“Doesn’t look that way.” The look he threw her asked her to be ok with it.
How could she be anything else? Giving him a sassy smile, she followed him to the long table that obviously held his family.
“Dad, we were worried about you,” Gabe said with a sad little smile. The one he was using to hide his laughter.
“We were. I just took out my phone to call you.” Victor held up his phone like it was a real thing when all he had to do was reach out mentally if he thought there was a problem.
“Dad, I was sooo worried.” Aviana got up and threw herself into his arms while Paige hurried to do the same thing.
He lifted his head and met each of the male gazes with one of his own. They would all pay for this.
Sara gently cleared her throat calling attention to herself. Colun shook his head very aware of the fact they all knew she was there.
“Everyone, this is Sara. We thought we would come in here to get lunch.”
“So nice to meet you, Sara. This sexy male is Victor, my mate. Vick is our son, and I am Selma.” She reached out and gave Sara quick hug.”
“I’m Paige, and this is my mate, Cal.”
“I’m Aviana, and this is Rylan. The beautiful young lady sitting here is Mckayla. She’s our daughter.”
“I’m Gabe, as you can see Rylan is my identical twin, and this is Taya, my mate.”
“It’s nice to meet all of you. I don’t want to interrupt your family lunch. Colun it was…”
“Nonsense,” Selma said quickly. “We would love for you to join us. That is if both you and Colun are in agreement.”
Sara glanced at him and caught the nod of his head.
“Thank you, I would like to stay for lunch.” Colun slid her chair out and pushed it in when she sat. The chair glided seamlessly against the floor making Sara think about the muscles in his arms. She felt her lily respond to the thoughts. She decided to drop the name Tiger because there was a lot she wanted to do with that male but bite him with her hoo-ha wasn’t one of them. Her teeth on his nipple as she sucked and worked his long, thick hard…stop it, woman, there are kids around, and she didn’t mean the ones under ten.
Selma threw her a smile like she could read her mind and she took a hasty sip of water the waitress brought for her. Everyone turned to their menus giving her a chance to get her thoughts back in order.
Mckayla stared at her as if she was unraveling some great mystery.
“Do you like my Grandpa Colun?”
Sara canted her head to the side to look at Mckayla. She was a beautiful young girl, but there was more to her than that. For one so young, a wisdom hung over her. She wanted to shake her head like it didn’t exist but it did. Sara raised a child of her own, and she could see that this child was far older than her years.
Taking a moment, she glanced at Colun, who was now looking at her waiting for her answer much like Mckayla was.
“I definitely like your Grandpa Colun.” Turning her head, she gave Mckayla a small wink and a smile like they now shared a secret.
Mckayla’s pupils expanded as she looked Sara over from head to toe. Sara felt as if her life were laid bare for the briefest of seconds.
“You're good, really good,” Mckayla said, making a judgment. “Grandpa Colun did good,” she proclaimed it like she was a princess. Then she sat and tried to wheedle her parents into letting her have dessert first.
Sara looked around the table; the last time she ate with such a large family gathering was before her mom died. That was several years ago. A feeling of sadness came over her before she shook it off. Her mother had lived well over a hundred years and according to her, Sara would live much longer. Heck, at the rate she was going, maybe she was only at the halfway point in her life.
Selma’s soft laughter brought her out of her thoughts. She winked at Sara before asking if she knew what she wanted to eat.
Rylan told Mckayla in a firm voice that she had to eat lunch first. She gave an adorable pout before looking at the kid’s menu. Vick eyed his father and looked at the menu with Mckayla. Colun, who ended up at the head of the table, looked them all over with pride on his face.
Sara smiled. They were family, and she felt blessed to be able to spend time with them.
*~*~*~*
“I may never eat again!” Sara rubbed her stomach as Colun walked her out of the mall in the direction of her car.
“You didn’t eat that much.”
“Are you kidding me? That was like a whole day of food in one sitting.”
“You need to eat more. You’re already too thin.”
She wanted to laugh at the look on Colun’s face as he realized that he shouldn’t be talking about her weight. She would have laughed if she weren’t too busy dealing with what he said.
“You think I’m too thin?” she frowned, thinking she hadn’t heard him right.
She was never thin enough for her ex. It didn’t matter that she gave up meat to become a vegetarian for him. Jim hadn’t cared that there was a time when the bones of her ribs were almost sticking through her skin. She wasn’t thin enough, pretty enough. Her rear never looked like he wanted. No matter what she tried, nothing about her appealed to him. That’s why he had to have sex with other women. If only she had the right body type, then he would want her too.
“Please forgive me. You’re perfect and I need my head examined.”
“You think I’m too thin.” She was caught somewhere between being so hurt she never wanted to see him again and agreeing with him.
Yeah, she was carrying an additional thirty pounds. It made her look like a fat goldfish in her opinion. That’s not how her doctor felt. She encouraged Sara to eat. Had even told her that she was too thin for her frame. Those words hurt; she wavered between wrath and tears at that point. Her ex had done a bang up job on her self-esteem. Even after they divorced, she was afraid to step on the scale for fear of it reading one hundred pounds or more. Now it did, and she refused to look at the scale ever. She wasn’t stupid; all she had to do was look at her wrist to know she was still underweight.
