Alien Under Cover E-Book

Marie Dry

• Herausgeber: Marie Dry
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

In a bleak and apocalyptic future, Julia Benzoni flees the violence-saturated world of her ma-fia family to build a peaceful life in a No Name Town, Montana. Now, while civilization disinte-grates into anarchy around her and evil men prey on the innocent, she’s pursued by an alien, whose warrior life thrusts her back into the world where might makes right and violence is the order of the day. Torn, she now has to choose between her need to distance herself from war and violence and the alien warrior who holds her heart.

 

Leseprobe

She had to get away from this maniac who wanted to kiss her—but beside him was the only place she felt safe…

Julia cringed back from him, not caring that she pressed against the dirty wall. This could not be happening to her. She frantically tried to think of a way to distract him. His hand still rested under her breasts, his thumb continuing that maddening caress that elicited a response from what felt like every nerve end in her body. “Before, when the reverend caught us, why did you step in front of me? It’s not like you to sacrifice yourself for anyone else.”

“You question my honor?” he asked in a clipped growl.

The air chilled, stilled, and, for a moment there was dead silence, as the moans and screams of the other prisoners quieted. His jaw clenched and the muscles bunched there pulsed in an angry rhythm. A foreign rhythm.

She ducked under his arm and darted to the other side of the small room. “Uh, no. Wouldn’t dream of it.”

He didn’t follow, just looked at her with those predator’s eyes. Calculating. “Come here, Julia.”

She held her hands out in a futile effort to hold him off. “Please, don’t.”

“Come here.”

He didn’t point; the inflection of his voice didn’t change. And that scared her more than his shouting would’ve done.

Whatever she did, she had to ensure she didn’t enrage him. She shuddered and looked at the other cages. What he would do to her and the other prisoners in a drug-induced rage that would make her father look like a saint?

It took every inch of control she had to overcome her need to run. She took a shaky step toward him and focused on the third button on his shirt. So he wanted a kiss. It was just a kiss. No biggie. She could live through a kiss with a man who’d been willing to stop a bullet for her.

In a bleak and apocalyptic future, Julia Benzoni flees the violence-saturated world of her mafia family to build a peaceful life in a No Name Town, Montana. Now, while civilization disintegrates into anarchy around her and evil men prey on the innocent, she’s pursued by an alien, whose warrior life thrusts her back into the world where might makes right and violence is the order of the day. Torn, she now has to choose between her need to distance herself from war and violence and the alien warrior who holds her heart.

Alien Under Cover

Marie Dry

Genre: Steamy Romance/Science Fiction/Paranormal Romance

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, businesses, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental. All trademarks, service marks, registered trademarks, and registered service marks are the property of their respective owners and are used herein for identification purposes only. The publisher does not have any control over or assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their contents.

ALIEN UNDER COVER

Copyright © 2015 by Marie Dry

Cover Design by Dar Albert

All Rights Reserved

First Publication: JANUARY 2015

Second Publication APRIL 2020

All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the writer.

WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

IF YOU FIND AN EBOOK OR PRINT VERSION OF THIS BOOK BEING SOLD OR SHARED ILLEGALLY, PLEASE REPORT IT TO: www.mariedry.com

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

About the Author

Chapter One

The first time he revealed himself to his breeder she fainted.

Zurian caught her before she hit the floor. Left with a beautiful human woman helpless in his arms, he’d laid her down on her bed, covered her with blankets, and left her alone. It had taken a surprising amount of willpower to let her out of his arms.

He was not a warrior known for his mercy. He’d killed and executed many and, for a long moment, while he stood there staring at her soft human face, he’d been tempted to take her to his dwelling despite the fact that she was too small and delicate for life with a Zyrgin. Not taking her as his breeder, so he wouldn’t break such a fragile woman, had been an act of mercy from a warrior considered the most pitiless in the empire.

In the end he could not stay away from her and, when he revealed himself to her the second time, his faith had been rewarded. She’d tried to shoot him. Julia handled the pistol well and, instead of crying when she couldn’t manage to hit him, she was furious. His Julia knew some words which his translator did not have the meanings for.

He returned a third and fourth time, cloaked, curious to know more about her. Since then he’d gone to her many times. Sometimes cloaked, sometimes not. She intrigued him with her strange habits. She spent most of her time on the human communication device they called a TC, which seemed to be her means of earning a living. She liked to paint her tiny claws—nails he reminded himself—humans called them nails—many colors. Women on Zyrgin frequently adorned themselves, but since no warrior with honor would look at another warrior’s breeder, he’d only been vaguely aware of perfumes and lavish clothes of the few females allowed to attend during ceremonies.

He thought about her when he should be concentrating on his warrior duties. Curious to see what she would try next, he’d returned to her impoverished dwelling. She was clever enough to stay out of grabbing range. Sometimes he played with her, pretending he only moved at human speed. Countering her attacks, he’d grab her and enjoyed the feeling of her skin, of her body held briefly against him while she fought and squirmed. Once, she tried to knee him in the groin, seemingly convinced she could harm him that way. He’d observed some of the women in the raider camps, the ones not broken, use that tactic with great success on human males.

