by Tammy Walsh
There could be no denying it.
It was the pilot.
Clint.
At least, he looked identical to Clint.
His twin maybe?
But what were the chances of them both falling from the sky in the same small town?
It didn’t feel right.
I reached for my radio again.
My hand shook so hard I had to restrain it with my other hand.
“Dispatch, come in, over. I repeat, dispatch, come in, over.”
Shlurp.
Shlurp, shlurp.
Something writhed from the darkness.
No, not from the darkness.
It writhed from the dying figure on the spaceship’s hull.
And that was what it was, I realized.
A spaceship.
Martin, damn him, had been right.
This thing was an alien.
Did that mean Clint was one too?
Was that how he was so strong?
Was that why he couldn’t remember anything?
It wasn’t that he had amnesia.
He just didn’t know anything about our planet.
“Dispatch, come in, over!”
The creature yanked itself from the fallen pilot.
It was as black as tar and thick like phlegm.
It moved forward with unbelievable speed and raced toward me.
I fell on my ass and skidded back away from it.
It latched onto my leg with its long sticky tendrils.
I swung my arm at it but failed to connect.
I swung with the torch again and this time my aim was good.
Then the tar absorbed that too.
It slithered up my body.
I kicked at it but it lashed my legs together.
“No!” I screamed. “Martin! Somebody! Help!”
The tar smothered my legs, my arms, and finally covered my head, until I was embraced within its cocoon.
As the creature absorbed me, I felt my consciousness give way beneath it.
Soon, everything I was, it was.
And everything it was, I was.
I knew what it wanted, just as it knew what I wanted.
I was shocked to find it was the same thing.
As the last few tendrils of my consciousness slipped beneath its control, I couldn’t help but smile.
It may not have happened the way I’d like, but Isabella would be mine.
No, she would be ours.
Isabella
After lunch, we returned to my room and I finished taking care of his injuries.
They might have been minor, as he’d said, but that didn’t explain the miraculous recovery he’d made.
I could practically see the wounds stitching themselves together like something from a Marvel movie.
“The splinters…” I said, turning his hands over and surveying them. “They’re gone.”
He shrugged, completely unperturbed by my surprise.
“I guess you must have gotten them all out already.”
But I knew I hadn’t.
I got the worst of them out but not the tiny shards.
Somehow, his body had pushed them out by itself.
I was amazed.
I smiled up at him and was immediately ensnared in his eyes.
They were misty and hot with desire, his golden irises burning like molten lead.
I felt his rough palms on mine and they sent tingling shards of electricity through my entire body.
He drifted toward me and, without saying a word, began to kiss me.
I put up no resistance and let him do what he wanted with me.
He reached for the back of my dress and unzipped it.
I shrugged my shoulders, letting it slide to the floor.
I removed his shirt and marveled at his incredibly chiseled torso and grew giddy about which part I would feast on first.
I nibbled on his hardened nipples and felt along the intricate edge of his bulging six-pack.
But there was another part of his physiology that’d perked up even more at my advances.
His cock.
It was rock hard, probing, and strained at the front of his pants.
His size was intimidating but I felt up to the challenge.
He pressed himself against me and kissed the base of my neck.
I guided him down to my exposed nipples and encouraged him to suckle.
He did, without hesitation.
I threw my head back and reveled in the feel of his tongue slurping at me.
He tucked his hands under my ass and squeezed me gently but firmly.
It was heaven.
At least, while it lasted.
The loud roar of a powerful engine usurped my attention and I knew immediately we were in trouble.
I sighed and shook my head.
“Why can we never get a break?”
I raised my head to peer through the window that looked out on the front-drive.
To my irritation, the thing I thought had made the sound was right there.
Liam’s cruiser tore up the driveway at a reckless speed.
“I knew he wouldn’t leave it at that. I knew he had to make things worse.”
Clint sat up and joined me, his face so close I could practically taste him.
The cruiser slammed on its brakes and skidded to a halt.
Before the dust cloud could die down, the door opened and a figure stepped out.
It wasn’t hard to figure out who it could be.
It was Liam’s cruiser, and my parents had precious few enemies in this town.
His uniform was crisp and without dimple, and he wore shades that masked the vindictive expression he had to be wearing.
He arched his neck up to peer at us, and framed by the window the way we were, must have painted a very compromising position.
There was something sinister about the way he peered up at us like that as if he was the one in control, not us.
“We should leave,” I said. “Before he causes more trouble.”
“We’re not leaving,” Clint said, taking my face in his hands and kissing me on the lips. “Not before we’re ready to. I defeated him before. I can defeat him again. We just need to tell him the way things are, that we’re together and he can’t bully you into loving him. Because you don’t, do you?”
