Starting at his flanks, she alternately worked her palm into his warm muscles and then used her fingers to work out any knots of tension she found. Once she’d conquered those, she skimmed her fingers down one powerful thigh. She knew how sensitive the joints of his wings were, and a sudden spike of wickedness had her switching from his thighs to the more sensitive base of his tail.
At the first touch, he hissed something unintelligible, and the tip of his tail thumped almost violently against the floor. His wings threatened to unfurl and knock away her tormenting touch.
Taking pity on him, she moved on down his nearest leg, going slow and thorough until she reached his foot. After lovingly working on it for some time, she switched to the other and then worked her way back up his leg.
Then she eyed the great tail again, where it rested loosely coiled next to her, its bladed tip still twitching gently. Well, why not, she thought. It’s a part of him too.
After pouring another generous dollop of oil in her palm, she started working on his tail. Repeatedly, the appendage escaped her grasp and wrapped itself around some part of her instead. Gregory’s playful side was rearing up, and she knew she was in for trouble if she didn’t finish up soon.
As she fully expected, his tail got harder to hold as she neared the tip. Gregory, now more interested in play than a massage, continually tried to snatch it away from her. Being slippery with massage oil made it an almost impossible task on her part. Predictably, his third attempt met with success, and the tip escaped her and got inside her defenses, where it curled around her waist and up under her shirt. He then proceeded to tickle her in retaliation.
Lillian admitted defeat as she burst into giggles. He rose up and tackled her. Completely taken by surprise, she was knocked off balance but he rolled and caught her in his arms before she hit the ground. She’d barely registered he’d shifted into his more human looking hybrid form before warm lips were pressing kisses along her neck. While he was alternately nuzzling and nibbling, his tail was flicking caresses up and down her sides.
While she was still unbalanced, he shifted positions, coming to his knees with her pinned against his chest. Once she knew which way was up, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed soft kisses along the line of his jaw. A large hand was suddenly under her backside and she was hoisted up higher until she could easily brush her lips to his.
“Hmmm,” Gregory rumbled under his breath between kisses. “I might actually like playing human. Although, I think we need to work more on this first.” His lips stroked against hers before breaking away again to brush kisses along her cheeks and brow. “To be certain, of course.”
“Of course.” Lillian nodded sagely.
He shifted slightly, his knees edging outward for better balance and she suddenly found her own legs straddling his broad thighs. The new position combined with the thin material of her nightgown, left no doubt he liked holding her close. She leaned back and put some distance between them, enough so she could meet his gaze. He drew in a sharp breath and held it. Something struck her as very vulnerable about his body language just then.
She placed another lingering caress upon his lips and then said, “You’re the most beautiful being I know, both inside and out. No matter what the coming days may bring, I am honored to have you at my side. None could ask for a better protector.” She dropped her gaze and stroked her fingertips down his chest, and then added, “Or lover.”
Gregory made a soft sound, a wordless promise as he reached for the hem of her nightgown. She wiggled out of it as he helped to drag it over her head. Under it she was bare and her nipples beaded as his knuckles brushed across them.
He dropped the nightgown in a pile next to them and turned his attention back to her. Finding herself growing shy under his gaze, she ducked her head and her hair swung forward to shield her breasts.
Gregory seemed unconcerned by the development and began kneading her hips with his strong fingers.
“Mmm,” Lillian arched her back, shyness retreating before the heat rising within her. She pressed against him and simply allowed him to move her how he liked. The undeniable evidence of his arousal trapped between her thighs gave her pause and at the same time did something to fire the heat in her blood to new levels.
After a few more moments, he released his grip on her hips and glided his fingers up her sides and then cupped the heavy weight of her breasts. He cupped her gently before leaning down to taste first one than the other.
“Tonight was supposed to be about you,” she said as she clung to his shoulders, needing something to hold on to. While he was lavishing attention on her breasts, his one hand had been trailing south.
Smug male laughter wrapped around her. “We are one being.”
She gasped out a surprised moan at his touch and simply let him have his way. After a few more minutes of his skillful attentions, intense waves of pleasure had her eyes drifting closed. He continued to guide her movements and she sighed out another sound of pleasure. The building waves rolled over her before she’d expected it and Lillian called out his name as she came apart cocooned in his wings.
Gregory kissed her down from the peak, and she slumped against him, all her bones suddenly mush. Slowly, reason returned but she wasn’t displeased by the events that had happened.
A voice tinted with male pride brushed against her senses. “I take it I did that well?”
“Gloriously,” she replied, though she also knew he hadn’t reached the same end yet himself. “Would you like me to return the favor?”
“Anything you decide will give me pleasure, my beautiful dryad.”
She smiled and then returned to kissing him while she in turn allowed her hands to roam lower. The wood had burned to embers in the fireplace by the time they drifted to sleep much, much later.
Chapter Thirteen
Major Resnick led his team through the woods with an outwardly calm exterior, pretending there was nothing unusual about hunting invisible monsters. Inwardly, his mind was awhirl with all he’d seen in the last twenty-four, no make that thirty-six hours. Now the damn days were blurring together.