It had been a week since he’d seen his golden human. At the back of her small house, in the settlement the human’s called No Name Town, Zurian stepped forward and stopped, his boot lifted. A thin, white powder covered the door entrance. Something gleamed on the windowsill and, as he moved to the side, more of it gleamed at the bottom on each window ledge. He pinched a tiny amount of the white powder and tasted it. Salt, the spice the humans put in everything. It had to be one of her curious tricks to try to keep him out.

He turned the handle of her dilapidated back door, quickly pulled back his hand. His fingers tingled—a very pleasant sensation. Wires wound along the handle of the door, carefully hidden. Clever of his Julia, using electricity in this way. He looked around but saw no one. Then he heard the commotion in the street in front of her house. It was the reverend, down the road, urging on his followers who was beating one of his acolytes.

Zurian flashed his fangs in their general direction. He closed the door and the shouts and thuds dulled. She wasn’t in the kitchen and he stepped deeper into the small room. His breeder should not be living in such an inferior dwelling—with her beauty and especially her hair. She belonged to a high-ranking warrior, she should have better.

He’d already built a much better dwelling for her and made sure the other warriors knew she belonged to him. And he’d stocked human food. She probably did not earn much with her work on the TC because she did not eat enough.

He touched the scar on his cheek. She’d called him a slimy lizard during one of the times she tried to shoot him. He’d looked it up in their primitive databases and he did not see a resemblance. Besides, lizards were not slimy.

If he fed her well, protected her, and gave her many pleasure hours in the sleep place, maybe she would not hate him, might even accept him willingly. He glanced at the small kitchen sink where unwashed dishes were stacked. A mug sat on the table. Everywhere he looked something cluttered a surface. Unfortunately, she lacked discipline. Whenever he came, he found some form of untidiness or chaos. It baffled him that every time he thought of her cluttering his dwelling with human objects, he experienced the same kind of rush he did before a battle.

He tightened his hand on the large animal skin, his masking technology concealing it, as well. Never in all the years he’d trained to become a warrior did he think he would present an Eduki pelt to a breeder. His breeder.

Zurian glared at the wooden club he also held in his hand. Even at their most basic stage of development, Zyrgins never used such primitive weapons.

Zacar had a strange gleam in his eyes when he’d given Zurian the club. “If your chosen breeder wants you, she will hit you over the head with it.”

“Why should I care if she wants me?” he’d asked, suspicious of the gleam in his leader’s eyes.

A Zyrgin warrior presented the Eduki pelt and the breeder became his to protect. As was proper. How else would they find women among their conquered?

“It is a human custom,” Zacar told him.

He’d told all of them Natalie hit him because she chose him. Azagor had believed him and had argued he should be given the ceremonial club, but Zurian did not go through his third change as recently. Not believing Zacar for one moment, he still retained possession of the club.

He stroked his finger over the scar on his right cheek where the sword had cut him. Would she realize he was not a born warrior? He knew she thought him frightening and ugly. She became angry and tried to fight him every time he approached her. Even then, he saw the fear beneath her brave actions.

If she didn’t hit him with the club this time, he’d get the information he wanted from the reverend and take his breeder home to the dwelling he’d built her. He glared at the small room, pulling his lips back from his teeth. She would not have to live like this much longer. Soon, she would be living in the dwelling he’d built for her, trapped with him on the mountain during the long winter.

Still cloaked, he stepped inside her living area, careful not to make a sound.

With gold hair like the precious silk spun by Solari worms, shining in a beam of sunlight, she looked through her lounge window at the street outside. The way she’d fainted the first time he came to her still puzzled him. Since then she’d acted with courage and knowledge of weapons and equipment not expected in a human female.

The trap she set with the electricity would have been effective on a human male. A laser pistol held easily in her hand, she stood off to the side of the window. Not the actions of a woman who would faint at the sight of a warrior. Blue jeans clung to her curves, the tips of high heels showed beneath the long hems. He could see her breasts rising and falling beneath the white shirt she wore.

He still had not decided if he liked her tiny, delicate claws painted red. His leader’s breeder kept hers short, in their natural form. During one of his tussles with Julia, some of her delicate claws had broken and she had blistered his ears with her shrieks. He’d assumed it hurt when they broke so he had been careful to ensure it did not happen again when she fought him—it spared his ears.

From where he stood, he could see her profile—her strange delicate human nose, a chin more rounded than a Zyrgin’s but stubborn for a human. When she moved, sunlight made her skin glow like rare earth pearls. It worried him that she barely reached his chest. If he lost control he could break her.

She drew back from the window when the noise outside came closer, pressed a fist in front of her mouth, obviously distressed at the commotion in the street. Zurian had noticed the increased violence in town, and a warrior now watched over her house whenever Zurian was unable to.

