In Love with the Enemy (A Rizer Wolfpack Series Book 4)

by Amelia Wilson

  Beno, she called.

  There was no response. Her baby kicked in frustration.

  Nima was apparently in no mood to fumble with keys. She trained her weapon on the lock and melted the mechanism. The door swung open, and Beno leaped to his feet, wary and ready for a fight. When he saw Sera, his eyes widened and he nearly sagged with relief.

  The baby kicked for all she was worth, and Sera was filled with second-hand elation. She stepped forward and embraced her mate, who held her tight. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and pulled back, looking in awe at her swollen belly.

  “Look at you,” he breathed. “Look at both of you.”

  Nima handed him a weapon, and to Sera’s dismay, he aimed it at the padlock at his temple and fired. The little lock melted and fell away, and while he gained a few burns from the experience, he was able to toss the telepathy-blocking cap aside.

  “Theyn is across the hall,” he said.

  Elina nodded. “We’re getting you both out of here.”

  They wasted no time crossing the hall, and once again the lock was no match for Ylian weapons technology. Theyn did not react when they came in. Sera could barely even tell that he was breathing. Beno took one look at his partner and his face went grey, then dark with rage. He and Sera both went to him.

  “Theyn,” she said. “Theyn, honey, wake up.”

  Beno put his hand against his partner’s solar plexus, just like he’d done before in that hospital room in Mexico. This time, there was no glow, and no answering response from Theyn. Sera leaned over him, her belly with its precious passenger resting against his arm. She gently took his bandaged hand in hers.

  “What did they do to you?”

  The baby kicked, hard – hard enough to nearly knock the wind out of Sera. Beno put his weapon against the lock holding the offending cap onto his bondmate’s head, and he fired just long enough to soften the metal. He grabbed it and pulled it loose, then stripped the cap away. All of Theyn’s thick golden hair had been shaved, and angry burns in loosely concentric circles dotted his scalp.

  “Jesus,” Asa said.

  A new voice shouted in the corridor. “Stop right there!”

  Joely took cover in the cell while Asa, Elina and Nima opened fire. Bullets responded, ripping into the wall over their heads. Sera covered Theyn with her body, and Beno covered them both. The baby kicked like her life depended on it and sent waves of distress through Sera.

  In the darkness, two points of blazing blue lit up the room. Theyn had opened his eyes, and they were burning like never before.

  Sera, he said. Beno.

  We’re here, she answered. You’re going to be okay. We’ll get you out of here.

  Another bullet smashed into the concrete wall, sending dust and fragments raining down on them. Theyn gently pushed the two of them back.

  In the Ylian tongue, he said firmly, “Let me handle this.”

  “Theyn – “ his companion began to protest.

  “That was not a request.”

  They moved back and gave him room. Theyn rose from the cot like an angry god, his eyes shining halogen-bright. He was trembling, and his scales were beginning to glow, too, wreathed in golden energy that hummed like electricity. He walked toward the door, and one of the soldiers fired at him. The bullet struck him in the chest but bounced harmlessly away.

  “Enough,” he snarled. Sera had never heard so harsh a sound in his normally-gentle voice. He extended his good hand, and the gun of the soldier who had shot him flew into his grip. He crumpled it and threw it aside.

  “Holy shit!” the soldier cried. Theyn gestured in the air, and the man flew down the hallway, slamming into the door and breaking it from its hinges. The door hit the floor with such force that it shattered, and the soldier lay silent and still.

  Theyn walked farther into the hallway, and Asa fell back to give him room. Nima and Elina continued to fire, but when they saw him, they gaped in shock and stood aside, staring.

  Theyn held out his hand again as the energy around his scales turned into white-hot tongues of flame. He was unaffected by the fire, but the heat drove the humans back. Their bullets would not penetrate his skin, and he was not slowing.

  Again, he said, “Enough!”

  He pushed both hands out in front of him, and twin columns of fire shot out of his palms, intertwining and merging into one. The control room exploded in a shower of sparks, and the monitors and all of the computers died a miserable, melting death. The flame extended, burning a hole through the wall, and through the wall behind that one. None of the human guards remained standing.

  Theyn dropped his hands, and the fire that laced his skin receded into a faint glow. He turned to face them, and his face was terrible in its ferocious beauty.

  Beno pressed his fist to his heart. Beside him, Elina and Nima echoed the gesture.

  Theyn spoke, and his voice was deeper and more resonant than before. “My people suffer and I will not tolerate more of this.”

  Sera moved forward, passing the stunned reverence of her Ylian companions and the confusion of her human friends. She looked into his eyes as she approached, and he looked back, stoic.

  “Do you know me, Theyn?” she asked. “Do you recognize me?”

  He faltered for a moment, and the glowing in his eyes subsided. The light around his scales disappeared, and the moment passed, leaving Theyn standing in amazement. “Sera?” His voice was quiet again, and when he looked down at her abdomen, tears sprang to his eyes. “The baby is so big! Has it been that long?”

  She embraced him, and then Beno was there, too, holding them both in his powerful arms. Asa put his arm around Joely, who leaned into him in relief.

