asked me if I wanted to go back East instead of telling me I was going."
"No. You're wrong." He waved around his body and peered around the cellar through the computer screen. "All of this, I always wanted it all to be yours. I needed you to be strong so you could take over when I'm gone. And I left you with the skills to tend it like that garden you love. And the berry patch." His mask strained to plead that I listen. "You can't stay down there alone--"
The picture jolted with static lines resembling a lightning bolt only to flick back to the desperation scratching lines more deeply into his weathered face. However, what he'd been saying was lost. And he really looks old today.
"I feel something," he said, turning to look at the two people who stood behind him.
"It's the extermination ray," Ebony yelled.
Extermination ray?
The hairs popped to chilly attention on my neck.
My gut dove off some inner cliff it found.
Probably in one suicidal leap or running for its life.
"Stay there, Ra--"
The lights blinked off.
And the monitor.
And then there was silence.
Just me in a black void.
Where would I be going anyway? The only safe place is three-feet under!
What in the world does the extermination ray do? I'd heard about it. But how does it work? I'm safe underground. Three feet down, Colt said. Here. Alone.
All alone.
I don't want to be alone when the Parkers return or to experience rites of possession first hand. Should I stay or make a run for the house? I wouldn't be alone there.
Something slammed overhead.
Outside in the barn.
The aliens.
My gut did panic-induced somersaults.
A pounding throbbed at the cellar door.
The aliens.
They found me too quickly.
Thomas was right all along. The aliens could detect computer activity and locate the computers that were active. Where's my shotgun?
Can I even kill an alien with a shotgun?
Darkness has a way of making you want to curl up and die during situations like this.
Pistols. I grabbed the cold hard grips and backed up as far as I could.
Bang.
Bang.
The aliens are trying to break into the cellar. It's like each pounding blow was trying to shoot me. Or make my body crack with the fear trembling through every cell of my being. Back. I need to retreat enough to be able to react, hidden in this darkness. I stepped backward.
Away from the threat of rites of possession.
The shelf bit into my shoulder blades.
The door began to screech.
No groan. The metal door is groaning.
Why?
Like it's straining or bending.
Oh my fucking God. They're pulling it open.
The door will hold.
It's locked with extra thick steel bars like ceiling beams. It must hold. Or I'll have to fight. I tugged out the pistols and pointed them where the door should be in the blackness of my home-turned-trap.
Oh the irony. I'd walked right into this one. And the Parkers had nothing to do with cornering me.
Women.
The aliens want women.
More like Cougars. But everyone wants women. The aliens probably mate us to Shifters they've already captured. Why?
One way or the other, I'm going to be mated in the end.
What did Ebony mean? Rites of possession…
I'd rather be dead.
****
The glowing orange extermination ray crept across the dark earth's surface, through the barn wall, toward me where I hunched at the cellar door, both front quasi-paws wrapped around the ring, heaving.
Feet away. It is coming, almost burning through the ground. But nobody knows whether the ground changes a fraction of a degree in temperature because nobody the orange light has ever touched ever survived. And this Gods-be-damned door is holding tight.
Still locked. Shit. And the funny thing is Thomas had struggled with me to run here. But I won the honor of death by extermination ray.
Protect mine, Wolf clawed and snarled.
Must pull. I heaved with everything in my shoulders until there was nothing but popping sinew.
Wolf screamed.
Frustrated. Unfortunately not loud enough to push back the orange glow.
And the door cast me aside.
I flew threw the air, backward feet, clutching the metal ring on the hatch.
My hind paw landing Gods-be-damned inches from the creeping glow that would suck the life out of any living cell.
Sunset orange. Promising of life it could spark when bound within a banked coal. I'd always liked the color. But this time, the warm fuzzy color of those coals set Wolf's instincts leaping back toward the open doorway. Bouncing before the purling luminescent intruding entity on the ground. Barely ahead of the amoebic wave of death, I shoved the hard unforgiving ground one last time.
Just once.
To save Raven.
Mine!
My Wolf body dove through the black rectangle of a hole.
Falling. Past the orange seeping through the upper three feet of the stairwell's walls. Seeping like filling some void and supporting the planet in the extraterrestrial ray's five-mile-radius kill zone.
Air fingered every inch of my Wolfskin. Until every cell in my being told me the floor was coming. I thrust my legs out beneath me and landed on all fours.
The floor struck me with a jolt.
Wolf in my eyes, I could see her glowing red-hot form, stressed, standing there, arms thrust toward me, assuming a ready stance to shoot. Surely she could see the glow above us. She had to know what it was. We'd just had a discussion about the ray earlier.
"Where's Thomas?" she shouted.