When he’d first been assigned to the mission, he’d thought alpha site was some kind of hoax—although, even he couldn’t hazard a guess as to what force had snapped trees like they were toothpicks in a one kilometer radius around the site but had otherwise left no evidence behind.
Things got stranger when the results from the samples taken at the crater came back. Everything in the immediate area was dead. It wasn’t just the trees and the animals either. Every blade of grass and patch of moss, they were all dead. Everything. Even the microbes. Nothing survived.
Some of the men had renamed Alpha site to Armageddon site.
He wasn’t superstitious or an overly religious man, but somehow he couldn’t blame them. After a brief hesitation, he’d started calling it Armageddon site in the privacy of his own mind.
That event had happened three months back, heralded by a towering pillar of light. Some of the locals had snapped pictures of the event and then came the media frenzy. What the general public didn’t know was that it had even been seen in space.
The government spin doctors made it out to be a particularly strong solar storm and the northern lights. Yeah, the locals didn’t buy into that story either, but the rest of the world did.
Resnick’s own world was far from peaceful but he’d stuck to his personal mantra: do his job and let the scientists figure out what happened at the bloody Armageddon site.
But then a local farmer found a mutated body near the town, and brass ordered the search farther afield for more clues. The scientists couldn’t link the two sites together beyond the presence of unexplainable anomalies. They had no idea how it had gotten there or what had killed it.
Clearly the specimen had looked like it had been in a battle and then crawled away to die. Nothing had touched its remains, not even insects according to the report. They’d had a dry spring and summer so far, co
oler than average but not damp, and the body was mostly mummified.
Then just two days ago they’d found a live one, and two other…as yet undiscovered species.
Still, his mind had trouble accepting the truth—that humans were not the only intelligent predator on the planet.
All such information was need to know. Secretly, he wished his mission hadn’t required him to need to know to do his job.
Ignorance truly was bliss. At least it helped one sleep peacefully at night.
He hadn’t slept since the town-wide masquerade, which was likely a blessing. He didn’t know what kind of nightmares would haunt his dreams now.
But what had happened was no dream. It was a very real battle. Many of the patrols out that night hadn’t returned at all, but anyone with ears had heard the firefight that ensued.
At the time, Resnick and all his units were passed out in the center of town like most everyone else. By the time they came to and reached the location of the battle, the fighting was over. There were signs of struggle, but no bodies. The survivors remembered nothing, just like all the town’s folk.
But search dogs were able to run three different specimens to ground.
One—a mad beast of pale skin and sharp fangs—Resnick had wanted to put down on the spot. Brass had ordered it brought in for study.
The other two specimens were actually caught because they were trying to kill the vampire-like creature. The tall elfish one had managed to put two arrows in the vampire. In turn, Resnick’s men and the two other teams nailed the big guy with three tranquilizer darts.
Their new target had escaped back into the forest. They were tracking him when they found a tiny four-foot tall female…something…trying to hide her unconscious friend from the search dogs.
Weird shit happened.
Resnick just wished it would stop happening on his watch.
And just last night he’d returned to base to find an intruder impersonating one of his men. Clearly, this one was an infiltrator of some kind and had planted himself with Resnick’s convoy to get inside the base.
His superiors claimed the decoy Corporal Jenkins was there to execute the vampire-like specimen, but had been discovered before he was able to complete his mission, and the one in the suit of armor had been sent to finish the job.
Something didn’t sit right with Resnick.
Why would the one in full armor kill the vampire-like specimen but not free the other two prisoners? He’d had plenty of time to free the other two while he’d been down on the rink, but he hadn’t bothered. It didn’t add up. Could the imposter Corporal Jenkins and Armor Suit represent two different warring factions?
When he’d brought his concerns to his superior, he’d been assigned patrol detail.
As if it was his team’s fault the newcomer had vanished before all their eyes. None of it made sense.
“Major, I found something that might prove interesting.”
Resnick made his way over to Lieutenant Landry, still scanning the area for nasty surprises. “Interesting is a forbidden word. The science geeks have killed it for me. Permitted words are ‘dangerous’ or ‘what-the-fuck-is-this.’ Understand?”
“Yes, sir.” The lieutenant eyed him dubiously. “They’re the cameras Corporal Mackenzie set up last week, before she went MIA.”
Anger and guilt warred within Resnick before he could push it back.
Mackenzie wasn’t much more than a kid. She was what, twenty-two? Bright, brave, foolhardy, third generation military. How the hell was he going to face her father? Brigadier General Samuel Mackenzie had been Resnick’s CO during his first tour. Despite a decade difference in their ages, they had maintained a close friendship for the last twenty years.
In part, that’s why Corporal Mackenzie had landed in Resnick’s unit. The day of the masquerade, he and his team had been out on patrol when the ridge they’d been exploring gave way. Mackenzie, Griffith, and Jones had all gotten a rough ride to the base of the ridge. He’d ordered them all back to get checked out.
