Warrior Invasion: A Science Fiction Alien Mail Order Bride Romance (TerraMates Book 10)

by Lisa Lace

  "Seriously?" Bella muttered, opening her eyes and looking around. "I pass out, you guys obviously bring me to our cousin's, and the discussion you are having over me is about the king being a shifter? Hello? What about Ivy? Did I fall off my horse and hit my head or did Ivy really turn into a lion and save me from another lion?"

  Keelyn nodded, "She really did."

  "And that's not the major topic of conversation here?"

  "We discussed it, a bit. You've been passed out a long while. Mac carried you all the way here to Aunt Patty's."

  Aunt Patty was technically their Great Aunt, as she wasn't their mother's sister, but their grandmother's sister, but they had always called her Aunt Patty all the same.

  Since this was where Bella had actually been headed to find out some answers, she was glad they had brought her here instead of taking her back home.

  Answers must have been fresh in Keelyn's mind as well, since she continued by stating, "Ivy being a lion shifter does back up mom's claim that shifter blood runs through the family veins."

  "But Ivy never said a word!"

  "Would you have? If you realized you were a were among were-hunters?"

  "I..."

  "I don't blame Ivy for not telling us," Keelyn continued. "Look how you reacted over Mac and the rest of them."

  "That's different! They hid it from us. If Ivy had told us when she first found out- when did she find out anyway? We could have all figured it out together. She's my sister! Mom would have told us about her parentage sooner. We could have..."

  "Could have what? Hunted me? Shunned me?"

  Ivy spoke up, letting her presence be known as she entered the room.

  "Do you know how confusing it's been? Having these urges? Knowing something was wrong with me, but not being entirely sure?"

  "When did you find out? How did you?" Bella asked.

  "I wasn't entirely sure, not until well into puberty."

  "Ivy, that's been years!"

  "Is that why you asked mom what kind of shifter raped grandma?" Keelyn jumped in.

  "Yeah. I figured I already knew the answer, since I was a lion and all, but I wanted to hear it. I thought I was the only lion anywhere around here. I've hidden it for years, only shifting when the urge got absolutely irresistible, waiting until I was far away from the house to hunt. I thought I was some kind of freak, but then when mom said what she said, I knew she was speaking the truth. I guess it skipped a generation, but I figured grandma's rapist must have been a lion. It explained sooo much.

  Then when Bane's men came, and started talking about lions attacking the castle, that was a sucker punch. Finally I hear about others nearby, others like me, and they are murderers! They're attacking the castle, holding the king in preparation to kill him, and they are hunting Bane and Keelyn, to boot. I just couldn't comprehend it. Then you took off, Bella, before David and Ryker said there were two lions sent out here, hunting Bane and Keelyn, so I knew I had to go with them to find you.

  There wasn't time to tell anyone what I was, but when I saw that lion about to rip your throat out-" she stopped, tearing up at the memory.

  Keelyn tried to give Ivy a second, changing the subject slightly, "Buttercup is ok. He has some scratches and gouges, and he may always limp, but he came here. He was already here when we got here. Aunt Patty was worried, of course, when he showed up without a rider. She sent the cousins out to look for whoever disappeared off of him, but we ran into them as they were headed out to look."

  Bella nodded, glad her horse was ok, but something else was tugging at her attention.

  "You said there were two? Two lions sent here after Bane? I only saw one, besides Ivy anyway. Where is the second lion?"

  "We're not sure," Bane answered that time.

  He'd been giving the girls some space to work things out, but at the mention of the second lion, he spoke up.

  "So it could still be out there? Hunting? What if it went to mom's?"

  "Then Naythan will protect them. Maybe even Ash as well. Ash is still an infant, in human form, but even a baby wolf has some skills. Distraction if nothing else. He could draw the lion's attention long enough for Naythan to take care of things. They'll be ok. I would like to get back there, though. To be sure. Your aunt and cousins were closer, but now that you're ok..."

  "Yes, of course! Let's go."

  "It's the middle of the night, Bella. We'll go at first light. How are you feeling? Mac caught you, so you didn't hit your head or anything. You seem fine now. Was it just the shock? Maybe coupled with the pregnancy?"