“Please, I swear that’s what I saw,” a human male screamed. The sound burst through the walls of her dwelling, as the commotion outside moved closer, and she flinched. Zurian tensed, preparing to defend her and then relaxed when it moved away.

Someone walked to the back of Julia’s house, a male judging by the heavier footsteps. The human made no effort to disguise his approach and pounded on the door. Zurian drew his sword and bared his teeth at her when she went to the back door. He’d allowed her to remain free too long if males came to her door. At least she showed some sense and stayed to the side of it.

Natalie could shoot and had some meager survival skills but Julia had greater skills he found suspicious.

“Who is it?” When she didn’t scream, her voice pleased him, even when she spoke her hideous earth language. The sound reminded him of the crystal bells on Solaris. In his dwelling, when she had the translator implanted, they would only speak Standard Galactic.

“Julia, it’s Charles, let me in.”

Zurian narrowed his eyes at the door and extended his claws. A human male dared to approach his breeder, called her by name, encroached on his territory.

She went on her toes to look through the peephole. “Charles?” she exclaimed softly, a note in her voice he did not like. At least she’d made sure of the male’s identity.

Zurian glared at her when she put the pistol in the back of her pants and opened the door with unseemly haste. He fought the urge to growl at her for daring to entertain another male. If she planned to breed for this male, Zurian would kill him. No, he would kill him for approaching her.

With the noise of the reverend’s violence in the street in the background, she looked up into the human’s face. Zurian had seen the same admiration in Natalie’s eyes when she looked at Zacar. His claws lengthened and he battled the urge to slice the human into pieces. To show her this weakling was not worth her admiration.

“Charles, what’s wrong?” She sounded as if she needed more air in her lungs.

The puny human clenched and unclenched his hands. “I think Sarah’s been taken.”

“What, by who?” She stumbled, almost bumping into Zurian. He was tempted to drop the camouflage and teach them both who she belonged to.

“By the reverend.”

“Oh, Charles, no.”

Her face changed color, became the white of snow in winter. He’d seen Julia do that once before. When he visited her the first time and she fainted. He prepared to catch her before the human male could touch her.

“Taken,” she whispered.

Recently several of their probes had malfunctioned and it took Azagor, their tech warrior, weeks to fix them. Still they had enough probes out to be aware that people had disappeared from town in the last six months.

“I need to know if you saw anything.”

The human male brushed a hand over his head in a pathetic attempt to draw her attention to his yellow hair. Zurian supposed the females considered the human handsome, in a weak kind of way.

“Oh God—not Sarah. I don’t believe it.” She looked about to regurgitate her food and Zurian wanted to step back, but he would not while the human stood so close to her.

The male daring to talk to Zurian’s breeder moved his hand down from his hair to rub his neck. “I’ve been telling her to join me on the mountain, but she wouldn’t leave her mother and that old—her mother refused to leave town.”

“Do you think the rumors could be true? That the reverend is selling people.”

“I’m sure of it,” Charles said.

Julia moved closer to the weak human male and touched his chest. ”Her mother is one of the reverend’s most devout followers. Why would he take Sarah?”

Zurian held back the growl in his throat and focused on their conversation.

“This town is going to hell. What they are doing to that prick librarian is case in point.” He motioned toward where the sound of thuds, screams, and pleading came from. Zurian hated the imprecise way humans talked. Prick was an action but the male referred to a person.

“Is that who they’re picking on now? I couldn’t see them, only heard the beatings going on.”

“Yeah, he should’ve known the informant job wouldn’t turn out well for him.”

“Maybe he’s not an informant,” Julia said.

“Ever since the reverend arrived, he ran his chubby little legs off to him with information on everyone in this miserable town. He’s probably a joiner as well as an informant. Just never thought it could happen to him.”

“Surely not a joiner,” she said.

Zurian noted the word to investigate later. The human language, simple compared to the old language all Zyrgins spoke, constantly defeated them with its double meanings and strange references.

“Are you sure they have her?” Julia asked.

Zurian would find her friend and give her to Julia. She had a soft core and would not be easy until her friend was safe. He bared his teeth—first he would dispatch the woumber daring to come to her.

“No, but it’s the only explanation. When was the last time you saw her, Julia?” the human male, who still lived only because he did not enter Julia’s dwelling, asked.

“She had breakfast with me two, no three days ago.”

The walking corpse rubbed his head again. Zurian silently sneered at him for his continued attempts to draw Julia’s attention to his hair. He could not even protect his own woman and now he tried to obtain Zurian’s breeder with his pathetic preening.

“I spoke to her on the TC four days ago, and after that I haven’t been able to find her. Her room doesn’t look as if anyone’s been there for a while.”

“Have you tried her mother?”

“That’s what made me suspicious in the first place. She’s very cagey and has this crazy idea that Sarah stole her diamond ring and ran. The old bat is hiding something.”