By the time all hell had broken loose later that night, his three injured team members had been released from medical. He’d only learned after he’d come stumbling back to HQ that they had gone back out to help once they’d heard gunfire. No one had seen or heard from them since.
“Sir?”
“Just call them cameras next time.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you have something to view the data on?”
“No, but Ruthven does,” Lieutenant Landry said and jerked his chin in Master Corporal Ruthven’s direction where he was already shouldering off his pack. He passed a tablet to Landry.
“Good. Let me know if you see something more dangerous than deer.” To the others he motioned for them to fan out and do another quick scout of the area. Enemies that could pop in and out without leaving a trace made even him paranoid.
When they couldn’t find so much as a leaf out of place, he ordered a short rest.
Resnick took a drag on his water as he looked at the trees around him, and then up into the thick canopy overhead.
“You know,” he said more to the trees above than any one of his men in particular. “I think I know how our Robin Hood and the pixie Marion managed to avoid detection for so long.”
He remembered how the tall elfish fellow with the long bow had dropped down practically on top of Resnick’s team in his attempt to take out their fanged acquisition. The combination of the tree canopy, thick underbrush, and placement of Resnick’s team must have fouled up the elf lord’s shot.
Was it desperation, or just blind hate, which had driven him to expose himself to their team? Resnick didn’t have an answer. No one had been able to make tall, blond, and elfish talk.
But Resnick still had a feeling the elf might have been protecting everyone by trying to take out the fanged monstrosity.
“Trees,” Resnick said as he glanced over at Ruthven.
“Sir?”
“The damned trees. Robin Hood and our tiny Marion, I’d bet a week’s rations they use the trees to travel. Otherwise, we would have found some signs of them long ago.”
“Sir,” Landry spoke up over the others. “Not sure about trees, but I think I just found another mode of travel. You’ve got to see this. It’s way past interesting, straight into wtf territory.”
Resnick took the offered tablet. The feed had been paused and enlarged to take up the screen’s entire surface.
His eyes darted over the screen, and he sucked in a deep breath. “We move out now. Back to base, double time. Ruthven, put that thing back in your pack and protect it with your life.”
Private Jacobs walked up and tried to glance at the screen as Ruthven stowed the tablet in his pack. “What’s on it?”
“I’m not sure, exactly.”
Resnick gestured them to move out. “What’s on that device is so highly classified they haven’t created a designation for it yet. We are going to endure hours and hours of debriefings. That’s what’s on that damn device.”
Resnick kept his voice emotionless and controlled, but inside he was shaking.
He was sure what he’d mentally labelled elf, pixie and vampire were something science could explain—some kind of mutation, or highly illegal genetic experimentation. Something that had started out human.
What he’d seen on the tablet was not human, not even close. Never had been.
Chapter Fourteen
Lillian sat with the rest of the family around the kitchen table. A cooling cup of coffee rested in her hand. She’d been nursing it for twenty minutes, but couldn’t get it down.
Coffee had been hit and miss with her ever since she’d emerged from her hamadryad healing three weeks ago.
Had it only been weeks? The siren Tethys, the Riven, the human military. It all felt much longer than three short weeks.
Sipping her coffee, she grimaced. The rest of the family was equally as quiet. It had been another long night with only a few hours sleep. Well,
not that she and Gregory had spent the whole time sleeping, either.
She glanced around at her family. Her uncle was polishing off a bowl of porridge with more determination than joy by the look of it. Gran sat staring at her porridge—too tired to eat it, by all appearances, which had Lillian worried.
“We need to plan for what comes next. Any ideas?” she asked the table at large.
Gregory cocked an ear in her direction, but continued to finish his second bowl of porridge before he answered. “We rest and see what the humans do this day. Tonight, protected by darkness, we stage a rescue. We both scented our allies within that main building just before we fled.”
“Yes, but how will we manage it? They were planning to move them to a more secure location yesterday, just before we were discovered. Surely they have already moved them.
Gregory shook his head. “Darkness says Whitethorn and Goswin are still inside.” He sounded a touch displeased. “He took it upon himself to scout the area we did not have time to search. He found them drugged and trapped in clear-walled cages. He couldn’t escape with them both, not unconscious and during full daylight.”
Ah, the real source of his annoyance. Darkness had gone scouting without notifying Gregory first. He did so like knowing everything.
Lillian rubbed the bridge of her nose to hide her smile, and then turned serious again. “Then we still have a chance to rescue them before they get spirited off to god knows where. I’m glad our debacle didn’t spook the military into moving them early.”
“If anything, the debacle caused them to dig in and call for more reinforcements,” Gran said into her cup. “Our spies are keeping track of things and will inform us if they move our friends.”
“Spies?” Lillian asked, feeling like she’d missed something, again.
Gran made a fluttering gesture with her hand. “Like the messenger spells, but these ones watch and report back their news. If the soldiers notice a few more songbirds, squirrels and chipmunks than normal?” She smiled. “They will think nothing of it.”
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