  Bella took stock, now that she thought to. She felt fine, just a bit crooked in her shell from fainting. She tried to remember the last time she'd eaten a full meal. It was right before she'd gone out to meet Mac on the swing, before everything else happened, so not too long, since Aunt Patty's was just a few hours away.

  "How long was I out?"

  "Just a few hours. You were over halfway here when we caught up to you, Mac carried you here. It was slower going, since he was careful. He didn't want you to fall off his back or anything. You came to pretty quick once we got here. Patty welcomed us, showed us in here to get you laid down. She and the cousins are rounding up some food, since you seem to need to eat constantly right now, with that baby..."

  "The baby!" Ivy exclaimed. "Bella, we figured out that it can't be a shifter. Sammy couldn't have been a shifter, so the baby can't be either..."

  "Unless it skips two generations," Keelyn teased.

  "What?" She grinned as all eyes flew to her. "Ivy is. Maybe Bella isn't and her kid is, even though Sammy wasn't."

  "Stop messing around. What are you talking about?" Bella asked. "How do you know Sammy wasn't a shifter?"

  "We really should have realized before, once you said it out loud that you were thinking down those lines, but then mom said her stuff and then the guys showed up. It just didn't register, that's all." Bane said.

  "What didn't register? How do you know my baby isn't a shifter's baby?"

  Bane was the one who answered her.

  "Didn't you say Sammy was found hanging?"

  "Yes."

  "Was there anything piercing his heart as well? Or was he just hung?"

  "He was just...oh! I see where you're going."

  Keelyn was nodding along with Ivy.

  "If he was a shifter, he couldn't have hung himself. Even the shifter Ivy killed, even though it was shifter against shifter, she had to pierce the heart."

  "So if Sammy was just human..."

  "So is the baby. Minus any shifter blood you yourself bring to the equation, which, another generation away from your grandmother, means that odds are, you aren't carrying a shifter's spawn," Bane said, stone faced.

  Bella heard the words spoken without emotion, and knew Bane was keeping himself tightly controlled.

  She had never hidden her feelings about shifters, but she was forced to admit that maybe they were... she wasn't entirely sure what word fit here. Premature? Uninformed?

  Until tonight she'd had no idea that her own blood carried shifter genes, even if they weren't expressed. She could easily have been born the one who shifted, instead of Ivy.

  That seemed to change things, deep in her heart.

  She knew her sister well, or thought she did. If Ivy, her sweet if overly protective and dogged sister was a shifter, than maybe she had misjudged shifters as a whole.

  Add to that the fact that Keelyn, her tough, ass-kicking sister who had initially shared her beliefs, down to hunting them, but who had given that up after growing to love one of them, and maybe shifters were something she could rethink her feelings about.

  "So," she started, letting everyone in the room in on her thoughts. "Sammy, the man who raped me, who I thought was a shifter, wasn't. And Ivy, who is my sister, who I love and adore, is a shifter. Keelyn, who used to hunt their kind, has now mated with and agreed to marry one of them. Naythan and Bane, both men I've come to admire and care for, aren't just men after all, but shifte
rs. And Mac..."

  She stopped there, thinking about Mac and everything he had done for her, starting with bringing a grumpy, growly, pregnant woman peppermint to soothe her stomach. Every time he cooked for them, every time he was there for her, even knowing she carried another man's child, every kindness he'd ever shown her played in slow motion through her head.

  Every kiss, every caress, every time he put her needs before her own.

  Mac, who she'd been falling for before his bear-ness had come out, who had told her that he had scented her as his mate the first time he saw her- her Mac .

  "It seems I've been very backward in my beliefs. It seems that I thought black was white, and white was black. I need to find Mac, to talk to him. Is he here?"

  "Yeah, he's here somewhere," Bane answered. "He's been worried about you and the baby. He's been trying to give you some space. Bella, he's a good man. A great man, to be honest. You really couldn't do any better in a mate. Even knowing how you felt about him, he carried you here. Even before that, in the heat of battle, he..."

  "He stood guard over me, I know. I remember."

