by Alex Hayes
My brow pinches. “What friends?” Shit, Idris and Rowan must be close.
“Why else do you think we concocted this plan to draw you here? You’re not the only one we want, Connell.”
“Why?”
“To assimilate, of course. You’re all so stupid. With your shape-shifting abilities, you could control this planet. But that hasn’t occurred to any of you, has it? So, we’ll take your powers and put them to better use.”
My eyes narrow as they trail over Ryker. “Why do you need to shape shift? You’ve already blended in.”
He shrugs. “The human male I assimilated held the power of influence over your female.”
“She is not my female,” I growl.
“Call her what you will. You trust her. Care for her. And that is your greatest flaw. With you and your Livran companions assimilated, we’ll have no need of humans or their weakness.”
Their weakness? What the hell sort of chance would three invisible bird creatures have against the US Army?
“Lieutenant Zag?” Ryker calls.
These guys are military, so they ought to know exactly what kind of damage humans can do.
Bill Danvers enters from a doorway to Ryker’s left. My phone light casts a wide shadow around him, and its light glances off a massive silver weapon.
My lower jaw drops.
Ryker glances at the armed man. “Feel free to transform, Lieutenant.”
Danvers nods, then his body goes wavy and indistinct under his dark blue T-shirt and baggy slacks. The man inflates, muscles bulging, like a birthday balloon expanding into a superhero. Only this giant blue super is sorely lacking in hero. He gains a couple of extra arms with the change, and the ugliest alien mug I’ve ever seen. Four eyes and two mouths.
He lifts his weapon and points it at me.
Holy crap. Street fighting isn’t going anywhere with these guys.
I’m still dragging my chin off the floor when Ryker says, “Deal with him.”
The alien Danver’s mega weapon hums as I spin on my heels and dive out of the room.
As I stumble down the hall, another blue monster pops out of nowhere, blocking my exit to the front door.
I run the other way. Ahead, the hall ends at the double doors I approached from outside. Padlocked and chained.
There’s no way through those doors, and there’s nowhere else to go.
My only option is to turn invisible and hope to sneak past this guy. As I tear off my shirt, a rattle comes from behind me.
Spinning around, I throw my weight at the double doors. They give way and I stumble forward into the chest of another monster.
I leap away from this new creature as the doors slam shut behind me, then back up until I’m pressed into steel.
This new creature is nothing like Ryker’s bloated blue monster friend. In the glow of a streetlamp, the lizard guy looks incongruously well-dressed in jeans and a button-down shirt.
“Conithar, are you okay?” the reptilian being demands in a voice that’s strangely familiar.
I gape and ball my T-shirt, ready to hurl the wad at this guy while I make a run for it.
The doors shake behind me. My options aren’t looking good.
The broken chain lies at my feet. I grab the metal links and wind them around the handles, then turn to face this new alien threat.
The lizard man frowns at the rattling door. “We gotta get out of here. Come on.”
When I don’t move, he grabs my wrist with a scaly hand and drags me down the steps toward the side of the building.
I try, but I can’t snap free of his steely grip. As I trip after him, fighting all the way, I sense the intense pull of Rowan’s crystal.
35
Rowan
A shirtless and thoroughly freaked out Con rounds the corner of the building, struggling against Idris’s Livran grip.
“Idris, let him go.” I step from the shadows, hoping my presence will reassure Con, but he freezes.
Yeah, because I’m in Livran form too. A shape Con doesn’t recognize, apparently.
“It’s me, Rowan.”
He drags in an uneven breath, hand brushing the crystal in his chest. “Yeah, I get that, but what the hell are you?” He glances from me to Idris and back, looking furious as he rubs his wrist.
Idris and I exchange glances. He’s surprised, too, that Con doesn’t recognize his natural state.
Well, maybe that makes sense, assuming Mr. Scrim never showed him. Odd, though, that he knows how to shape shift into an invisible angel-like creature, but not a Livran.
Idris swipes a palm over the ridges on his scaled head. “This is our native form. You’ll be stronger if you take it.”
Con’s eyes rake me up and down until my cheeks burn. Ugh, does he think I look hideous in green?
Meanwhile, I can’t help noticing the toned muscles of his naked chest. If he looks this good as a human, what must he look like as a Livran?
Con shakes himself out of a stunned silence. “How?”
A bang reverberates down the alley behind the building. The rear door being thrown open.
“They’re coming.” Idris pushes Con into the shadows of the wall. “Touch my skin and think about looking like me.”
I pick up the apprehension washing through Con.
Hesitantly, he lays a hand on Idris’s arm, then his human body turns to quicksilver and shape shifts into matching lizard scales. He clenches his fists, making his biceps and pecs bulge.
Wow. I draw in a deep breath at the same moment he does. I’d thought Idris had a nice body in Livran form, but Con…
Damn it, no time for distractions.
An expansive shadow moves across the mottled light from a streetlamp behind the building, stretching down the cracked asphalt of the alleyway in front of us.
Idris swears and grabs Con’s elbow. “Get ready.”
“To do what?” my bond mate growls, staring down at his reptilian body.
