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

by Lisa Lace

  As Bella tried to move everyone in her mind, like chess pieces, to determine the best and most strategic outcome for all involved, they climbed the last big rise and looked out over her home.

  It was still a mile or two away, but she could see it now, and she felt better just knowing they were almost there.

  A sound reached her ears just then that made her skin crawl and her heart pound faster in her chest. It was a sound she'd only heard one time before, on her way to Aunt Patty's- the sound of a big cat's roar.

  She gripped Mac's fur harder with her fists, leaning down over him even more, trying to fit herself to him so he could run faster.

  The last stretch home seemed to last longer than all the miles before. Ivy took off ahead of them, no longer content to stay back. Bane sped up as well, and Bella saw Keelyn reach behind her, grab her bow, and load it with an arrow, all in one quick motion.

  Mac started to slow down as the others sped up, and Bella looked around, confused as to why. When he slid to a stop, and ducked down, she knew that he was telling her to get off. She started to protest, but the words died in her throat.

  What good was a pregnant, non-shifting, non-were hunting human going to be in a fight against a lion? She hesitated, her longing to help at war with her rational side. It was best for her to stay here, out of the way. She knew it was so, but she was sad to admit it.

  She wanted to be as much of a bad-ass as her sisters, but she wasn't. And she was pregnant, to boot.

  Mac growled lightly under her, and she started to slide off of him, accepting her fate. He moved though, as if he'd changed his mind. She stayed on his back until he got close to a very large, tall tree in a thick line of other trees, and he stood slowly on his back legs. He stopped, lining himself up with a thick, strong branch high in the biggest tree, and Bella realized that he wanted her to stay there, in the tree, high up above any lions who may pass by underneath.

  With a sigh, she left his back and stepped onto the branch, saying, "This sucks, Mac! I want to help. Surely I can be of some help."

  He growled in response, obviously torn between wanting to soothe her, protect her and her baby, and at the same time go run in and help the others, so she just sighed and said, "Go. I get it. But it still sucks!"

  He lifted a paw to her face, the thick leather pads bigger than her whole head, with his claws making it even bigger. He touched his paw to her cheeks, gently, before whining, and then dropping back to all fours.

  "You be careful, too, you big beast. I just found you, you'd better come back to me in one piece!"

  He looked up at her there, perched high.

  She looked back down at him, angry at her own ineptness as a human, and for the first time in her whole life, wishing she too was a shifter so she could feel useful.

  "Well go on then! Go save everyone while I sit here. Hey, can you Turn me? With a bite or something?" She was mostly thinking out loud, and his answering roar didn't confirm or deny if he could, or would, but it did make her say, "I was just asking. Go! I'll be here..."

  "...missing everything..." she muttered as she watched Mac's big bear form run hard for her house, without her.

  She cursed herself, wishing she were more like Ivy or Keelyn so she could help, as the sounds of battle reached her ears.

  Occasional cat roars, Ivy's or the other one, she wasn't sure, met with what she knew was Mac's roar. The one advantage to their only being one bear in the mix was that she knew it was Mac. The wolves were quiet, but she knew wolves only made noise when they weren't in battle. They howled, pack style, when they were on the hunt, circling their prey, but in the heat of battle all growls and howls stopped, as wolves fought sleek and deadly, but mostly silent.

  She wished she knew what was going on.

  How long had the lion been here? Had it killed Enid, Naythan, Sandra and baby Ash, and just waited for the rest of them to come home? Surely Naythan was up to taking on a lion. Who normally wins in the wild when it's lion against wolf, she wondered? Did their human sides come into play in their animal forms? Cause if so, she'd bet on Naythan for the win. He was protecting a wife and child, the lion was just on a job. Would that have tipped the scales?

  What about Ash? Could wolf cubs fight very well? Obviously he'd be no match for a lion, but could they defend themselves some? Or was Ash a sitting duck?