  Bane nodded, content to stay quiet from there.

  "He even said he didn't care that I carried another man's baby. He said it didn't matter, that he already knew about it when he scented me. He said that if I carried a baby inside me, then that baby was meant to be his as well, to love and to raise, if I chose to keep it.

  He said I hold his heart, and I know I've been stupid, and blind, but now I see.

  If grandma hadn't kept mom, her own rapist's baby, raising her with granddad, none of us would be here. Not Kee, not me, not Ivy. I need to go to Mac."

  Aunt Patty's voice broke in right then. She'd entered the room to tell them she had some food ready for them all, but instead she spoke up in surprise.

  "Who said Enid was a rapist's baby? Enid? Hmmm, if I remember correctly, there was more than a fair share of doubt to that story. The way I remember it was a little bit different. I saw how your grandmother was when that boy came sniffing around, no pun intended. I always thought his version of the story was closer to the truth. I think your grandmother lay down with that shifter of her own free will. More than once, too, I'd bet. But when our daddy got wind of it, well suddenly she was denying everything. Almost cost him his life, it did."

  Chapter 15

  With all the rooms in the house being taken- Ivy bunking with the cousins, Bella given the couch, Bane and Keelyn sharing the one extra bedroom, Mac, David and Ryker were told that the only place left was the barn.

  Since the second lion was still unaccounted for, David, Ryker and Mac decided to alternate patrolling the area, two at a time, while one slept. David and Ryker said they were still too hopped up to sleep, so Mac had the first sleeping shift, but once he'd settled down in the barn's hay loft, he found that he was still pretty hopped up himself.

  He mulled over all of the events of the night, starting with Bella telling him that she thought Sammy had been a shifter.

  While Bella had been passed out, and the rest of the group talked, they all realized that he couldn't be, since Sammy hadn't been killed through his heart. That aside, Mac focused not on Bella's conclusion earlier, but on how he thought she probably arrived at it.

  He figured that Bella needed a way to deal with Sammy raping her, and that she probably latched onto the idea of him being a shifter gladly, and held tight, because that way she could compartmentalize him in her mind.

  Shifters, bad. Sammy, bad. Rapists, bad.

  It was a simple way to divide good and evil in her mind, and by believing Sammy the rapist was also a shifter, all of her bad things got to be tucked away nicely in her head in a big, bad, shifter bow.

  Then, when her sister Ivy shifted into lion form, and protected her, Bella's divisions of who and what constituted good and evil must have crashed into each other inside her head. That, plus stress, plus pregnancy all probably triggered her to pass out.

  Mac wondered if Bella would turn away from Ivy now, as it seemed like she turned away from both him and Keelyn when she headed out here all alone on horseback.

  He wondered if she was awake yet, and if so, was she feeling even more betrayed? Everything she'd been taught to hate, everything she'd thought was evil- shifters, was being challenged with all of the events of tonight, and he was too busy wondering how she was going to handle this fork in the road of her very belief system to sleep.

  Would she turn bitter, like Enid had? Would she keep an open mind since Ivy was one of the shifters she hated so?

  His brain went round and round until thoughts of Bella were so real in his mind that he could almost smell her...wait! He breathed deeply, drinking in Bella's scent.

  She was here! She scented uncertain and nervous, but she was here, and she was looking for him.

  "Mac? Are you in here?"

  She called out quietly- loud enough to be heard if he was awake, but quiet enough that if he wasn't, she wouldn't disturb him.

  "I'm here, Bella. Up in the loft. Hang on, I'll come down."

  He didn't bother to pull his shirt back on, he just jumped up and headed for the ladder.

  Bella was halfway up it already, and he chided her for it.

  "You don't need to be climbing, Bell. Not in your condition. I said I was coming down."

  "I'm just pregnant, not hurt. I can climb a ladder. I wanted to speak with you privately, so I figured up there would be better. Crap, I didn't think about David and Ryker. Are they up there, too? I was trying not to stir everyone up."

  "They aren't here. They took first patrol. My shift starts in a few hours."

