by Sax, Cynthia
Kane shuddered, his shoulders shaking under his tight black T-shirt. “What is your position here? You don’t act like military.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Eshe wanted to alleviate the sexual tension between them.
Kane grunted, his bearing distinctively military. He constantly scanned his surroundings, no doubt absorbing every detail, evaluating threats and considering escape routes. Her warrior brother did the same thing.
“On this planet I’d be considered a medical doctor or a scientist.” She walked beside Kane, feeling small and dainty next to him.
“On this planet,” he repeated, his intelligence pleasing Eshe. “And on your planet? Where is your planet?” Kane prowled down the corridor as silently as an Orogone, his hand brushing against hers, his scarred knuckles grazing her skin, sending shockwaves of pleasure up her arm.
Heads turned and gazes followed their progress. Access to the joint Earth-Orogone facility was restricted to cleared personnel only. “My planet is far from here.” She directed him toward her office as her laboratory remained occupied by her nosy brother. “You’re not surprised that I’m an off-worlder?”
“During my investigations, aliens were mentioned too many times for me to discount their existence.” Cotton-clad muscles rippled as he shrugged his shoulders, the movement captivating Eshe.
She pulled her gaze away from his finely honed physique and frowned up at him. “What are you investigating?”
“My grandfather has disappeared. People are vanishing and no one remembers they existed.” Kane held a door open for her, a human custom she found quaint. Her strength rivaled any human male’s. “Are you responsible for that? Are you stealing people?”
“I wish that was possible.” She moved medical machinery off the guest chair and piled it on a clean corner of her desk. “Unless people vanishing are off-worlders, we aren’t responsible for their disappearances.”
“How can you be certain of that?” Kane scowled, standing on the threshold. Eshe’s lips twisted. He was a warrior, right down to his distrusting single soul, unwilling to venture too far into enemy territory. “One of your associates could be abducting humans without your knowledge,” he baldly stated.
“Then this associate is much more intelligent than I am,” she snapped, the possibility that someone could find the solution before she did making her irritable. “Because we haven’t perfected human transfers yet. That’s what I’m testing with my experiments.”
She sat behind her desk, in the captain’s chair she often slept in, her pants-covered ass smacking against the black leather seat. “If your grandfather is human we had nothing to do with his disappearance. Is that the answer you needed?” Would he leave now, allowing her to return to her work?
“I need to know where my grandfather is.” Kane gazed down at her, appearing even taller, broader, more delightfully masculine. “All of my leads mentioned Orogone. As you’re Orogone, you’ll help me find him,” he declared, his arrogance rivaling Raff’s.
Eshe removed her sunglasses and set them on a broken extractor, the parts saved for future repairs. “Will I?” She met Kane’s gaze. Moments stretched, neither of them relenting.
Her destined mate finally broke the stalemate. “Doctors are supposed to help others,” Kane grumbled as he lowered his big body into the guest chair.
He gazed around the crowded room. Eshe assumed he was assessing his enemy, a tactic her brother would have approved of. She followed Kane’s line of sight, seeing the space through his human-looking eyes. Every spare inch was covered with paper and broken machinery, the remnants of decades of hard work.
“Are you building or dismantling a spaceship?” The corners of his grim mouth lifted, the skin around his eyes creasing with laughter lines.
Eshe’s face heated. “If I need any of this I can’t easily replace it. My resources are severely limited and I’m far from home.” She rubbed the mark on her chest. The pain, caused by not touching him, by not joining with him, fogged her thoughts.
Kane picked up two of the broken guns. “That’s what all hoarders say.” He studied the Orogone weapons, his eyes glinting with intellect. “Help me find my grandfather, Eshe,” he pled rather than told her, his tone tugging at her heart.
Eshe sighed, unable to resist him. “Tell me what you know.” She caressed her mark, seeking to lessen her agony.
“He looks like me, only older with gray hair and a unique tattoo on his right pec.” Kane quickly dismantled the guns, spreading the pieces over a red file containing the results of failed formula Earth 34X4. “The man who saw him the day he disappeared had the same tattoo.”