“I never liked that woman, and Sarah would never steal from her own mother,” Julia said.

“I’m going to see if I can find anyone willing to talk.” He walked away.

“I’ll ask around, as well.”

The human turned back to her and looked her over. “Curvy figure, long, blond hair.” Zurian clenched his hand on his sword, took a step forward. “You’re very naïve if you think you’re not on the reverend’s list,” Charles said. “Get out of town fast. You’re lucky they haven’t taken you yet.”

Zurian checked his advance. He would kill the woumber later, where Julia couldn’t see. Human women were ruled by their emotions.

“I can’t just leave and abandon Sarah. It wouldn’t be right.”

Zurian approved of her loyalty, but he would not allow her to put herself in danger.

“You won’t do her any good if you are taken, as well.”

“I suppose you’re right, Charles. Have you seen Natalie? I haven’t heard from her in almost a year.”

“No, but I’m sure she’s all right. She knows every inch of that mountain. My bet is her TC failed.”

Julia nodded and, with a wave, he turned and walked away. She closed the door and leaned her head against it, looking small and fragile. When he found her friend and brought her to Julia as a gift, she would smile at him the way she smiled at the puny male. Zurian dropped the camouflage.

Still with her back to him, she went absolutely still. Like a deer scenting a predator, she froze in place. “You are standing right behind me, aren’t you?” she whispered.

He placed the Eduki pelt on the floor where she could see it when she faced him.

“I am,” he said in the lisping human language and waited for her to turn around, curious to see how she would react this time. Maybe if he pretended to bite her she might hit him with the club.

Her shaking body screamed her terror and reluctance to look at him. She turned with slow, incremental little steps only to freeze in place to stare at the Eduki pelt he’d placed on the floor as proof of his worthiness to have her.

Every time he came to her he waited for that moment when she raised her eyes to his. That instant of recognition, when her eerie glance went through him like ice shards from one of the frozen planets. He experienced it like a physical touch, craved it like a drug.

Her eyes climbed his body in a caress that touched his feet and legs, lingering on his chest. She always took a long time to study his chest. He had to resist the urge to puff it out for her like a pre-change warrior. She couldn’t see his scars, and he’d studied his chest in the mirror but couldn’t find any anomaly.

At last, she raised those alien, sky eyes to his, and a shock, bigger than the one she’d tried to induce with her electricity trap, struck through his body. Her gaze briefly flicked to his scarred cheek.

He held out the club to her and she stared at it, her trembling increased.

“But the salt,” she said weakly.

He held the club out in front of her, determined that this time she would use it. “If it was meant to keep me out, it failed.”

She gestured at the club. “Why do you keep giving me that; what am I supposed to do with it?”

“Choose.”

“Choose what? Why do you do this to me?” She lunged toward him, grabbed the club, and swung at him. “I’ll show you choosing,” she screamed with that spirit that drew him back to her every time.

He stood still and allowed it to make contact with his shoulder. She’d aimed high but obviously her skill lay with pistols. Her screeching hurt his ears more than the club could harm his body. Noting with approval how she quickly stepped out of range, he reached over and grabbed the club from her, to return it to Azagor.

She went for the pistol in her pants and he grabbed her. Slid his fingers below her shirt and into her pants and slowly drew the weapon out, allowing his knuckles to stroke her flesh. She shivered against him, made a high squealing sound that hurt his ears. If she would stop that annoying noise, he could enjoy how she felt pressed against him, enjoy the way she wriggled.

“Quiet, human,” he said.

“Let me go, demon.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Still, woman and stop calling me a demon.” With great reluctance he withdrew his hand from her clothes and stepped back.

She gasped, a useless sound. “Give that back.” She jumped and tried to grab the pistol and then stepped back when he held it out of reach.

Zurian planted his feet wide and crossed his arms over his chest. “You will not shoot me. I have brought you the pelt that proves I am worthy.”

He stood a little taller. Never had he thought he would say those words to a female.

“Worthy of what?” She threw her hands up in the air. “Oh, never mind. Just leave me alone, demon.”

“No.”

He waited to see what she would do next. Her continued attempts to outwit him were somewhat amusing.

She looked at the back door. “How did you get through the salt, demon?”

She persisted in calling him by the name of a lower life form.

He made his displeasure known in strong Zyrgin, unable to articulate in her language at that moment. Julia flinched and he forced the angry words back down his throat. He paused, satisfied she understood his displeasure. Sudden, deafening silence. Even the humans outside became quiet, and part of him wished they would come and investigate, so he could kill them—it would show her that he was a fierce warrior and capable of protecting her.

“I am not a demon,” he said in English.

She shrank away from him, covering her ears with trembling hands.

“The salt was supposed to stop you,” she wailed, and he braced himself in case she started that shrill screaming again.

“Superstitious nonsense and salt will not keep me out.”