  Elina gave them a moment, then went to power up the shuttle. She beckoned their human friends to follow her, and they did. After a moment more, Nima interrupted the mates’ embrace.

  “There are more soldiers coming, and this is not a safe place to linger, Your Highness,” she told Theyn. “Please… let us take you out of here.”

  He nodded. “Yes. Let’s go somewhere safe.”

  She nodded, and they boarded the shuttle for the getaway.

  The shuttle took them to another green meadow, this one in the valley between two peaks in the Ural mountain range. The pastoral beauty was only slightly marred by the towering structure of a camouflage unit that rose hundreds of feet into the air. Dozens of workers scaled its sides, adjusting the thousands of crystals that made up the glittering sides of the planet’s next line of defense.

  There was a landing strip with four other shuttles, and full-blooded Ylians came and went, their scales and eyes shining in the sun. The air smelled pure and clean, and the very ground felt sacred.

  Theyn had been quiet since their departure, and Beno slept for the majority of the flight. Sera sat between them, comforting them and being comforted by close contact with the men she loved. The baby had settled down into a sleepy contentment, and now that they had landed, she was quiet.

  A blue-eyed hybrid woman met them when the shuttle’s hatch opened, leading a team of other hybrids, most of them with golden eyes. They helped Theyn and Beno onto hovering stretchers and bore them into a glass-sided building near the airstrip.

  Nima walked with Sera as they followed the medical team. “They will take good care of them, I promise you.”

  “They had better.”

  Epilogue

  They never told her what the human scientists had done to them, but it took over two weeks for them to heal from their ordeal, even with advanced Ylian medicines sent from Bruthes. The three of them were given a beautiful apartment overlooking a clear alpine lake, where the water sparkled in the light of the sun like a field of strewn diamonds. They had a kitchen, a comfortable sitting room, a deep and luxurious bath tub, and a nursery prepared for the baby’s imminent arrival. Their own room was graced with a huge bed, bigger than any king-sized mattress that Sera had ever seen, and the place was all light and air and welcome.

 
Asa and Joely were given the option of separate apartments of their own, but citing concerns for conservation of resources, they chose to room together. Sera wasn’t fooled for one minute.

  The scaly patches on her hands continued to grow, until they extended up her arms and over her shoulders, chest and back. They were golden and iridescent, and she felt like she was wearing some kind of organic jewelry when they twinkled in the light. She wondered if this was just part of being pregnant with an Ylian child, or if she had somehow been permanently changed.

  On the day the camouflage unit was completed and the Earth was finally hidden from Taluan eyes, when the sun was warm and the breeze light, Sera went into labor. The medical team came to her, and in accordance with Ylian norms, she was put into the deep tub with her mates at her side.

  The water seemed to help her pain and eased the contractions. Theyn and Beno did everything they could to soothe and support her, from rubbing her back to mopping her sweaty brow with cool cloths. Joely sat on the edge of the tub and tried to function as her Lamaze coach, but she did it poorly, so eventually she just opted for giving moral support.

  It was in the early hours before dawn when their daughter was born. She had Beno’s chocolate skin, Sera’s blonde curls, and despite the fact that she should have been a hybrid, she had Theyn’s completely blue, shining eyes. She was born without crying, and when they brought her up out of the water, she clung to Sera’s chest and snuggled peacefully. Both of her fathers stroked her long golden hair, and she gripped their fingers, responding to both to of their voices when they spoke to her.

  They named her Kira. As Sera held her newborn daughter, safe in the arms of the men she adored, she wept with the joy and beauty of it all.

  She kissed Kira’s forehead and whispered in her softest voice.

  “Welcome home.”

  A FRIEND IN LOVE

  Introduction

  Yarra sat in her room, listening to the noises coming from the hall. She had been waiting for him to come. The time on her wristwatch showed that it was fifteen minutes past midnight. He was on time.

  She was lying on her side, with her back facing the door. With a small creak from the un-oiled hinges, the door opened. Still, she did not turn to face her mysterious visitor. She already knew the purpose of his visit. Her ears picked up every rustle of his footsteps against the parquet floor.

  Arms hugging a throw pillow, she tensed just slightly. She would not give him the pleasure of knowing what she knew. The tears started welling up in her eyes.

  The fine hairs on her neck stood up. She knew that he was standing two feet away from her. It was strange how the faint smell of his cologne made her emotional. In her vision, he had been wearing a loose white shirt, skin tight jeans, and a silver choker that she had gotten him for his birthday. Yarra yearned to turn and look at him. Perhaps her vision had been wrong, but that had never happened before.

  Her back facing him, she heard the smooth sound of his finger running against something metallic. ‘The gun,’ she thought to herself. The slightest of click came from the revolver. He took aim, and Yarra did not dare move. She would let her vision play out the way she wanted it to. There would be a letter on her table addressed to him. Perhaps he would read it after killing her, perhaps not. She would not know.

  Chapter-1

  The Present

  Death is inevitable. Humans know that much, though when and how are questions they can often not answer.