She should let this go. Pretend it never happened, that way she could stay in her fantasy buzz until she got home, but she couldn’t.
“I guess you were too good to be true. You’re one of those males where no woman is ever good enough for you. She’s always too thin or too fat. That’s why you cheat because your mate isn’t what she should be. Well, I’ve been down that road, thanks for lunch and all, but I’m gone.”
She executed a turn that would have made any soldier jealous with envy. In fact, everything would have been perfect if Colun hadn’t caught her, spun her around, and plastered her up against his extremely muscled body.
He caught her in a kiss that had her panting even as she threw her arms around his waist.
His lips were hot and demanding. His tongue caressed the seam of her lips encouraging her to open. With a sigh of desire, she opened wide as his tongue invaded her mouth making her breath catch in her throat as she groaned around him.
When was the last time she felt anything like this? A one-night stand tried to push at her memories, but it was too fleeting to hang onto when Colun had her body lighting up like a Christmas tree. She pushed a little closer to him needing the heat from his body to comfort her.
His hands were at her waist clenching and unclenching while his tongue was doing battle with hers, leading her down the path of ecstasy. Why was he wearing so many clothes? Her hands gripped his tee, needed it to be gone. She had to see his chest, feel his chest, taste it. She pulled on his shirt demanding with her strength that he get rid of it.
“Aww lovers, how delightfully naughty.”
The sound of that cold voice washed over her making her stand back a little. Whoever was there was evil and she and Colun needed to get away from him. There had been a string of missing persons and deaths recently. How could she have ignored the news reports that stated all citizens needed to take extra precautions?
She tore her eyes away from Colun’s chest to look at the man that interrupted them. A cry tried to tear its way from her lips, but Colun’s hand on her mouth stopped it. That was no man; it was a monster hovering over the ground on four legs with a multitude of eyes in his head.
“Aren’t you in the wrong part of the world or did Zuhun invite you?”
“I don’t need an invitation, besides Zuhun is obviously not up to the task, or you wouldn’t be standing here. I’ve decided to expand my territory.”
“Wish I could say your welcome but…you aren’t.
“Doesn’t matter I’m not here after you today…I want her. It seems she has never used her talents even though they are vast. She should provide a tasty meal.”
“What would make you think I would turn her over to you?”
The Sudir pulled himself up until he stood with all his height. He gave them a predatory smile before answering. “I won’t go after the children if you give her to me.” He said it like it was the most reasonable request.
“Are you crazy? Do you know who protects those children?”
The Sudir gave a negligent shrug of his shoulder. “I know and don’t care. Nothing stands in the way of what I want. If they want a fight, I will relish it. Now the woman.”
“I don’t know where you come from, but here in Newburg and the surrounding areas we don’t turn over innocents. I, too, relish whatever fight you can bring to the table.”
Sara’s hand shot out to catch him around the arm. “Let’s just get out of here, call the police.”
“Yes, call the police. I am hungry and your little girlfriend may not be enough after all.”
She pulled on him, her voice pleading that they leave now before the deranged man tried to hurt them. She refused to believe what she was seeing with her eyes. It was just a dream of bad food from lunch. They just needed to go back into the mall.
She pleaded until she saw the other male light up.
Chapter Five
“Sara, can you shield yourself?”
She stared at Colun wondering if the lunatic in front of them was in some way contagious. Maybe Colun needed a doctor fast to keep him from suffering like the poor thing watching them. There was no way her mind would concede to calling that abomination a man.
“No,” her voice came out frantic as she looked at the thing in front of her. She tried to pull on Colun’s arm, but he became rock solid refusing to move.
A shimmery substance surrounded her before becoming clear. A black bolt appeared to come from the one in front of them aiming at her. She let off a small scream knowing she was about to die when the bolt hit the invisible shield surrounding her and fizzled out.
“What’s happening?” Her body shivered, pulsating, while her hands tingled. The feelings she spent a lifetime hiding from were taking her over.
“I’ll explain later. My family is coming.”
Sure enough, she looked to the side to see Victor stride out with Cal beside him. Rylan and Gabe were following them closely. The monster didn’t just stand there, he high-tailed it away from them.
Sara desperately clutched onto her sanity repeating the things she knew. My name is Sara Green, I live at 5422 High Court Drive, I’m a divorced mother of one. My daughter’s name is Annie, she’s married and lives in New York with her husband and son. There is no such thing as beings that hover over the ground and throw black bolts of death at you.
“When I wake up I’m going to the mall to buy some new clothes. My daughter will be so proud of me.”
“Sara,” Colun tried to reach out to her.
She heard his voice and began to repeat her stats louder drowning him out. If she stood there long enough and repeated her life in simple sentences, he would go away, and she would wake up. What’s happening to me isn’t real. She fought these sensations since she was a child; she refused to let them take over now. She was normal no matter what the girls whispered in the locker room or the old biddies whispered when she walked down the aisle of the grocery store. She, Sara Green, was normal.