If he hadn’t been so angry at her insult, he might have thought the confused look on her face amusing. When they first arrived, they’d found the human’s ugly faces difficult to read. After spending a long winter—with his leader’s breeder going everywhere she shouldn’t—and Zurian spying on the humans, he’d learned a lot.

“Okay.” She spoke in a placating manner that he did not appreciate. “I’m gone anyway,” she mumbled. She probably did not realize he had superior hearing. She wasn’t going anywhere but to his dwelling.

“Nothing can stop me from getting to you.”

“That’s what you think,” she mumbled.

“If you run, I will follow you,” he stressed.

“A—all right, I get it.” She bit her lip, moved a step back.

He could see she still did not understand. No place on this planet could hide her from him.

“Don’t you want to go back to your family? You know the demon—I mean family—that is probably missing you right now,” she said.

Again he had to battle back the rage living inside him. “I do not have family. I am not demon.”

Julia nodded her head in agreement, in that irritating human habit his fellow warriors had picked up from his leader’s breeder.

She stared at his head. Did she prefer men with silk hair on their heads like the walking corpse who dared come to her door? He knew exactly where Charles of the yellow hair lived. Killing him would not take much of Zurian’s time.

“Uh, what exactly are you?”

“I am your warrior.”

“Is that a—”

His communicator bleeped and he was tempted—for the first time since Zacar had allowed him to join his legion—to ignore his duty. He looked at her, wanting to remember her like this: her blue eyes flashing, her cheeks pink, and her toe tapping on the floor.

“I will return,” he told her and prepared to camouflage himself.

She waved him off. “Uh, really, don’t feel you have to.”

He walked up to her and pressed his forehead to hers. Her skin was cool and soft against his—so female—that, for a moment, he had to battle for control. She froze, not moving, barely breathing. Their scents mingled. He drew her sweet essence into his lungs while he stared into her eyes. Her forehead rested softly against his, much cooler than his skin. Those eerie, blue eyes stared up at him and he could see terror reflected there. He’d always thought the human’s habit of kissing to be truly revolting. But the soft skin of her forehead pressed against his and her sweet scent in his nose tempted him to try it.

His communicator bleeped again. She didn’t react to the noise and, even after all this time among humans, he still felt disgust at their inability to pick up sounds on certain frequencies.

“I will return for you. Be ready to leave for your new home when I come for you.” He stepped back and placed the pistol on the table and remembered Zacar’s advice. “I am pleased that you are nice and round.”

He struck his chest with his fist and then camouflaged. He knew she thought him gone from her dwelling when she moaned and sank down on the floor, her arms around her shaking knees. With one last look at her, he left to execute Zacar’s orders.

“Nice and round,” he heard her mutter and was pleased he’d thought to compliment her.

Chapter Two

Zurian returned to the shuttle and sat down in the pilot seat. They had one shuttle for each Zyrgin warrior who came on the mother ship. It did double duty as escape pods and could also be used a fighter plane. Although the chances of ever needing fighter planes against the humans were zero.

“Contact Zacar,” he ordered the computer in the old language.

“Zurian,” Zacar said. His image was clear, without the distortion caused by the human’s primitive TC. “We intercepted another transmission to the town.”

“Could you find where he called from?” Zurian asked.

“No. And only their government has the resources to hide the origin of their calls.”

In the last year they’d picked up encrypted messages coming into and out of the town. The probe covering the town could not determine the exact location. Azagor had been working on it, trying to fix the locator problem. If their probe had been working as it should, the human operating in secret in town would never have been able to cover his tracks like this.

Zurian flashed his claws to show his disgust. “What government? They can’t even pay their people.”

From their intelligence all over the world, they had found out that most government servants went to work in the hope that they would eventually be paid. But because they hadn’t been paid for a while, they did not do any work while they were at their offices. Zurian had nothing but contempt for such nonsense.

Under Zyrgin rule they would not be able to indulge such laziness.

“They still have access to remnants of technology.”

“Remnants,” Zurian sneered.

“Since the murder of President Jacobson five years ago, they have been deteriorating fast,” Zacar said. “From what I can glean from newscasts and their primitive databases, the dead president might have turned the tide for humans for a while. He was a man of vision.”

“Any news on who murdered him?” Zurian asked. “If we could find the killer, we would have the person working behind the scenes. The humans’ collapsing society has stumbled much faster since the murder of President Jacobson.”

“No, unfortunately. I have been unable to determine this.” Zacar paused then changed the subject. “Could you find out why the government is interested in this town?”

“Has to be the reverend,” Zurian said. “No one else is running anything.”

“Who are you impersonating to infiltrate the reverend’s organization?”

Zacar glanced briefly to the side and Zurian knew he was checking on Natalie. Zurian had thought it unworthy behavior of a warrior until he had seen Julia the first time. Now he went to check on her regularly and had her watched when he was not available. “A person who called himself an ‘enforcer’ for Denver city.”