“He had a tattoo?” His grandfather has the Orogone mark? She stopped stroking her skin. That’s impossible.
Kane pieced together a gun, using the working parts of the broken weapons. It wouldn’t be functional as key components were missing but an enemy wouldn’t be aware of that. Eshe tilted her head in approval. Her mate was a clever being.
“The tattoo is of blue waves surrounding a red sun.” Metal clinked against metal, his fingers flying, his gaze fixed on her.
That can’t be. “Did the tattoo look like this?” She yanked her collar down, revealing her mark. The vivid ink rippled as her souls slammed against the barrier of her skin, struggling to be free.
Kane stuffed the gun into the waistband of his military-style pants. He carried the weapon in the same place her brother hid his spare gun. They were both warriors, beings Eshe understood.
“It was exactly like that.” Kane reached out and traced her mark, his calloused touch pleasing her souls. She arched into his hand, needing to be nearer to him, to feel his rough fingers cover more of her skin.
“Then your grandfather is an Orogone.” Eshe closed her eyes, striving to gather her fragmented thoughts. Kane is an Orogone yet I can’t sense him. An excitement, a wild, reckless hope filled her. He’s different, as I am.
Chapter Two
Kane stared at the beautiful blonde woman sitting in front of him. Her body tilted toward his and her white blouse gaped open, revealing a lace bra and luscious curves.
“You’re saying my grandfather is an alien?” While he struggled to absorb this astonishing theory Kane drifted his fingertips over her unusual tattoo. Her skin lifted, pushing against him, as though seeking to touch him as he was touching her.
Eshe winced. “We prefer the term ‘off-worlder’.”
Words didn’t change the situation. His grandfather wasn’t from Earth, wasn’t human. Holy Shit. This means I’m not one hundred percent human either. Kane’s mind spun, a lifetime of not fitting in suddenly making sense. He’d always been stronger and faster than his classmates, his senses more acute. He knew things other people didn’t, such as how to put together the space gun he’d tucked in his waistband.
His abnormalities had scared others, prompting questions from teachers and coaches, questions his physician mother would manufacture lies to answer. Kane had learned quickly to mask his differences, to avoid detection, living a lie, unable to trust anyone.
He trusted this alien woman and he didn’t know why. Kane continued to caress the scientist’s soft skin. He should stop—she was a stranger—yet he couldn’t pull away from her. While contact with other women had always felt wrong to him, touching Eshe felt right, as necessary as breathing.
Because we’re both aliens, off-worlders, his brain rationalized. Because she’s mine, his heart insisted, both explanations allowing him to continue stroking her.
Their connection must have felt right to Eshe also. She covered his fingers with hers, pressing his palm against her tattoo. “Did your grandmother have the same mark?”
“My grandmother didn’t have any tattoos.” Kane’s skin heated to a sizzle, the pain flowing into exquisite pleasure. His cock hardened, pushing against the zipper of his pants. “She died years ago.”
“Shit.” A small frown pulled at Eshe’s lips, the blue-and-red fires in her coal-black eyes burning,
the flames hypnotic. Silence stretched as she worried her bottom lip with her teeth.
“Hmmm…” she hummed. As Kane watched with amazement, his sexy scientist grew larger, her curves expanding to fill the chair. “Vasa baka je umrla prije vaseg djeda jer je bio covjek s ljudskom kratkom zivotnom vijeku.”
He didn’t know what the hell she was saying. “You’re turning green.” Kane splayed his fingers over her morphing body. Hard bone formed under her soft skin. “And your body is changing. Is that normal?”
“Lejno.” Eshe stared down at her hands, at the small ridges formed on her knuckles. “I’m on Earth, not Sila, Earth.” She folded her fingers in small fists and her appearance returned to normal.
“Orogones take on the appearance of their host species.” Eshe peeked at him through lowered eyelashes, her cheeks pink. “And sometimes I forget where I am.”
