Kragen

by Chloe Cox

  Ok, new plan, she thought. Go to the gym and work this off until I’m no longer in heat.

  Andie quickly gathered her things, officially giving up on paperwork, her pulse thudding a dull, driving rhythm in her ears the whole time. The gym didn’t feel exactly right, either, but hell, she didn’t have any other ideas. Maybe she was getting sick? If she was getting sick she sure as hell wasn’t going home to Gramzy, because…

  With a start, Andie looked up. She’d speed-walked down the hall to the back exit, which opened on the other side of the parking lot, opposite from where she had parked, without even realizing it. She never used the back door. What was wrong with her?

  And why did it take so much effort to force herself to walk back to the front freaking door?

  It was like her body had its own ideas. Or like…it wasn’t under her control. The idea sent another flash of heat through her, and she shook her head. This was not the time to lose her mind. This was the time to get out of dodge and figure out what the hell was wrong with her.

  Andie was sweating as she locked the front door behind her. It made no sense. None of this made any sense. She could see her car at the edge of the light from the building behind her, but that wasn’t what commanded her attention.

  She was look at the darkness beyond it. She was looking at…nothing. And in another heartbeat she was walking toward that nothingness, as though pulled along by some invisible leash.

  She couldn’t stop herself. And as soon as she started moving, she didn’t want to.

  Andie wrapped her arms around herself as she walked, shivering even while she felt hot, her thighs brushing together, her nipples rubbing against the rough cotton of her shirt. It was like she was observing herself from far away, like her mind was just a passenger and her body was in control. And her body, for some reason, needed to know what was in the woods beyond the parking lot.

  And it was just as she got to the edge of the woods that Andie realized she wasn’t alone.

  2

  It took Andie forever to realize what was actually happening.

  The walk across the parking lot seemed endless, the urge to get where she was going—wherever the hell that was—building to a fever pitch. She was so focused on the woods ahead of her, so deafened by the beat of her own pulse, the rhythm of heat that coursed through her, so preoccupied with just barely hanging on to the last shred of self-control that kept her from breaking out into a run, that she was blind to anything else.

  Up until that anything else crashed through the line of trees to Andie's right.

  Her heart stopped, her body jumped, and her eyes opened wide as adrenaline surged through her. She whipped around and squinted into the glare from the one overhead light on this side of the parking lot, her fingers tearing through her purse looking for keys or pepper spray or literally any damn thing at all. The warmth in her body that had pulled her towards the woods distilled into something sharper, something more dangerous. Something like a warning.

  What the hell was happening?

  “Who’s there?” she yelled into the dark.

  She was answered by laughter.

  “Well look at that.”

  A man stepped from between the trees. It was too dim to make out features, but Andie saw the wavering way he walked on the twig-strewn ground, and it was easy to guess that, whoever he was, he was drunk.

  That didn’t exactly make her feel safer.

  Andie realized she was holding her breath while a battle raged inside her. She still felt that call to move, to get into the woods, to just run towards something, and she didn’t understand it at all, especially because everything else inside her was telling her to get in her damn car and get away from the man coming at her out of the darkness.

  Being pulled in opposite directions meant standing still. That was…not ideal.

  “Stay away from me!” she shouted.

  “Calm your tits, lady,” the man said.

  That voice was painfully familiar. So was the jackassery that accompanied it.

  But before Andie had time to process it, another man stepped out from behind the first guy and lit a cigarette, the brief flame from the lighter enough to illuminate his face. It was Melvin Gregson.

  Melvin had gone to the same high school that she had, which didn’t say much. Everyone in Silver Creek went to the same schools. If you grew up anywhere in that county, you’d be growing up with the exact same couple hundred kids in your class in every grade, from kindergarten all the way to high-school graduation.

  Unfortunately, that meant Andie knew who Melvin’s friends were. She clutched her keys a little tighter.