  Had Ryker and David gotten here far enough ahead of everyone to help Naythan? If so, surly three and a half wolves were better than a lion?

  And now with Ivy, Bane and Mac as well, surely the lion had no chance. So why was she still hearing lion roars? Maybe they treed that damn thing?

  Oh, shit. Cats can climb trees, she realized. They climb trees really, really well.

  She wondered if Mac had thought of that before he put her in one.

  Everyone is fine. They have to be. A lion, a bear, and a few wolves can take down one lion any ole day. Right? Right?

  She was more worried here, not knowing what was happening, than she would have been if she'd ridden Mac straight into the middle of it all.

  As she stewed, she promised herself that she'd get Keelyn to teach her more with the bow, and to practice more with what she was good at, her knife, instead just assuming she'd be safe cause she lived in one place instead of traveling and hunting like Kee did.

  It got quiet, no more roars reaching her ears, and she started to worry even more.

  She said screw it, and found a relatively easy way to climb down, landing with a soft thump in the dirt. She had just started heading home, regardless of what Mac wanted her to do, when she heard something moving through the trees.

  It was stealthy, and quick from what she could tell, but not completely silent.

  Something was headed her way, and she stepped aside, putting her back against the nearest big tree, searching the woods, hoping it was one of her family members coming for her and not a lion. At least if it was a lion, she hoped it was Ivy.

  It wasn't Ivy.

  The lion was a darker blonde than Ivy's, and it was wounded. It wove its way through the tree line, limping. It was covered in blood, and Bella wasn't quite sure how it was still alive.

  It was covered in open wounds, huge bear paw slash marks on its right shoulder, running from where its ear used to be, down its neck, and scratching over its shoulder and down its ribs. Teeth punctures and tears seemed to cover the rest of it, and it was walking with one of its back legs held up now, not putting any pressure on it anymore. It had gone from limping to kind of hopping on its one back leg.

  Its eyes were wide with pain, and she heard it mewling an odd, pained purr, supposedly to help soothe itself as it escaped.

  How in the hell was it still alive?

  Something in her landed on the how- it was a shifter, and therefore needed its heart to be pierced to die.

  Bella also remembered that shifters heal super-fast. If the lion managed to get away, it would heal quickly, and, she realized, if it managed to get this far, the others must be just as bad off, if any of them were still alive.

  She hadn't heard Mac's roar in a while, and that scared her. If this beast was here, things had gone very, very wrong.

  She watched as the beast got closer to her. It hadn't noticed her yet. All of its attention was probably on its own survival now that it thought it was free, but Bella knew that if it kept on its current path, it was only a matter of time before it ran right into her.

  You wanted to help, here's your chance.

  Bella pulled Keelyn's old bow and arrow from behind her shoulder, and felt a sense of deja-vu as she faced down her second lion shifter in two days. Only this time, neither Ivy, nor anyone else, was around to save her.

  She pulled thoughts of her family into her head, the only armor she had against this quickly approaching lion. Her instincts told her to try to stay hidden, to use the noises it was making as it hopped through the woods to cover her own footsteps and ease out of its path, but seeing those gaping bear claw wounds told her that Mac had
tried, and failed. She was all that stood in the way of this lion now, and she'd be damned if she let the creature that attacked the ones she loved most in the world just hop on by.

  She drew back on the bow's string, aimed for its chest, and let her arrow fly, hoping for the best.

  It stuck, piercing the lion's pelt, but not its heart. It was enough to knock the cat sideways, though, and throw off its balance enough to make the cat roll off its feet and onto its side.

  It lay there for a second, obviously stunned. Bella knew that it had to be hurt really badly for it not to just jump back up again, righting itself, and somewhere in her primal brain she zeroed in on its exposed underbelly.

  Already it was trying to right itself, to get back up, but it had fallen on the side where the unusable leg was, so it couldn't get its hips under enough to fully right itself.