Great. My sexy alien is crazy. “About my grandfather…”
“He’s Orogone,” she confirmed. “Your grandmother died before your grandfather because she was human with a human’s short lifespan. Your grandfather broke protocol.” Her voice was edged with disapproval.
Kane raised one of his eyebrows, having no knowledge of their protocol.
“He joined with someone other than his One, the female he was meant to share one of his souls with,” she explained. Lines appeared between her fine blonde eyebrows, her beautiful face scarily grave.
“And that’s bad?” Kane prompted. He lowered his hands and cupped her breasts, savoring their weight. He expected her to protest the intimacy.
Instead Eshe arched her back, pushing her curves farther into his palms. “That’s very bad.”
“Why is it so bad?” Kane leaned forward, enchanted by her parted lips. Would she taste as sweet as she looked?
“When Orogones are transferred back to our planet.” Her voice swept over him, as potent as any touch. “All memories of them, everything they have created, are erased.”
Everything they’ve created is erased? Kane froze, his body temperature dropping. “Including people?”
Eshe met his gaze and nodded, her blonde ponytail bobbing.
“I would be erased? My mother would be erased?” He read the verification in her expressive eyes and cursed under his breath. “Then Grandfather can’t be transferred to Orogone. Ever.” His grandfather couldn’t return to his home planet. “That must be why he disappeared. They found him.”
“They’ll find him again.” Eshe covered his hands with hers and moved his grip higher. Her strange tattoo pulsed, the rhythm erratic. “We exude a signal other Orogones sense. Eventually they’ll track him down and transfer him.”
“When they transfer him I’ll die and my mother will die.” Fuck, this is bad. Kane reluctantly released Eshe and stood, putting more distance between them, his withdrawal from her feeling unnatural, wrong.
“I can’t allow them to kill my mother.” He paced the small office, needing to take action, to do something. “She’s a doctor, like you. She saves people, makes the world a better place.” She was his mother and he would protect her.
Eshe watched him as he moved. Grooves were etched between her eyebrows. Her straight white teeth worried her bottom lip, a lip he wanted to suck, to soothe. Kane’s fingers twitched, the urge to return to her side, to caress her soft skin unnervingly strong.
“I can’t think.” She walked toward him, beads of sweat forming on her skin. “Touch me so I can think.” She reached out to him.
This need for physical contact must be an alien thing. Kane pulled Eshe into his arms, crushing her curves against his muscle. She fit perfectly and some of the tension inside him eased.
She sighed, her lips curling upward, her fingers spreading over his back. Kane breathed in her warm, womanly scent, savored her heat. She belonged with him. He felt this in his soul.
“We could…” She nibbled on her lip, her gaze unfocused. “No. I’m not ready.”
Kane cupped her chin, raising her gaze to his. “My grandfather could be transferred today. My mother and I would no longer exist.”
Eshe’s grip on him intensified. “I would rather you no longer exist than subject you to the pain of a transfer gone wrong.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” he muttered. “You’re not the person dying.”
“No, it’s not easy for me to say.” The flames in her black eyes blazed. “I’m the equivalent of a human doctor, sworn to ease suffering, to prevent death. And—”
She paused and her mouth snapped shut.
“And?” Kane gazed down at her, sensing she was holding back a significant piece of information.
“It was nothing.” She twisted in his arms, trying to free herself, her wiggling exciting his body even more. “Let me go.”
“You’re not going anywhere until you finish your thought.” Kane held on to her. “I need to know everything you know. That’s the only way we’ll solve this problem.”
Her jaw jutted.
“Eshe,” he growled, his patience strained. His mother was in danger and he had to safeguard her from harm.
“You’re my One, okay?” She glared up at him, confirming what he knew in his heart to be true. She was his. “You’re the male I must join with. If you no longer exist I die.” Her body shook, her passion escalating his. “So I want to solve this problem as much as you do but I won’t expose you to the excruciating pain of a faulty transfer.”