Our best option is obvious if I can get up the guts to execute it.
Con’s confusion motivates me to move. I run past him and stop near the corner of the building, pressing my body into its protective darkness.
The Evatenon strides into view.
Taking no time to consider the consequences or the near paralyzing terror building in my throat, I step from cover.
“Rowan!” Idris shouts.
“Rae, wait!”
I keep going until I’m standing in front of the armed Evatenon. I’m too close for him to shoot me and well in range to be assimilated.
But that’s the point.
The last Evatenon who tried to assimilate me took me by surprise. That time, I used fire. This time, I’ll use ice.
My palms land flat on his massive blue chest.
With a throaty laugh, he grabs me with two of his four arms, shifting his weapon into the crook of a third. The last lifts a webbed hand toward my forehead, ready to suck the life out of me.
I won’t let that happen again.
Fighting fright, I focus energy to my hands, pouring freezing power into my palms.
The creature’s double mouth stretches to form a scream in stereo, but the vapor in his chest has already condensed into ice crystals. His lungs and heart solidify as I send his core temperature spiraling toward absolute zero.
Green scaly arms circle my waist and pull me from the massive ice sculpture I’ve created. The alien’s fingers snap as my arms are tugged from their icy grip. The digits hit the ground and shatter.
Idris appears out of the periphery, a twisted two-by-four locked between his palms. He swings the wood like a baseball bat at the back of the creature’s neck. An Evatenon’s only weak point.
But completely frozen, this guy’s as fragile as a glass tree ornament.
Con’s arms jacket me as I stumble backward.
Idris’s chunk of wood makes contact. He misses the bump on the back of the Evatenon’s neck, but that makes no difference. The creature’s body shatters. H
is weapon strikes the ground and splinters across the shadowy tarmac in a twinkling cloud.
I turn in Con’s arms and bury my face in the smooth scales of his bare chest. His vice-like grip and his healing lowers my heart rate in an instant, and I sense a reflective drop in his energy at the effort.
He’s exhausted.
Idris assesses the alien’s remains. “Don’t think I wanna be around when this guy’s pieces thaw out.”
He has a point. Ick.
“Are you okay?” Con’s voice is richer and deeper in his Livran form.
I want to stay in his arms forever, but I nod and force myself to pull away.
“Too bad about his weapon.” Idris kicks a foot through its silvery remains.
Con looks up the side of the building. “Azera’s still inside, and the place is full of smoke.”
“You know where she is?” Idris asks.
Con shakes his head. “I need to shift into bird form to see her.”
“Was that the only blue guy?” Idris swings toward the back of the building.
“No. I saw another one inside, plus Ryker, the guy I told you about with the glowing eyes.”
“Wonder why they didn’t follow this guy.” Idris takes my earlier position at the building’s corner. He peers around its edge as Con shape shifts into his invisible form.
I’m tempted to rub my eyes at the strangeness of Con standing half-dressed and invisible. “The guy was armed,” I answer Idris. “They probably figured he didn’t need help.”
Con backs away from the building. At least, his clothes do.
He comes closer again and shifts back to Livran. “She’s on the top floor, near the center of the building. Ryker and his Evatenon sidekick are still on the first floor. Those are the only life forms in there. They’re in line with the back door, so probably waiting for us to head inside.”
Idris grins. “Then we enter from the front and surprise them.”
Con steps up to him. “Why don’t we sneak in, rescue Azera and make a run for it?”
“Because they won’t quit looking for us until they either assimilate us or we kill them.”
Idris’s determination is impressive, but I don’t like his proposal any more than I sense Con does. Unfortunately, there’s no alternative.
“I hadn’t pegged you as a killer,” Con counters.
Tension bristles inside me. “He isn’t by choice, Con. Besides, I’m the one who just committed murder.” The thought makes me shudder.
“That was self-defense.”
Idris rolls his eyes skyward. “And so is what’s ahead of us. It’s them or us.” He squints at Con. “Are you coming with me or am I doing this alone?”
Con growls. “I’ll go with you, but only because if I don’t, Rowan will.”
I glance up at the fire escape attached to the side of the building, then look back at Con. I could protest his attempt to exclude me from a face-off with the Evatenon, but I have a mission of my own in mind. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll head up that way and look for your…um, friend, while you two deal with those guys.”
Con’s lips part. “The building’s on fire.”
I lift my hairless eyebrows. “Then I’d better hurry.”
He looks like he’s racking his brains for another plan, anything to keep me from going up there, but inspiration comes back null. “Okay, but promise you’ll get out if there’s the slightest hint of danger.”
Idris jogs past us, down the alleyway toward the fire escape.
As I follow, Con grabs my arm. “I’m serious. No risks.”
I pull him along with me and stop below the steel-framed fire escape. “Sure. No risks.” Like he and Idris aren’t about to put their lives on the line walking back into that place.
Why are guys such hypocrites?
Idris gazes up where the fire escape’s ladder is folded away. “Can you jump that?”
“On my own?”
He’s got to be kidding.
“I’ll give you a boost.” Con’s voice betrays his tiredness, but his hands settle on my waist.