How could he even ask such a thing?
“Of course not. I’ve never loved him.”
I love you.
I’d always thought it was crazy for someone to fall in love at first sight.
Love was a big deal.
How could you know someone on such a deep level like that without first getting to know them?
And yet, here I was, in love with a stranger without a memory.
I guess everything was impossible until it happened to you.
Clint slid out from under me and pulled his pants on.
“Where are you going?” I said.
“To speak with him.”
Panic leaped into my heart and my hand flashed out and snagged his wrist.
“I don’t want you to go out there.”
Clint buttoned up his shirt.
“You saw what happened last time.”
“That’s why I don’t want you heading out there. He doesn’t take failure well. He’ll be more dangerous this time.”
Clint leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine.
“He’s not dangerous. I am. It won’t take a minute. I’ll be right back.”
His belt buckle rattled as he tightened it.
I loved that sound when it meant he was getting naked.
Now I hated that it signaled he would leave me.
If he was so determined to head out there, who was I to stop him?
“Be careful. He’s still armed.”
Clint gave me a wink and crossed the room.
He listened at the door to make sure neither of my parents was outside before slipping out and proceeding down the stairs.
He just stood there, thumbs hooked in the front of his pants, his expression mostly hidden by his shades.
Seeing him so calm sent a chill to my core.
That isn’t like Liam.
I wasn’t sure where that thought came from or why it even popped in my head.
After all, he’d arrived in Liam’s cruiser, wore Liam’s uniform, and looked every inch like him, so how could it not be him?
Despite all that, my instincts wouldn’t relent.
There was something somehow very wrong about him as if he were attempting to look natural, attempting to look calm.
And his presence was commanding.
It was the version of Liam that he’d always wanted to be.
The quietly powerful—and feared—leader of the town’s police forces.
That status and outward projection had never failed to escape him because he tried so damn hard to make it work.
Something had happened to him between the earlier incident and now, I realized.
Another shiver shook me.
Something terrible and unspeakable had happened but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what.
The front door opened and the screen door smacked against the doorframe as Clint descended the few steps to the driveway.
His footsteps faltered just a moment—blink and you would miss it—but it was there.
He must have noticed what I had.
The small but recognizable change in Liam’s countenance.
A serpent of concern nipped at my insides.
Run, I wanted to shout. Run, my love. Find somewhere safe.
But I was frozen in place, my sweaty palms pressing against the worn white of the window frame.
I leaned forward, my head hanging out the window, straining to hear their words.
I sensed it was an important moment, one that would have a direct and powerful impact on the future trajectory of my life.
I didn’t even realize I was holding my breath.
“What are you doing here?” Clint said.
Liam, always quick with a snappy retort—often with the result of winding up with egg on his face as he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was—remained silent.
Then he pursed his lips and removed his thumbs from his belt buckle.
His serpentlike smile turned my heart to ice.
“You really don’t remember who you are, do you?” he said.
Even his voice sounded different.
Like there was a distant echo, a scratching noise right behind Liam’s own, as if it was a faulty pre-recording that lacked any humanity at all behind it.
“You were meant to be my great opponent,” he said. “Now look at you. You don’t even know who you are.”
If Clint was perturbed, he didn’t show it.
“She’s not going with you,” he said.
Liam sighed, removed his shades, and tucked them in his right breast pocket.
It felt wrong.
So wrong.
“Run,” I said, the word finally escaping my throat, but failing to carry far beyond my own ears. “Run. Now.”
Clint cocked his head to one side but kept his attention focused firmly on Liam.
Had he heard me? I wondered. How could he?
My voice had been so soft even I could barely hear it.
“If you want her, you’ll have to go through me first,” Clint said.
“Go through you?” Liam said. “So be it.”
He looked up, revealing his eyes for the first time.
I gasped and my heart thundered hard in my chest.
His eyes were no longer the deep brown I had known all these years but glinted golden in the late afternoon sunlight.
Glinted like molten lead.
Yes, something had happened to Liam all right.
Something dark, twisted, and sinister.
Something that had bestowed the same magnetic irises on him that Clint possessed.
How? I wondered. What had happened to him since we saw him last?
He approached Clint with unhurried steps and just when Clint moved to shove him back, the creature—and yes, that was what he was—some kind of monster wearing a Liam costume—shifted and moved so fast his body was a blur.
He struck Clint in the chest, the gut, then ducked under Clint’s wild swinging punch before rising and, using the momentum, brought his fist crashing into Clint’s jaw so hard it raised him off his feet.
Clint stumbled, his former strength leaving him like a river bursting its banks.