  “You’d best get home, Melvin,” Andie said, her voice high and tight. “I know for a fact that Patty is waiting for you.” Patty was barista at the Grumpy Owl, Silver Creek’s coffee shop, so Andie saw her every single day. Patty hadn’t recognized her yet, not in all the time she’d been back.

  “You know me?” Melvin slurred slightly as he exhaled a long plume of smoke. “Well who the fuck are you, then?”

  Inwardly, Andie cursed. They hadn’t recognized her, either, and then she’d had to go ahead and open her stupid mouth. It would be better for everyone if they kept on not recognizing her. That was why she’d changed her whole look before she came back home, growing her hair out, letting it go back to its natural brown. That was why she didn’t go out much. And it had been working so well.

  “You look real familiar.” The first guy was speaking again. He came closer, drawing other men with him. Two, three…there were five of them total.

  That was…not great.

  “Who is she?” asked another.

  “No one,” Andie said.

  “Don’t worry,” the tall man at the center said. “We can get to know each other, sweetheart.”

  Fuck. That voice, she knew. That voice was burned into her memory, right next to every reason she had to avoid dangerous men. Andie's mouth went dry.

  Andie loved her tiny family, but she wasn’t exactly beloved here in Silver Creek. She was tolerated, sort of, in theory, and that was only out of respect for Gramzy. And her bad reputation was all because of the man who was now standing in front of her.

  Trevor Hudson.

  He stood in the center of them. Almost six feet of swaggering ex-football player. He’d been hot once. Definitely the hottest guy at Blackthorn County High School, not that the dating pool had been huge. Andie had mooned over Trevor for years.

  Up until the day she had very abruptly stopped mooning.

  The memories came flooding back, and the heat inside her surged against them, blocking them from overwhelming her. She clutched hard at her keys and squared her shoulders, like she was ready to fight.

  “We already got to know each other once, Trevor,” she said. “It didn’t work out.”

  Trevor strode forward, his eyes narrowing in the dim light. And then, suddenly, he laughed.

  It was a mean laugh.

  “It’s been a long time, Andie,” he said.

  It had been a long time. Years, in fact. Every girl had wanted to date Trevor back then, but Andie got him.

  Lucky her.

  She hated that he was her first. Andie had only been sixteen, still in high school while he was home from college for the summer. And Trevor had been exactly the kind of alpha male she thought she wanted. But she hadn’t really known how to say no, and Trevor hadn’t made it easy. In the years since, she’d wondered if she wasn’t more forceful because she was afraid of how he’d react. Because she was afraid that even if she said it, he wouldn’t care.

  What was even worse was that it wasn’t Andie who ended things. She never stood up for herself, until one day Trevor tried to get her to take the rap for one of his dumb “pranks.”

  Like stealing an envelope of cash from a church bake sale was a “prank” in the first place. It wasn’t like he needed the money. He’d done it while no one was looking, just to see if he could, and then he’d bragged about it to Andie. She’d
been horrified, but she still made excuses for him, and tried to get him to give it back. Trevor had laughed. Just like he was laughing now.

  When the new pastor asked everyone to open their bags, the envelope ended up in Andie's backpack. It was the dumbest thing, but it didn’t matter. No one but Gramzy and Kat believed her. Which wasn’t a surprise. There were lots of things about Trevor that Andie knew no one would ever believe. Andie had been lucky to get off with probation, and then even luckier when Gramzy was able to clear her record. She’d gone out of state to get a degree, and then Gramzy had gotten sick, so she’d had to come back.

  She’d never wanted to see Trevor Hudson smiling at her again. Just the sight of him made her feel slimy. And the way he was looking at her…

  She shivered.

  “Looking good, Andie,” Trevor said. “I like what you did with your hair. How long you been back in town?”

  “None of your business, Trevor,” Andie said. “How’s your wife?”

  Trevor’s eyes narrowed all over again. He never did like hearing ‘no,’ even when it was just implied. Well, fuck him. He was hearing it now.