“You found him close to town?”

“Yes,” Zurian confirmed. “It is another factor we have to keep our eyes on. He was from Denver and came to do business with the reverend.”

He also knew Julia, a fact that Zurian did not appreciate.

“That works into our plan,” Zacar said. “We have been aware of Denver for a while.”

Three of the ten probes in Denver had malfunctioned and Azagor was fixing them. With several of the probes malfunctioning, Azagor worked day and night to get them operational. Before the malfunction, the Zyrgins had traced several calls, indicating that someone in town was communicating with the Denver Corporation. From Denver, Zacar had traced calls to Washington. Though they could pinpoint calls in Denver, they could not find the exact location in No Name town or in Washington. What he and Zacar did not know was what they were working on.

“Did you have any problems making him talk?” Zacar asked.

“After I cut off his third finger, he begged me to let him tell me everything.”

The physical weakness of the humans constantly surprised the Zyrgins. Once or twice, some of the humans had shown unexpected courage, but mostly they just cried and begged for mercy. They would be conquered soon enough.

“Why do you sound disturbed?”

“He came here for my breeder,” Zurian snarled.

Did Zacar doubt Zurian’s ability to torture prisoners? They all knew he visited Julia and planned to bring her to his dwelling. Did they think he would become soft because he took such a small female?

“How is that possible?” Zacar touched his hip and Zurian didn’t blame him. The thought of anyone coming for Zurian’s breeder made him want to reach for his sword, as well.

“It seems she belonged to a powerful family who want her back. This woumber thought to take her for his own.”

“I can send another warrior to the reverend if you want to bring her here now.”

Zurian appreciated the offer. Next to conquering worlds for their empire, protecting a breeder was the priority for any warrior. “That won’t be necessary. I will keep her safe.”

He frowned when Azagor walked into view to talk to Zacar. More malfunctioning probes? Azagor was the youngest warrior in their group. He had only recently gone through his third change and had developed the habit of talking to Natalie. No doubt he would try to talk to Julia, as well. It would be unfortunate if I have to kill another warrior.

“Anything else I should be aware of?” Zurian asked.

“New Raider camps are going up fast,” Zacar told him. Zurian understood the anticipation Zacar clearly felt. Zurian wanted a battle, as well—any kind of battle. Since they had come to Earth, they’d only fought Raiders, who barely afforded them any sport. “These humans are like the locusts on planet Y2539,” Zacar continued.

“We will make them as extinct as Solari worms,” Zurian assured him.

Rumor had it their supreme leader owned the last Solari worm in their galaxy. Speaking of their leader…

“I do not understand this delay in conquest the Parenadorz insists on.” Zurian watched Zacar carefully. As the leader’s son, Zacar wasn’t necessarily privy to his father’s plans but if anyone would know, he would.

“I suspect he wants to test a new weapon.”

“You don’t like the idea.”

“How do you think Natlia would feel if one of our weapons were tested here and wiped out all her people?”

“Why does it matter what she feels?” Zurian wondered aloud.

Zacar had given Natalie a bear pelt after she’d hit him with the ceremonial club. She should know her place and not interfere with warrior business.

Zacar signed the tablet Azagor handed him. “You are still guarding your yellow-haired woman?”

“Golden, and I am. What of it?”

“Would you like to go to her and tell her that you tested a weapon on her people and killed the human race?” Zacar asked.

Zurian rubbed a finger on his scar. She would make tears and maybe she would not want to share the sleeping place with him. “You are right. I would not want to do that.”

Still, nothing would give him greater satisfaction than wiping out the humans. And Zurian was not altogether sure they should cater this much to the whims of their breeders.

Zacar nodded. “We could not trace the call, but we could listen to the conversation. A slaver is coming here and he will be bringing information to the reverend. They said it could not be trusted over their primitive TC.”

Zurian sneered. “And they think a puny human could keep the information safe?”

“Their logic escapes me, as well.”

“I will meet with the reverend and stay in town. I can camouflage and listen to their conversations.” Many times he’d camouflaged and stood next to a human who had never known he was there. It was something that had puzzled the warriors from the beginning. Zurian might not be able to see other warriors when they were camouflaged, but he could sense them. Humans had weak hearing and didn’t see very far and, on top of that, had no sensors to warn them when danger approached.

“The conversation clearly indicated the slaver knew the new Raider leader,” Zacar explained. “And he knew who put him in power.”

“The person, whose identity I assumed, admitted that he would also buy humans while here,” Zurian said. “They are a truly disgusting species.”

“That they are. Do you have the cover personality in place?”

“Yes, I will meet with the reverend in a few hours and find out who the third party is.”

“I want him dead,” Zacar said.

“I will find the person coming with the information and then kill the reverend,” Zurian promised.

They had allowed the man to continue with his activities this long only so they could find out exactly who he dealt with.