Thomas' tail better be in the house's secret room with Ebony because mine is screwed. I can shift back into human form and talk Raven into sparing my nude ass, or I can tackle her and pin her down until the ray fades away. How long would that take? She is not going to appreciate a nude male with an unavoidable erection in her face when she didn't ask for either.
"Colt, if that's you, start talking," she warned.
Fuck. Shifters don't communicate well with Normals in either of their Wolf forms. But she can't see well enough to scowl too much in this extremely low-level lighting. So, I'm just going to shape shift, birthday suit and all. I gulped down air and shoved Wolf back into my inner chasm.
"It's coming," she screamed.
I jerked around one-hundred-and-eighty degrees to find the ceiling orange-hot like the aliens had melted it into magma. "It won't
penetrate more than three feet of the ceiling." I turned to study her reaction.
She stood in the weak orange light emitted by the haunting reminder of death, both arms hanging at her side with pistols in hand, her gaze wandering down the length of my body.
Down! My human form. I had to be as illuminated as she was. Me in all of my natural glory. That's certain to set her off again.
Wolf hummed with satisfaction.
Finally getting the attention he'd been looking for.
Her gaze stopped at what had to be Wolf's stiffening cock, then flicked back to meet mine. "Buck and you are brothers, right? I mean, full brothers. Not half."
She is not comparing us. Can't be. I'm ten times better at everything.
Mine, Wolf snarled.
"You don't have to be rude. It was a compliment." She waved a pistol at me like a finger. "You know. Like you're the most impressive man I think I've ever seen." Her gaze snapped back to my crotch then up to my eyes again. "I'd rather be with him than suffer those rites of possession Ebony mentioned."
Mine. Mine. Mine! Wolf kicked and scratched.
I swear my ribs started popping.
Every cell in my skin began to itch.
Not some ominous warning other than Wolf is taking over. Not good for our little kitten. I gulped to contain my inner beast.
Why should I fight the inner urge to mark her? She'd brought this on herself saying Buck had better look like me.
Hairs began to ping along my back.
"Colt, you look strange."
She has no idea how strange it feels to have some inner parasite bursting free of one really tight fabric of cells.. But I'm not going to mark her like an animal. No. I'm going to show her how I feel about her. I held my breath, gulping Wolf down.
Wolf leapt in one graceful motion to land me feet first before her.
The sneaky-ass mangy cur. But I'm still here and still demanding Wolf sit and play dead.
Her eyes were as wide as a full moon. "Colt? You're scaring me."
Those words rang with indecision. Confusion. This isn't the way to mate. I leaned closer to those glinting orbs.
So close that I could tell my face and most of my body hadn't furred out from what I could see in my periphery. At least in standing this close, she's looking into my eyes and not the evidence of Wolf's plans to mate. So close that I could smell the remnants of wine on her lips. Why had she been drinking? She could have anything she wanted to make her feel better.
But Thomas said she never asked for anything.
Until that night she was drunk. She kissed me. Made me harder than stone. Wriggled in my lap until I thought Wolf would rip me in two like a split cocoon.
Something in her eyes softened.
Maybe it's the fear. More like the extermination ray's glow sparking stars of life in those orbs.
She blinked slowly.
Almost drugged by the way she seemed to struggle to hold her eyelids open. Invitingly. And that's what she's wanted--to invite me to a party.
Her gaze rolled down to my lips. "You should put some pants on."
Maybe something else and incredibly rational told her to stop at my lips? But I'd rather her take a gander at Wolf's bone now. Hard. Throbbing for her. "Maybe you should take yours off."
Her gaze snapped to meet mine. "What would your mate think about you saying that to a woman?"
That's it.
That's what has been wrong. She didn't want Buck. Never wanted him. She thought I was mated. Time to show her otherwise. I leaned closer.
So close that the little puffs of warm breath coming from her parted lips warmed mine.
The tips of our noses touched.
She almost looked cross-eyed at me but managed to stare deeply into my eyes.
****
He was so close. All that amazing chiseled body of his. Uncloaked. And the way part of it was changing, I understood why women mated Shifters. They could shift alright into nothing evenly remotely as hideous as a cockroach Parker. Right into being armed and dangerous. The kind of magnificence that made a girl go mindless. Off limits, yes. He is. It doesn't hurt to take in the beauty. But, dear God, I just blinked to find he's a hair's width from me in every direction.
Humming.
Warm.
And all I can do is stand here and bask in his glory.
"I'm not mated, Raven," Colt sucked in a haunting sigh, "yet."
Darkness hid his face. Blocked anything but his tone and the warm touch of his fingertip beneath my chin. Finger and thumb now. I swear I can feel his pulse in one of the pads of those fingers.
He tilted my mouth up to his.
Yet.
Yet.
My heart started jumping in every direction. Faster and faster. Until it somehow magically brought his lips down to press against mine.