  Not thinking, Bella dropped the bow, grabbing her hunting knife instead. She gripped it by its tip instead of its handle and weighed it, hefting it, finding its balance. Waiting.

  The sound of her heartbeat rushing in her ears was all she heard, and the cat's expanding and contracting chest was all she saw, the rest of the world narrowing until there was nothing but her knife and its beating heart.

  The cat rolled its head, trying to shake off enough of its shock to try again to right itself, and when it learned backward just enough to get some leverage to roll again, its top front paw swung just right, giving Bella the opening she had been waiting for.

  She reared back and flung her knife forward with a primal yell, releasing it and watching it flip end over end, until it struck home.

  The blade slid between the lion's ribs, and stayed.

  Bella held her breath, waiting to see if it was just one more wound, or if her aim for the heart was true.

  The lion stayed put, but with it on its side, underbelly facing her, she couldn't see if it still had life in its eyes. She tried to focus on the chest, to see if it still rose and fell, but her own adrenaline was making her shake, so she couldn't tell if the movement she was seeing was the lion's ragged breath, or her own shaking.

  She heard thunder crashing, powerful and close, and looked to the sky, but the sky was bright. Confused, put her hand against the tree trunk she leaned on, and felt it rumble. The earth was rumbling under her feet and she was wondering if she was going to have to deal with an earthquake on top of everything else, when the trees seemed to part and Mac's huge bear dug in his claws, sliding between her and the still downed cat.

  It took a minute for her to realize that the thunder, and the shaking ground, had just been Mac, running at her full speed. She stared at his massive bear ass as he investigated the cat, and then turned to face her.

  She never realized before that love, fear and relief could all be read so plainly on an animal's face before that very second, but the look he gave her as he stood between her and the cat broke down every wall she had, and she found herself starting to sob.

  He shifted as she let her emotions out, and he wrapped his human arms around her, holding her against his heart. He enfolded her against his human form, which was not near as big as his bear, but still big enough to be a wall between her and the rest of the world.

  He cooed things against her as she let it all out, and once she was spent and silent, she leaned back and up to look at him.

  "Did I kill it?"

  "Damn straight. Fuck, Bella. When I heard you yell, I thought..."

  "I saw it coming at me, your claw marks deep in its flesh. Bites, too. I thought that if it was here, and it got away from all of you, that things had gone really bad. How did one lion get away from all of you?"

  "I don't know how much you know about shifters..."

  "Next to nothing."

  "Wolf packs like Bane's, and I guess lion prides as well, they have this mental connection. They communicate in animal form, sometimes in words, sometimes in images, depending. Anyway, as far as we can figure, when Ivy killed the other lion either it sent a message as it died, or maybe the other lion found its body, we're not sure, but somehow the ones that were sent here called for reinforcements.

  When David and Ryker got to the house Naythan, Sandra and Ash were all outside. Something about your mom not letting them in..."

  "What? What do you mean she wouldn't let them in?" Bella interrupted, her anger flaring quickly since all of her other emotions were still so raw, the adrenaline dump still coursing through her.

  "That's a conversation for later. Anyway, they were attacked shortly after David and Ryker got there. There were a bunch of them, thankfully Naythan wasn't alone at that point. That was the roar we all heard. The three of them had already taken out half of the lions by the time we got there, and boy were they all surprised at Ivy. No one expected a lion that hadn't arrived with them. I was the last one into the fray, since I got there after everyone else, but I grabbed the first one I could get my paws on.

  But then I heard Ash yelp, and I had to let go of your lion to kill the other one. I figured yours was wounded enough that he wouldn't get very far and I could finish him after I took care of Ash's attacker. You know, he is still very young, but that kid is going to make for a hell of a wolf. I think he already prefers wolf form to his baby form. Although I don't blame him. Human babies are so helpless, whereas wolves don't take nearly as long to be mobile."

  "Is Ash OK?"