  Andie gripped her keys all over again, her shoulders squared like she was ready to fight, when a wave of sensation crashed over her, flattening her against the side of her car. For a second, she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t hear. All she could do was feel that tingling warmth spreading through out her body, spilling over her breasts, sluicing over her stomach to pool in her molten core.

  And then, just as suddenly, it pulled on her. Yanked at her. She bent over, moaning, fighting the need to run to the woods.

  “What the fuck is wrong with her?”

  Andie shook her head, the roar of that sensation receding just enough for her to come back to the present. She had no idea what was wrong with her either.

  “She came out of that lab.” Melvin looked at the locked door at the far end of the parking lot using the mostly empty whiskey bottle. “The IMS lab.”

  The mood changed instantly. Not that it had been particularly awesome to begin with, but now…

  Now it was definitely worse.

  And still Andie could barely focus. That warm feeling was changing, concentrating, into a little pool on her left breast, just above her heart. It burned.

  “You came out of there?” Trevor said, pointing. His eyes gleamed with bleary, drunken anger.

  The other guys muttered between each other. Andie's heart was pounding. She suddenly realized that when Trevor had gestured at the lab, he’d lifted a hand into the streetlight.

  And he’d been wearing a red rubber wristband—the ones that Human First sent out to people who made donations. And Trevor wasn’t the only one. Now that Andie knew to look for them, she saw that all of Trevor’s squad was wearing the bracelets. That’s why they were there. They were the new Humans First guys, the bad apples. It was a miracle she hadn’t seen them before, but they’d been outside all day, trying to intimidate people who worked for the IMS. And they’d been drinking.

  “I’m going home now, Trevor,” Andie said softly. Was she? Could she even drive away from the woods?

  Maybe it didn’t matter.

  “I didn’t say you could go, did I?” Trevor slammed his hand against the window of her car to keep the door shut. She twitched. “Y’all know this here’s the slut who tried to blame me for stealing, right? Andromeda Knowles?”

  “That name,” said another voice. Devin Johns. Another longtime Trevor sidekick. “That ass. Who could forget?”

  “And now she’s fucking aliens,” Melvin said.

  The men were closing in around her. Andie's adrenaline climbed, her senses heightened, her heart racing. But somehow, for some reason, she wasn’t exactly afraid. More…annoyed.

  And that scared her.

  She should be utterly focused on the threat in front of her, but it was all she could do not to turn and look into the darkness. Into the woods. Because there was something out there. She could feel it. Sense it. Something that made her feel hot, and strong, and needy. And it was coming closer.

  If I ran, would they chase after me?

  Would I make it to the woods?

  And if I did…what would I find there?

  Andie shook her head and licked her lips. She felt completely, one hundred percent insane. Her self-control fraying.

  She said, “I have to get home to my grandmother.”

  Her own voice sounded like it came from far, far away. And that seemed to be the wrong thing to say.

  Trevor snarled, “You mean the bitch who called me a lying brat in front of the judge? You know how embarrassing that was for my father? He took my pickup away for it. My brand-new truck!”

  He stepped in close enough until she could feel his hot breath on her face. Andie would have laughed under normal circumstances. But nothing about this was normal.

  Andie was flattened against the car. The night was pressing so heavily on her chest as Trevor moved in, and Silver Creek was so quiet.

  She was horribly alone, except for that feeling in her chest. That heat that pulsed on her breast. She felt her fear, and it was like something, somewhere, felt it too…

  You are losing your damn mind, Knowles. And you are about to lose so much more.

  “Trevor, let me go,” she said. “I’m feeling really weird.”

  He inhaled in triumph, his eyes wide.

  “You know the truth,” Trevor panted, breath hot on her forehead. “You know I didn’t do it, right, Andie?”

  She didn’t speak. Even now, years after the fact, she wasn’t going to barf out his stupid fake story. And that made him even angrier.