Had she said that last part out loud? From the way everyone stopped to look at her, she had. Her actions would once again make their way around her small community. It seems she always gave them something to talk about. She clutched her purse tighter and looked for a way out. She wouldn’t be dreaming about Colun because it was impossible to make an invisible shield.
“If you will excuse me.” She pulled herself up, squared her shoulders, plastered a small smile on her face and turned to walk away.
Her retreat might have been epic, dramatic if there weren’t four women following her.
Dear diary, she thought, because she started writing in a diary when she was around twelve and never stopped. That’s where her pain went when her husband cheated then divorced her. That’s where her tears went when she raised her child alone. That’s where her unfilled fantasies and desires went.
Dear diary I almost made a fool of myself today by falling for the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen. Then he did strange things and saved me from a creature that hovered in the air with four legs and eyes that seemed to crawl around his head. Hmmm.
Dear diary I think someone drugged my lunch. That’s what happened; that’s why I ate all that food. I’ll fast for the next week, and it won’t affect me at all. Replace starve with fast and that was her life from the moment she got married. That was her life after the divorce too, starving herself so some man could say she looked pretty, so society would accept her.
You would think life should only hand out one abusive man to one female, but it didn’t work that way; she had come across many of them in her years. She simply refused to marry them. No, being abused on the side now and then was better than every day. She was pitiful. No, she was strong, she had endured, and she had learned. A She left the abusive assholes alone, she just never found a man who would treat her right. Because she was a freak? Maybe.
Those women, the four of them, girls really, kept following her. Finally, she stopped because she didn’t know where she was, but she knew her car wasn’t this far out.
“Can I help you?” she asked them.
They all had the nerve to smile at her and shake their heads. “No, but we think we can help you.”
“Why? So you can record what I say and pass it around the town. So you can laugh when you see me in the grocery store. Why?”
Her life wasn’t that bad; she adjusted to being one of the main topics of conversation. She’d learned to live so far off the grid that most people forgot about her. She hid her scandalous nature as her child grew so as not to have anyone talk about her. Annie was the best thing that ever happened to her, and she’d do anything to keep her safe, including walking with her head down when the women repeated the lies her ex said about her.
“What do you want?”
“For you to come to my bed and breakfast in Newburg and spend a couple of days,” Selma said.
Selma gave Sara the impression of being older than she was. It was her eyes that reminded her of the feeling she had when she looked at Kayla.
“I have a house.” There, that should put an end to this farce. She wasn’t new in town and didn’t need a place to stay.
“When was the last time you left your house? Had a vacation?”
Annie had been trying to get her to come to New York for years. “Move up here, mom, sell that house. We have more than enough room for you, or you could get a cozy little house, condo, maybe an apartment of your own.”
She refused; she hung on to her house like it was a fortress, the only thing standing between her and the world. Annie brought Mark to town religiously so she could see her grandson. All she wanted to do was go home, tuck herself in her bed, and hide. There had been too many revelations for one day. Her body, mind, and soul couldn’t take it.
“Please!” she screamed. “Fuck it,” her eyes went wide and she looked over her shoulder because the lessons from her youth still sat on her shoulders. Good girls didn’t cur
se. Her mom was pretty progressive, but she didn’t abide with cursing or taking the Lord’s name in vain.
Her mom also didn’t abide with Jim. She knew before Sara what he was doing. She begged Sara to let her castrate him. What was a few years in jail, she’d outlive the time.
Can I live another sixty years like this? Then she relived that kiss in Colun’s arms. He could be an ax murderer. All right let’s make a deal, she said to herself. If he’s not an ax murderer, we spend one night with him. The diary needs something hot and juicy in it.
“I need to go home to make sure I armed my alarm before I left and to get some clothes.” She stared at Selma because, ancient or not, they were going to do things Sara’s way.
“Let’s go.” Selma led her to her car.
Sara opened the door and watched as they squeezed themselves into her small car.
“You couldn’t own an SUV?” Taya said folding herself in the back seat. “I’m not exactly a swimsuit model here.”
“You,” Aviana said. “Girl look at all these curves, I’m calling shotgun,” then she climbed into the front seat.
“You get the middle, Selma; let’s call it sister love.” Paige gave her a beautiful smile.
“The things I do for that male,” Selma muttered darkly as she got in the middle.
“Who, Victor?” Taya asked.
“No, Colun. He’s the closest thing I have to a father, and it seems, like any good daughter, I’ll do anything for him as long as it’s legal.”
Sara started the engine. Pulling out of the lot, she wondered about the women in her car. They talked and laughed and invited her to join in their conversations as she drove home. They seemed so normal. It was obvious by the time she pulled in front of her home that they had a bond and cared for each other.
“We’re here. This is where I live.” She loved this house, always had, but now she was looking at it with slightly different eyes. It was too big for one person, but it had been the right size when Annie brought all of her friends over. That didn’t happen now. The house simply looked like a big creepy monstrosity you might see in horror movies.
Colun's Passion (Alien Mates Book Four 4) Page 3