I wish he’d leave them there. Forget the Evatenon. Forget Azera… A sigh almost escapes me. Like that’ll ever happen.
“Ready?” Con’s fingers tighten.
“Yeah.” I crouch down, then spring off my muscly Livran thighs.
The extra push from Con sends me within reach of the fire escape’s lowest railing. My legs bang into the framework, but I swing them back and haul myself, up and over, onto the walkway.
“We’ll see you back out here,” Idris calls. “Make it fast, okay?”
I give him a thumbs up through the darkness, then scamper up the metal stairs.
36
Connell
Reluctant to risk anyone spotting us in Livran form, Idris and I shape shift back to human and jog the low-lit streets to the front entrance. Idris slips into the shadow of the gated fence on the building’s right side.
I press into the chain-link beside him. “You got a plan?”
“Not exactly.” He studies the building’s approach. “If they have a tracking device to detect our crystals, they’ll know exactly where we—”
“They do. Ryker showed it to me. He knew you and Rowan were outside. He wants to assimilate us and take over the world or something.”
Idris clenches his fists. “Assholes. Okay, they know we’re here, so the element of surprise isn’t happening. We need to think of a way to knock them off balance.” He drums his fingers against a bicep. “The device they have for detecting our crystals is pretty basic, something like a compass dial, operating in a single plane.”
“So can they tell how many of us there are in a single direction?”
Idris stops tapping his arm. “Not unless what they have is more sophisticated than the one I’ve seen.”
“So it couldn’t tell that both you and I are standing here. Only that at least one of us is?”
“Sounds about right,” he says. “But how does that help? They know there are three of us. If they detect us in two directions, they’ll know two of us are together.”
“But two of us could be helping Azera.” I pause a moment to focus on Rowan’s feelings. She’s nervous but not afraid. “If I’m invisible,” I continue, “and I’m right in front of you, then they won’t know I’m there. And once we have a visual on them, we’ll know if they’re looking at the device, right?”
His eyes narrow. “Yeah, but then what will you do?”
“Sneak up on them. Ryker was human. The other guy was blue and armed, same as the monster Rowan froze.”
“So, you’ll snatch the weapon and turn it on them?”
I nod.
Idris lifts an eyebrow as he considers. “Do they know you can turn invisible?”
Hate to admit it, but… “Yeah.”
“Which means they’ll expect a trick like that, unless they think we’ve got something else up our sleeves.”
Speaking of sleeves, I glance at my naked arms, shirtless because I dropped my T-shirt in the back alley. But fewer clothes make going invisible easier. “I might have an idea. What’s the range of that device?”
“A couple of miles at most. The same range you and I have to detect each other.”
“So what if we fake my departure? Let them think it’s only you heading in there.”
Idris seems curious. “How?”
“I fly away. Make it obvious I’m leaving. Once it looks like I’ve bailed, I’ll circle back, maintaining alignment with your position on their device.”
He nods, thoughtfully. “That might work. Once I fade out of range for you, you’ll know it’s safe to swing back.”
“That won’t be far, right? Not like with Rowan and me. I can detect her from miles away.”
“Nah, your connection with her is different.”
I wonder how it varies, but there isn’t time to ask questions. I can feel Rowan’s anxiety growing. “Okay. I’ll take off.” I shape shift into my invisible form, drop my
pants and kick off my shoes.
Idris has turned his head away, but there’s nothing to see.
“I’ll be back as fast as I can. Hopefully those guys won’t come looking in the meantime.” I stuff my crumpled clothes into his arms. “Keep ‘em handy for the next time I need to shift.”
Eyes rolling, he stuffs my socks and underwear into his coat pockets, then wraps my shoes in my jeans and sticks them under his arm.
Summoning what energy I have left, I run down the street and take to the air.
Fighting the high winds whirling just above the buildings makes me realize how tired I am. Normally the turbulence wouldn’t faze me.
Healing Rowan without properly refueling afterward was a mistake. I should’ve shoved some of Hyun’s potstickers down my throat while I had the chance.
Adrenaline and my Livran shape helped keep me going, but this bird form is different and flying takes its toll.
Just gotta keep going a bit longer.
Two miles into the wind, then I soar in a wide curve and use my crystal to guide me back to Idris. Even at this distance, my x-ray bird eyes can detect the Evatenon in the building in front of him. A gentle shift, and I’m in perfect alignment. Minor adjustments hold me there while I take advantage of the wind direction.
A short respite, then I land, crossing the street at an angle to stay lined up and stumble to a stop directly behind Idris. “Okay, ready.”
He jumps but doesn’t turn. “Great. Let’s go.”
Reaching the front door, I slide ahead of him. “They’ve gone back to the room where I first found them, some old apartment. Ryker used the kitchen island as cover.”
Idris chuckles. “Like that’s going to save him.”
“Yeah, not if I have any say in the matter. I’ve a score to settle.” I drop my hand on the doorknob. “Ready?”
“Go for it.”
I shove the front door open and walk inside. The smell of smoke is stronger, making my bird throat itch. I glance ahead to the stairwell. Rowan and Azera are up there, and Rowan’s concern has multiplied.