  “You know, if she fucks aliens, I bet even Melvin could score with her,” Devin said.

  “Fuck you, Dev,” Melvin said.

  Another guy laughed. “It’d be a step up. She should be grateful.”

  Alarm thrilled through her, telling her to move. She jabbed her keys backward and managed to unlock the door. She yanked on the handle.

  The door only opened an inch before Trevor slammed it shut again. “You should be grateful,” Trevor repeated.

  His hand closed on her arm tightly, and Andie gripped her keys, ready to take his eye out.

  But only for a second.

  Because the instant his hand touched her arm, the night changed.

  It was as though the shadows in the forest came to life. They formed into the shape of a beast—a monster bigger than all five of the men combined. It was a force of nature, roaring out of the woods as Andie fell to her knees, overwhelmed by the wave of heat washing over her at the same time.

  That beast smashed through Trevor’s squad with a roar that shook the night.

  Trevor wasn’t holding her arm anymore.

  She wasn’t surrounded, either.

  Andie couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing and hearing. It was all too fast. Flesh slapped against flesh, bone cracked, and men shouted. She got an impression of a sword—a freaking sword?—and then a swinging fist sent Devin to the ground at Andie's feet. Melvin actually went flying. He hit a tree.

  For an instant, Andie's savior moved into the light from the street lamp, and she saw what she realized she always knew she would see.

  The light spilled over broad shoulders that glowed silver in the light, patterned with faint scars. They looked like they were part of his steely flesh, which was wrapped tightly around the muscles of a creature more enormous than any human man.

  He was simultaneously explosive in his motion and eerie in his stillness. He was ageless, powerful, almost elemental as he dominated everything around him.

  And his eyes were two glowing, fierce points of light in the dark.

  He was a Leonid.

  The Leonid—her Leonid—turned in the sudden silence, his face and torso coming into the light as he surveyed the battlefield. Andie couldn’t help it. She looked at him—at all of him—and her breath hitched.

  He was beautiful, in a rough, anim
al way. His silvery skin shimmered in the dull light as muscles rippled underneath it, and he took a deep, satisfied breath as he looked at the carnage around him. His nostrils flared and she knew, for a moment, that he was the most powerful predator on the planet. Andie couldn’t stop herself. Her eyes trailed down from his strong nose and chiseled, craggy cheekbones to his muscled chest, to the eight pack of abs that trailed down to the V that disappeared beneath his traditional Leonid leathers…

  No.

  Her gaze snapped up to his face again. This Leonid was handsome—beyond handsome, in a savage, masculine way. His face twisted into a scowl of vengeance. His upper lip curled to bare the glint of a single sharp canine, extended to the length of a fang.

  Those electric eyes fixed on Andie, and they saw her.

  They saw her.

  She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t do anything about the burning on her breast. Couldn’t run if she wanted to, and she didn’t want to anymore. Because her body wouldn’t let her. Because she was right where she wanted to be.

  Because this was what had been in the woods.

  A Leonid.

  A Leonid who was coming…for her.

  3

  Something had pulled Lord Commander Kragen ka Anok of the Royal Guard out of his hidden lair, but it took him long minutes of hunting to realize what that something was.

  He hadn’t believed it would happen. He still didn’t. But here he was, standing out in the open in the middle of a cool Earth night, looking right at her. She was a human female, with warm, dark eyes, opened wide, and a scent that was testing his self-control. His gaze roamed, and he took in the curves of her breasts, the glint of sweat on her skin. His cock strained against his leathers, and he wanted to roar his claim to the world.

  This was not supposed to be possible.

  For months, he had only gone out for supplies at night. He had mapped out his routes in advance to ensure he wouldn’t encounter anyone. And he had always returned to his lair quickly.

  Kragen despised hiding like a coward. But he would not risk the treaty between humans and Leonids more than he already had. He would not risk the future of his species. So he was careful.