Yet…
My heart melted in a rush of molten heat tumbling down to pool low in my belly.
First kiss. First kiss. What do I do?
His lips separated enough to catch my upper lip in between them.
Softly. So gently that I wanted to open my mouth and sink into him.
Yet! What does that mean?
One of his arms snaked around my lower back and made my wish come true. His body didn't betray his own wish. Not with the hard club I felt smashed between our abdomens. But that didn't matter. Nor the way he held me so tightly. So perfectly with my neck curved back to feed his demanding presence…His mouth wandering back and forth between my cheek and lips to thrust his tongue deeply into my own mouth. I wanted to climb up everything that resonated strength--him, hang onto those broad shoulders, wrap my legs around his slinking corded body. And do something to rid this hollow demanding ache I felt down deep between my legs.
His mouth wandered a tickling path down to the bend in my neck where his lips sucked so strongly that all I could do was lace my fingers around his neck and hold on beneath the scrape of his circle beard while my heart dive-bombed off some cliff it had been trapped upon.
Again and again.
The damned organ. I managed to hold my footing, leaning.
More and more. I kept tilting away from the amazing massaging sensation of his gentle hungry mouth like it was the most natural thing to do when all logic said press into him. But the warm suction from those massaging lips kept insisting that if I leaned just a little bit farther he could reach some magic spot. Somewhere…
Nothing matters. Not even the orange glow.
Orange glow.
Thomas.
What's happening above ground? I shoved a few inches away from Colt and wedged a hand between his dogmatic mouth and my damp sticky skin. "Colt?" I asked his dark hulk of a silhouette.
"What's wrong?" Some faint light glinted in his eyes.
"What's happening up there?"
"You don't want to think about that."
No. I like kissing and touching soft supple muscles. Especially when they're so agreeable to my wants. But what's happening to my chickens? What about my donkey? And Thomas is up there.
His warm supportive arms tightened around me so carefully.
"It's alright, Raven. We can't do anything about it. Just relax." He tried to cuddle that wily mouth of his back down in the crook of my neck.
Oh, how he could make my knees buckle. Those knees are the only thing that can keep me on my toes. I shoved his prickly whiskers away with my palm. "What about Thomas?"
His dark form relaxed with one long exhalation. "The beam wipes out any living tissue it touches. But Thomas is underground."
Colt's here. How can he know? "You don't know that."
"Yes, I do." His arms snaked up my shoulders to draw my nose into the warm scent of the house's fireplace perfuming his chest. "I left him with Ebony when he insisted I find you."
Insisted? Thomas hasn't been thinking clearly since the Parker attack. Something about insisted isn't right. Or I'm not thinking correctly myself. Not with wobbly knees and daredevil organs. I turned my hea
d sideways until my cheek rested against the mound of flesh covering Colt's rattling heart, just so I could think clearly without his mouth playing with mine. "Are you certain he stayed?"
"He wasn't up for walking after I punched him."
What? I shoved back from Colt until the shelf bit into my shoulder blades again. "You punched that old man?"
Colt's arms thrust upward as he planted those dark forms on his hips. "Now, Raven, you know how dogmatic he is with his ideas. It's like he had some brilliant epiphany on how to make gold out of water. And then he started running up the stairs like there was a deluge. I had to do something. I couldn't keep up with him and try to retrieve you."
Thomas could be dead…
His arms snaked around my lower back and pulled me toward his warmth. "Now don't jump off the deep end too. I just pulled you back to--"
Men. "Don't tell me what to do." I slipped between his arm and body then began pacing beneath the strange orange light overhead.
Pacing turned out to be a bad activity. Every time I turned around, there was Mr. Glory propped up like Greek statuary, nude, with all his prized parts bulging. Perfectly. Like he posed for my pleasure. He needs to cover up. "There are men's clothes on the right side of that shelf."
"Shifters don't care about nudity," he said flatly.
As if I do! Or care about his nudity. "Fine. Stand around without pants on. When the aliens come, I want to have my pants on."
He snorted and chuckled. "You win. But after we find Thomas, I'm taking care of that yet, Kitten."
Oh. Oddly enough, I like the sound of that promise. How crazy we just met. How insane we both are open to the idea of mating. But not until I help Thomas.
****
Everything about Raven suddenly changed when I warned her she was mine. Her heartbeat settled down. She smiled coyly while turning away from me. Not because I was buck naked and she had the full frontal view of me. No. She just seemed to ease up and pace less adamantly. And Wolf finally shut up. So, I found some soft worn jeans and resumed my vigilant duty holding up the bookcase with my upper back.
Propped up there, ankles and arms crossed, watching her was one of those moments when I knew I had to do something. I needed to grab her. To talk to her. Convince her to believe me. Because the second that damned light burned out, we're back to worrying about the aliens and Thomas.
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