  "Oh yeah, he got bit, but it's already healing. I ran after your lion, but it seems she had already run across you. Nice work, by the way. Although you were supposed to stay in the tree."

  "You know cats climb trees, right?"

  "Yeah, but we only planned on one lion, not damn near all of them. That was the only one to get past us. Plus, I highly doubt this one would have been able to get up to you, as wounded as she was."

  "I'm grateful you already wounded it, I never would have been able to kill it if you hadn't."

  "You underestimate yourself. Although, she never would have been out here for you to kill if she hadn't been wounded so bad. Otherwise she would have been there, still fighting."

  As Mac spoke, still holding her tight, Bella felt his erection nudging her stomach. It wasn't until then that she realized he was naked, and that she suddenly felt the need to put his hardness to use.

  Maybe it was the after effects of the battle, even though she'd really only had a small part in it. Maybe it was the relief of knowing that he was still alive. Better than just still alive, he seemed to be mostly unscathed. Maybe it was the same drive that she'd always heard made people have sex after funerals. Either way, she was very aware of his nakedness right now, and very aware of her own need, growing by the second.

  "Mac, I know this is going to sound odd, but..."

  "But what? Tell me. You can tell me anything, Bell. Always."

  "I need you."

  She tried to say the rest with her eyes, begging him to understand, even though she didn't fully understand herself. Too many needs were flooding her system. She needed to expel the rest of the adrenaline, she needed to release pent up energy, she needed to either fight or fuck, and until recently, experiencing neither, she didn't know how to get her point across and get her needs met.

  Her mind flashed back, to the time Mac pinned her down on the swing, driven with his own need. She'd screamed then, not understanding. But she understood now, even more than she had last night. She needed out-of-control Mac now, to show her how to let go. How to...well how to lose all control.

  She did the only thing she could think of to get her point across. She gripped his shaft, squeezing it as it pressed between them.

  She watched as his jaw clenched and his eyes changed.

  She stroked him, like he'd showed her, and she reveled in the power she had to make his breathing erratic and his cock harden even more in her palm.

  He kept himself reined in though, and it made her want him even more, knowing that he was controlling himself for her.

  "Bella, be careful. If you don't stop, this will
be no sweet lovemaking, and you will be neither on top nor in charge."

  "I don't want to be either. I only want two things."

  "Name them."

  "I want to be away from this lion, and I want to lose all control."

  She watched his eyes squeeze shut, and felt his cock jerk and swell in her hand as he held the last bits of his restraint in check.

  "Are you sure?"

  He asked the question with his eyes still squeezed shut, and her heart swelled with love for him, as her body roared with need.

  She took her hand from his cock, stood on tiptoe, wrapped her arms and then her legs around him as he helped her basically climb him enough to whisper in his ear.

  "I'm positive," she whispered, in the heartbeat before she angled her mouth away from his ear and toward that spot on his neck she knew would drive him past all reason.

  She licked him there first, and then bit down, holding on tight as he carried her away from the sight of the lion's body and towards wherever else he wanted to claim her, body and soul.

  Chapter 19

  Mac carried Bella deeper into the woods, the pants she was wearing the only thing keeping him from lowering her onto his cock as he went.

  He knew she could no longer see the lion, but he carried her until he could no longer smell it, either. He didn't want the smell of death to mix with the scent of Bella, even though he knew the battle was part of what triggered her need.

  He wanted this to be about them, about them finding release in each other, about them turning to each other in everything, from here on out.

  He wanted to show her that lovemaking and sex and pure animal fucking all had a place in their new relationship, and he also selfishly wanted to drive any remnant of Sam from her again, body, mind and soul.

  She was his and he was hers, and he wanted to cement that in them both.

  He backed her against a tree, pressing her against the bark as his hand burrowed in her hair. He pulled her mouth from his neck and found her lips with his.

  Their kiss was explosive, tongues battling and teeth scraping as he ground himself against the damp crotch of her pants.