Zurian knew he should focus on his mission but thoughts of taking Julia to his dwelling intruded. If all went well, by tonight he could have her in his bed. His fascination with Julia had turned him into a deviant. He wanted to kiss her, maybe try other deviant human practices.

He forced his attention back to his discussion with Zacar. “Going under cover—that is the human’s strange term for what I am about to do”

“Sometimes their ugly language is most apt,” Zacar said.

“I find it confusing. When I visited my breeder last week”—he would never tire of calling her that—“she said I was like a gnat. I looked it up and I do not at all look like a gnat.”

Zacar rubbed the ridge on his head. “It doesn’t make sense to me either. While you are dealing with the reverend, find out everything you can about him. Religious figures make me very uneasy.”

In every galaxy, on almost every planet they conquered, they came across zealots. Experience had taught Zacar that they could not be dealt with easily. Killing them made them martyrs so their followers tended to grow and not dissipate.

The reverend had taken all the undesirable elements in town and united them, calling them “The Coming Sect,” and had set himself up as their prophet. He then proceeded to terrorize the town unchecked.

Now, I have to deal with the reverend before I can take my breeder home.

Chapter Three

Julia shuddered and staggered to her couch. Ever since that demon had started to haunt her, she hadn’t felt safe. The warm cream-colored curtains and terracotta tiles in her home no longer enclosed her in a soothing, safe environment. Would she have to run before she could escape another visit from that creature?

Could he be a government experiment gone wrong? Even though he insisted he wasn’t a demon, the ridge on his head, his pitch-black eyes, and the pronounced, raised veins, that crossed what she could see of his green body, made her think he really was one. One that wore some kind of uniform and scared her. How many of them were out there? If only she could talk to someone about it. Apart from the fact that she didn’t want to be thought of as crazy, she needed to keep a low profile. If some journalist heard about a crazy woman seeing demons and reported it, she could end up dead.

“I’ve managed to hide from my psychotic family for almost five years and what happens?” she moaned at the walls. “A creature from hell haunts me.”

Could he really find her anywhere she ran to? Julia clutched her arms around herself, battling the very strong need to pack her stuff and run. He’d be back. She got up and padded over to the fur lying in the middle of her living room. She poked it with her shoe and couldn’t even budge it. Crouching, she carefully touched it. The hair was that of an animal, but the blue color had to be artificial. The demon had left it like some kind of offering.

In return for what?

Natalie had told her about bears. Extinct now for nearly two centuries, the creatures had sounded magnificent. And big. But the demon had carried it around as if it weighed nothing more than a blanket.

He was so strong. And taller than any man she’d ever seen. If only he’d been human size, she could’ve fought him. His reflexes were scary fast. In all the months he’d been haunting her, she never managed to shoot him. Julia shuddered and clutched her arms tighter around herself. His eyes reminded her of burning tar pits. She knew exactly why he came to her. When he looked at her body, those tar pits boiled. Whatever he was, he saw her as a woman he desired. Whenever she fought him, he found a way to rub his body against hers. His muscles were rock hard. Held that close to him, she could see the raised veins on the creature’s body pulse. Julia shivered. He was a creature with a body most men would envy and eyes that promised long, hot hours of pure sin.

But she didn’t have the luxury of time to stress about his visits. She had to find Sarah and rescue her. Charles might think Julia would run and leave her friend to the reverend’s mercies, but she couldn’t do that.

If she did manage to find Sarah, and the reverend didn’t kill them in the process, they’d probably both end up on the run for the rest of their lives. Julia groaned and slapped her forehead. She’d managed to live quietly for almost five years as plain Julia Smith. She even managed to stay under the reverend’s radar. Julia stood up and paced, her heels clicking against her prized tiles.

Now she ran the risk of drawing his attention, something nobody in this town wanted. There’d been rumors lately of strange rituals and orgies, of people disappearing.

If she could manage to get into his house, she might find Sarah. Or at least a record of what they’d done with her. Julia could plant some bugs and listen in on their conversations. She looked down at her cream-colored pants. They would stain if she had to do any climbing. And her sandals were not the most sturdy.

What should she wear for breaking and entering?

***

An hour later, Julia crouched next to the only tree behind the reverend’s place. Natalie had planted it a few years ago. It wasn’t very big and didn’t have many leaves, but at least it afforded her some cover.

“This is the stupidest thing I’ve done in a long while,” she muttered as she ran over to the back window and crouched beneath it. She chanced a quick look and saw a room that could be a study.

She’d dressed in her skintight, black jeans and long-sleeved, black T-shirt and had hidden her blond hair beneath a black, woolen cap. For one moment, as she stared at her image in the mirror, she’d looked like her mother used to when she went out on a job.

Julia jumped when she heard a sound behind her. The demon or the reverend’s thugs? She swung around and grabbed her pistol out of her pants, but the yard was still deserted.