“You won’t expose me.” Kane’s mom was a doctor. He knew how careful doctors tended to be, especially with experimental medicine. They required trial after trial before moving to human subjects. “Is there a possibility you can transfer humans successfully?”
Eshe’s gaze slid from his. “I’ve transferred two simulated humans successfully,” she murmured. “Only two.” She held up two fingers, emphasizing that number. “That’s not an adequate trial.”
Hope filled Kane. “That’s adequate enough for me.” He had a plan, a plan they could act upon. “We—”
The office doors slid open, a tall blond man strode into the room, and Kane straightened. I’ve seen him before. The man’s smile didn’t reach his flame-filled eyes. One of his hands rested on the handle of a space gun.
Kane reached behind him and drew his own pieced-together gun, pointing it at the newcomer. “You and your friend were looking for my grandfather.” He moved in front of Eshe, protecting her. “He called you Rafe…Ralph…”
“Raff.” The alien warrior curled his fingers over his gun handle. “This is your One, Essie? The council sent a message you’d found him.” His lips twisted. “Only you would join with a mystery species male.”
“We haven’t joined yet.” Eshe placed her small hands on Kane’s back, her touch soothing him. “We have things to do before we’re transferred.”
“Damn right, we have things to do,” Kane rumbled. “I’m not going anywhere, not until my mother is safe.”
“You’d delay the joining and cause my sister pain?” Raff stepped forward, all of the humor disappearing from his face.
“Pain?” Kane frowned. “How am I causing her pain?”
“His grandfather is Orogone, Raff.” Eshe pushed herself under his arm, neither of them answering his question. “He joined with a human female, someone other than his One.”
“Fuck.” The alien male raked his fingers through his spiked hair. “He broke protocol. How many beings are affected?”
“My mother and myself are in danger,” Kane answered.
Raff slipped his right hand into his black leather coat. Kane tensed, lowering his body and coiling his muscles, prepared to defend Eshe if her brother posed a threat.
The alien warrior extracted three lollipops. “Essie.” He tossed a red lollipop to her. “I suppose you’d like one too.” He grinned at Kane.
Kane said nothing. His energy was waning and he needed sugar but he’d be damned if he’d admit that to Eshe’s brother.
Raff’s grin widened. “You’re as stubborn as she is
.” He lobbed a green lollipop to him, Kane catching it easily with one hand. Raff unwrapped a purple candy and licked it twice, his face reflecting a joy Kane felt, a joy he shouldn’t be experiencing.
My mother is in danger and I have to protect her. But hot damn, he needed the sugar rush. Kane sucked on the sweet treat, the green-apple flavor filling his mouth.
Raff tilted his head, studying him, and Kane straightened to his full height, meeting his gaze squarely. If he was looking for weakness he wouldn’t find any. Years in the armed forces combined with his alien abilities had honed him into the ideal soldier.
“When you join with your One, he should be safe, Sis,” Raff shared, talking about him as though he wasn’t there.
Kane lifted his chin, unaccustomed to being ignored.
“You don’t know that,” Eshe murmured, her cherry-scented breath flavoring the air, teasing his nostrils. “I’ll feel better when we’ve transferred.”
“I’m not transferring before my mother does,” Kane insisted.
Raff sucked on the lollipop, furrows forming on his forehead. “Does his mother have Orogone essence?”
I’m standing right here. Damn it. Kane scowled.
“She might as she’s one half Orogone.” Eshe cocked her head, mimicking her brother’s stance. “But I won’t chance it. She’ll be my first trial, one half human.”
Her brother’s face darkened. “The council won’t allow that. Protocol—”
“All experiments break protocol.” She appeared so adorably fierce, Kane wanted to lick her all over. “And the council won’t know about it.” She grabbed a large military-issue duffel bag. Her hands shook. “Not until after she’s transferred.”
“If you’re away from the compound for more than a couple of hours they’ll send a warrior after you,” Raff warned.