  He got out of her way as she crested the top of the ladder and joined him in the loft. Once she was sure of her footing, she looked up at him and he watched her eyes go wide.

  She darted little looks down over him, his chest, then his eyes. His stomach, then back up to his eyes.

  He raised his eyebrows and bit back a grin as he realized she was checking him out, but trying not to be obvious about checking him out.

  The quick, heated scent of sudden arousal that she started to give off made him unsteady. He stepped back to regain himself, and took shallow breaths.

  Her reaction to him made him hopeful, but he didn't want to push. The scent of her still washed over him, even as he tried to breathe in less of her. Maybe she didn't hate him after all? Maybe there was still a chance?

  Her reaction to him must have thrown her a bit too, as she had started to say something when she made it up here, but now she seemed to be trying to collect her words again.

  "How are you feeling?" He asked, trying to help her out.

  "Hmm? Me? Oh, I'm ok. I'm embarrassed more than anything. I've never passed out in my life til tonight."

  "I've heard pregnancy and stress can do that. Your body's way of protecting itself, or something."

  "Which is so silly, right? You'd think I'd be better protected doing just about anything other than falling down in a heap, unconscious. Anything else, really, like running, or fighting, but no. Instead my body said 'let's lay down right here and be extra vulnerable.' Figures."

  Mac laughed at the way she described passing out, but he had to admit she had a point.

  "Although, I have heard that playing dead can have its advantages sometimes."

  "Oh yeah, like when? When you want to be killed but don't want to see it coming?"

  He smiled at her, but didn't say anything else.

  They looked at each other in silence for a beat or two, and then she said, "Oh! I have some very interesting news to share."

  He nodded at her to continue, trying to breathe mostly out of his mouth so as not to smell her and make it any harder on himself than it already was.

  "Aunt Patty, she's Enid's mom's sister..."

  "Yeah, I know."

  "Sorry, I forgot you've actually been awake and functioning, unlike me. Anyway, Aunt Patty said that mom's version of grandma's story might not be one hundred percent accurate. Sh
e said that she thinks grandma may not have been raped."

  "Really? We figured that when Ivy shifted lion that Enid's story was true."

  "Mom's parentage may very well be true, but Aunt Patty said there was a lot of uncertainty around whose version of events was true, grandma's version where she told her dad that she was raped after she was found to be pregnant, and the guy's version, which was more like it was a consensual thing."

  "Don't most rapists say 'she wanted it?'"

  Bella stiffened, and Mac jumped in to apologize.

  "Bella, I didn't mean to make light..."

  "I know. It's ok. Really. I too have heard that. But Aunt Patty said that she herself saw grandma and the guy together on a few occasions, and that she always had doubts."

  "Interesting. That makes sense, though. As sisters growing up together, she would have been privy to some things, I'd bet. What kind of stuff did she see that makes her doubt?"

  "She wouldn't say. She said she was too tired after all the excitement and that she was too old for this staying up shit and she was going to bed," Bella laughed, quoting her. "She did say that she'd tell us everything she knows tomorrow at breakfast, so I guess until then it's still a mystery."

  "So, until then..."

  It got quiet again, and Mac broke the silence this time.

  "Did the others tell you what we figured out about Sammy?"

  "That he couldn't have been a shifter? Yeah, they told me. Of course Keelyn had to say that the baby still could be, since we do carry shifter blood, and then she grinned at Ivy."

  Mac laughed, "Yeah, that does sound like something Keelyn would say."

  "So, Ivy..." Mac drawled, after they agreed that Keelyn was a bit of a troublemaker.

  "Yeah, Ivy. That's actually one of the things I came out here to talk to you about. Mac, I'd like to apologize to you. You've been nothing but amazing to me, and I repaid that by being a total bitch about a lot of things.

  The events of tonight have opened my eyes to things that I never thought I'd ever have to face. Everything mom said, about the past, and about grandma, at first only cemented my beliefs. But now? After seeing Ivy shift, after watching her single handedly take down another lion, for me, well I guess it came down to the fact that I love my sister. Both of them. If one of them is a shifter, and the other one loves a shifter, then maybe I'm the one with the stereotype issues.