She put the pistol back in the waistband of her black jeans, fisted her trembling hands together, and shuddered. If the reverend caught her snooping around his house, he wouldn’t play with her like the demon seemed to be doing. She glanced back in the direction of her house. Would it be so bad to go back and be safe? To leave Sarah’s rescue to law enforcement.

Julia clutched her head in her hands. She had to know if they kept Sarah here. If she left and remained safe, she would never stop blaming herself for anything that might happen to Sarah. With a sigh, she focused on the window again.

“Hold on, Sarah, I’m coming,” she whispered in a hopeless prayer.

Julia peeked over the windowsill. The wind blowing through the window parted the curtains just enough for her to see a desk and the very large man with long, blond hair and broad shoulders sitting there. His head turned slightly. She ducked down quickly and took deep breaths.

It couldn’t be.

Her mind was playing tricks on her. There was no reason to suspect that John could’ve been sent to do business with the reverend. She rose to peek through the slit in the curtains again but dropped and whirled when something touched her hair.

Nothing but an empty yard.

It must have been the wind. God, she was getting paranoid. Maybe it wasn’t even him. Taking a deep breath, she glanced over the windowsill again.

With his profile to her, he appeared like a large, muscled nightmare, fiddling with something silver that shone in his hands. When the white noise in her ears stopped, for a moment, all she could think to do was to pack her bags, to run. No, she didn’t need to pack her bags. She’d grab her TC and steal a car, or run on foot, or even crawl out of town. Her heart hammered so loud she couldn’t hear anything, could barely see through the haze in front of her gaze. One, two, three—breathe in. One, two, three, four—breathe out. She had to stay calm. Breathing in again, counting, she inhaled and exhaled for a moment. And then she carefully peered over the windowsill again.

He dwarfed the chair he sat in. The steel base was slightly bent as if it would crack under his weight. It’d been five years, but there was no mistaking her family’s enforcer. What was an enforcer from Denver doing all the way out here? Did he know she was here? This one, John, almost found her once before. Twice another enforcer had found her. Both times, she’d wondered if her father had sent them. Or if he’d told them what she’d seen and the head of the family wanted her brought in.

She had to get away. He would kill her the moment he saw her. Shortly after she’d left home, one of the family enforcers found her hiding in a seedy apartment in Chicago. She’d gotten away, but he had fallen over a railing during their struggle and that had given her time to run. Then her family’s muscle had found her twice more. Both times, she’d barely escaped alive. She’d eluded them three times now, and her family didn’t even tolerate one failure. All the remaining enforcers would be very motivated to find her.

Did Denver collect a cut of the profits here? Or did they find out where she was hiding in this dusty little town.

Through the crack between the two curtains, she saw John lift his head and she knew it definitely was him sitting in the reverend’s opulent study. He rose to pace. Her heartbeat changed and kept pace with those heavy, slow footsteps. She couldn’t breathe.

The reverend walked in.

“So, do we have an arrangement?” the reverend asked, swaggering over to the desk. Was the man blind? Couldn’t he somehow sense he was in the presence of a killer more dangerous than he could possibly fathom? Even with the evil the reverend did in this town, he had no idea of the level of danger John brought with him. She kept perfectly still, very much trapped watching the reverend and a vicious mafioso.

“Yes, we have an arrangement.” John spoke with a different inflection than she remembered, the rhythm more clipped, frighteningly expressionless. Though he’d said only those few words, his voice was more compelling than she remembered.

“I have a large shipment and plenty of offers,” the reverend said, his voice breaking slightly. “If you’re interested, I need an answer today.”

Now she heard the fear and she smiled with grim satisfaction. The reverend had gotten into bed with the devil. He would learn it wouldn’t be a “wham-bam, thank you, reverend,” experience.

“That is why I am here. To ensure you do not accidentally lose some merchandise,” the big blond said with absolutely no emotion.

This was strange. By now, John should’ve beaten the reverend senseless simply for his tone of voice. John had never been the kind of enforcer who would tolerate insolence. And what was up with the stilted speech? And the expressionless face? She couldn’t remember ever seeing him without either a sneer or an expression of twisted fury.

“You talk funny,” another voice said.

Julia ducked down a little more. She hadn’t see anyone else enter the room.

“I don’t care how he talks as long as he gives us a fair price,” the reverend said.

If he wasn’t careful, the reverend would find himself executed by a panga, the preferred method of killing for the Denver Group. She snorted before she could stop herself and covered her nose and mouth with her hands. Denver Group, what a fancy word for a bunch of vicious criminals.

As a teenager, she’d loved to think of herself as a mafia princess—privileged and destined for big things. Reality had not been as glamorous as her dreams.

“Be ready to view the merchandise in an hour,” the reverend said with bravado.

She heard him walk out. Normally, he was oily smooth, hiding his evil nature behind a smarmy smile. He had reason to be unsettled by John, who showed absolutely no reaction to the swagger and aggressive talk. She’d seen John beat a man to death for daring to question him—slowly, for a very long time, enjoying his victim’s pain.