  Yarra could. And she had seen hers. Nothing fancy. In her vision, she was lying in bed, and the clock was a quarter past midnight. She, from a third person’s point of view, saw a man hold a gun to her back, followed by a loud explosion. All was dark afterward.

  She also knew the identity of her killer. He looks suave, and cruel; a smirk present on his face as though he relished the opportunity to rid her off the face of this earth.

  Presently at the moment that the vision occurred, she was on a date with him. He was not the same person that she had seen in her vision. The man in front of her was mild-mannered, intelligent, and even quirky. Yarra watched him take a scoop of ice-cream from the bowl. A dollop of vanilla fell onto his lap. She handed him a tissue to wipe at the spatter on his brown khakis.

  “I’m sorry,” he says nervously, accepting her offering. “I’m just a bit nervous.”

  She let out a polite laugh. His emotions were genuine. There was nothing extraordinary about the man in front of her. He was average in height and features. Pockmarked in the face, the only trait of his that transcended the sublime was his smile, warm, almost incandescent smile.

  No way could he be the man in the vision. That man she saw held on to the gun as though he had been using it all his life. He was a ruthless killer. The person in front of her right now had dropped his fork twice and spoon thrice throughout their date.

  “What do you have to be nervous about?” she asked him, fishing out another tissue from her purse.

  He accepted it graciously. She had a point. The guy in front of her was a total babe, very much unlike the losers she had dated. At least he did not constantly talk about himself.

  “It is just…, I rarely go out on dates. And…, and you are…”

  He did not finish his sentence. Instead, he looked down and blushed.

  Yarra reached for a scoop of ice cream they were sharing. Her heart was hammering in her chest.

  How would she let him know that he would kill her one day? In a year to be exact. She couldn’t. He would have looked at her as though she were a complete lunatic!

  “What are you majoring in?” she asked to distract herself from the thoughts in her head.

  “Economics. You?”

  “English literature with a minor in contemporary art.”

  He looked at her with a smile that warmed her entire body. For a moment, Yarra forgot her future vision and enjoyed the first date she had had in years.

  The café across the street from their college was packed with people coming out from their mid-morning classes. It was one of the sort of dates arranged by her friends.

  They complained that she did not go out much, but what was the point of going out when you knew what was going to happen? She could not enjoy football matches because she would know who would score the winning pass.

  Her visions came at irregular intermittency, but she could predict which man would make a pass at any of her girlfriends. Whenever someone came up to her with a possible setup, Yarra’s precognitive abilities were able to tell her their future together – sometimes even as far as seventy years.

  Though in her vision, it showed the possibility of happy marriages, Yarra was bored. She would have known what to expect with all these men. The lure of the mystery was already lost.

  When one of her friends, Sharanya, had spoken to her about Avice, Yarra listened as politely as possible. As Sharanya continued her spiel about the cute boy in her economics class, Yarra nodded, already knowing that her mental precognizant nature would shoot into a flurry of future images about her life with Avice.

  Only, it did not come. As Sharanya spoke, Yarra’s mind refused to form any vision pertaining to the subject. That was the first time such a thing happened. And it was the reason that she had chosen to meet him.

  The date had gone off to a great start. She watched him fumble with his food but otherwise provide wholesome conversations. It was apparent that he found her extremely attractive.

  Most men would have found her sharp, discerning nature off-putting. Not Avice. He appreciated it.

  They were midway throughout the date when Yarra saw something like a tattoo half-hidden beneath his shirt. The visible part of the tattoo looked like the tip of the blade of a knife which settled just above his left collarbone.

  Immediately, her mind went into a future-reading frenzy. But instead of multiple images forming in her head, all she saw was one. It was Avice standing with a gun to her back and a smile on his face. She saw him pull the trigger.

  She could have run
away from him, but it was too late.

  At the end of the first date, she was already falling in love with Avice Selleck.

  Chapter-2

  One Year Ago

  Aside from the vision of Avice killing her, there was nothing odd about him. He harbored no secrets from her. Or at least, she thought so.

  The closer she was to a person, random visions often came to her like vivid dreams, enumerating the person’s many possibilities. It could be as mundane as their lunch for the next five days or as significant as the person they were about to marry.

  But not Avice. Try as she might, nothing came to mind.

  And she loved it. For the first time in her life, she was free of the ability of knowing things before they happened. But, it was the lack of information about Avice which made her unable to ascertain his future movements.

  Two months into their courtship, she had met Avice’s parents. They were the run of the mill family living an hour away from their college in a quiet suburb.

  Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, although she had seen the same tattoo imprint visible at the collar of his father’s shirt. Funnily enough, it occurred to Yarra then that she had never seen Avice naked. She had not seen him shirtless either.

  Just as her hands grazed Avice’s father’s for a shake, the same vision of him killing her returned. This time, it was more vivid. He was still clothed in white with skin tight black jeans. She could see the make of the revolver this time. But, what was different was the smirk. He was not leering at her. His eyes were squinted because there were tears welling, but it was still an upward curve of his lips. It was as if he was trying hard to find a silver lining to killing her.