Liam seized Clint by his lapels, spun, and hurled Clint like he was nothing more than a bag of bones.
Clint’s entire body went limp as he sailed up and then crashed into the gravel driveway.
The sharp stones tore his clothes and he rolled end over end until he came to a stop in a heap of lifeless limbs.
He didn’t even attempt to rise.
I got to my knees and braced my arms on the window frame.
“Clint!” I screamed.
Liam’s head whipped up and the fiery golden orbs of his eyes pinned me in place and reminded me of the wolfish appearance Clint had when he confronted Liam during their first round.
Only now, I was the prey.
Liam sprinted up the short flight of steps but instead of bolting through the front door, he launched himself at the trellis that adorned the front wall.
His arms and legs were much stronger than I believed and scaled like a spider perfectly designed for such an assault.
He was halfway to my bedroom window when I overcame my shock and began to move.
I fell back off my bed and crashed to the floor.
I was up in an instant and running for the door.
What was happening? I screeched at the top of my internal voice. What the fuck is going on?
I shouldered my bedroom door open and ran into a large figure with grasping hands.
I screamed and shuttled back.
“Hey, hey!”
It took a moment for me to recognize my pop’s gentle voice.
“Pop? Oh, thank God!”
I fell into his embracing arms and nuzzled my face into his chest.
“I heard a scream,” he said. “What’s going on?”
My mouth worked but I couldn’t form words.
I turned and pointed at my window.
“What happened?” Pop said.
“It’s… It’s Liam… At least, it looks like Liam. He got into a fight with Clint and… and… He’s climbing up the house to reach me!”
Pop wrapped his comforting arms around me and rocked me gently.
“Sh, sh, sh, sh, sh. It’s all right. Everything’s going to be okay.”
I wanted to sink into his embrace the way I used to when I was a kid but I couldn’t shake the image of Liam scaling up the trellis like that.
Like a spider.
Like a monster.
Like a demon.
I pulled back and gingerly stepped toward the open window, but at an angle in case Liam reached inside to grab me.
A breath of wind made the net billow and flutter like a bird’s feathers.
From this angle, I couldn’t make Liam out anywhere.
I leaned outside a little further but still couldn’t see any sign of him.
At the rate he’d been scaling up the wall, he should have reached my room by now.
But there was no sign of him.
I couldn’t have imagined it, could I?
I shook my head.
Of course not.
Then if Liam wasn’t there, seeing Clint lying in the dirt of the driveway would be my proof of the fight that’d taken place…
Except Clint was no longer there either.
I backed away from the window and buried my face in the palms of my hands.
“I… I don’t understand,” I gibbered. “They were right there, I swear! Both of
them! They were right there! Look! Liam’s cruiser is parked down there. He is here. But I saw… I thought…”
Pop’s welcoming arms embraced me once again.
“It’s all right. You don’t have anything to fear. I have you now.”
I have you now.
That didn’t sound like Pop.
And now that I thought about it, his voice didn’t sound the same either…
The hairs stood up on the back of my neck.
It bore that same haunted hollow sound Liam’s had earlier too.
I looked up into his face and my breath caught in my throat.
His eyes.
They glowed golden.
I pulled back but his grip was strong.
“Pop?” I said. “No… You’re not Pop…”
His expression hardened and his hands tightened around my arms in a vicelike grip.
“Let go!” I cried. “You’re hurting me!”
I yanked hard but the more I fought, the harder he squeezed.
“Your suffering is of no consequence,” Pop said, and as he spoke, his eyes hardened to polished topaz and his voice shivered like electricity running over a metal grate.
Then his face melted, morphing into that of Liam, and just for a split second, right before he became Liam, there was a flicker of another face…
Clint.
But this creature wasn’t Clint.
It was the creature he’d been fighting.
Whatever this thing was, whatever it was trying to be, it wasn’t anyone I knew.
“Liam?” I said. “Let go of me! What’s happened to you?”
“Liam is a part of me now. He longs to be a part of you. We both do. You are my fated mate and we will be joined. You are mine and I claim you.”
He spun me around and pinned me to the bed.
He pulled my skirt up and my panties down.
I screamed but it was muffled by my blankets.
I kicked and punched and flailed, but he was too strong.
I felt his hand press on my lower back, pinning me in place.
His belt buckle clattered and his fly zipped open.
He placed himself at my opening, which was cold, tight, and dry, not ready to be entered.
“No!” I screamed. “Please! Don’t do this!”
Liam leaned over me and whispered in my ear.
“You are mine. And I claim you as a vessel of the empire.”
I wept for what was about to happen, for this stark and horrifying incident that would divide my life and forever scar me.
I would never be the same after this.
