Yet despite knowing better, she responded to him, tipped her head back, her lips parting against his mouth. The kiss was harsh, not like any first kiss she’d ever had before, but something raced through her, a desire for more, for this kiss to keep going. When he thrust his tongue against her mouth, she met him, her tongue sliding against his, flicking inside his mouth, sucking greedily.
His hand slid down from her face, over her neck, lower, slipping his fingers inside her shirt, touching her breast over her tank top. The touch was soft, gentle. That surprised her, the contrast, the contradiction.
She slid her hand across his chest, over the smooth skin, the hard muscles beneath. Her fingers trailed over the scar on his chest, stopping there, spreading her hand so her palm was flat against his skin.
The kiss went wild and brutal, with Taso sucking her lips, the sharp edge of his teeth grazing her tongue. She tasted blood, and with any other man she’d have hit him, but she smiled against his mouth, then caught his lip with her teeth, pulling, biting down, hard enough to taste his blood, mixing with hers.
He made a noise deep in his throat, a primal noise that did more to excite her than any softly spoken words ever could. She broke the kiss, staring up at him. His eyes had gone heavy-lidded, the irises almost as dark as the black pupils. Those eyes held a feral passion, untamed, and it made her already thudding heart beat faster.
With his free hand, he reached up to his chest, covered hers, then curled his fingers around her hand. He held it for a moment, and then pulled it lower, over the hard nipple on his chest, then lower, over the hard muscles of his stomach. She felt the taut edge of his navel under her fingers, and then flat smooth skin. She tensed against him, then pulled her hand away.
“No…I can’t.”
“But you can…and I know you want me.”
She drew a shallow breath, trying to stay in control.
“Taso, no…please…”
“Do you want to fight?” His lips curved into a smile.
“Oh, God. No.” She closed her eyes. “No…”
When she opened her eyes, it was to find Taso looking at her with a confused expression.
“Then what do you want? I find you desirable, very desirable. And do you not find me suitable as a mate?”
The laugh escaped her before she could hold it back. She saw the hurt flash in his eyes, and she bit back the rest of the laughter.
“Taso, it’s not that simple. People don’t just fall for one another this way…this quickly, and certainly not under these circumstances. This is madness.” What else could she say? “And all of this…” She made a helpless gesture with her hands. There was no possible way she could explain to this man every emotion that was churning through her. She took a breath, searching for the words to start. “All of this is just too much for me.”
A sudden flash of light made her wince. Taso was on his feet the next second, and before she had a chance to even form the question of what happened, he had made his way to the door. Before he reached it, the room tilted at a crazy angle. She fell off the cot, landing hard on the metal floor. Taso was still standing, holding on to the edge of the open door.
“What the hell happened?”
He turned, his eyes hard, brows drawn together. Before he could answer an alarm sounded somewhere in the depths of the ship, an incessant high-pitched shriek that drove a spike of pain through her head. There a resounding boom that shook the metal beneath her and then the room righted itself a little. She pulled herself up on the edge of the bed, managed to get to her knees.
“An explosion. And…”
Someone ran past the door, shouting words she didn’t understand. Taso said something in a strange language, his voice tight and controlled. The man stopped, shook his head, gestured wildly, and then disappeared.
Taso turned to her, his expression grim. “An explosion in the engine room. We are disabled.”
That meant nothing to her. She shrugged.
“We are going to crash.”
“Crash? Into what?” What was there in space to crash into?
He staggered across the listing floor and flung back the cover on the window. “That.” He reached down, grabbed her arm, and pulled her to her feet. She grabbed the table and looked out the little square of glass.
The window was full of something dark and red, but she had no idea what it was. Everything was out of context, her head full of the piercing alarm.
“What…I don’t…”
“A planet, Max. We’re going to crash there.”
With a horrible sinking feeling, she realized it was something rushing up to meet them, or they were rushing to meet it. She had no idea what crashing into a planet at umpteen miles per hours from space looked like. All she knew was Taso had her arm in his hand, pulling her away from the window.
“We need to get away from this room, to the interior. Quick.”
“What about the girls?”
“We can’t get to them in time… we need to hurry.”
“No…we can’t leave them!”
Taso ignored her cries, and instead, he dragged her into the narrow corridor. There were shouts from somewhere ahead of them, the Clang of metal on metal. Abruptly the alarm stopped, and the silence was a blessed relief, but it was replaced almost instantly by a sound she could not understand. It sounded like rushing water. She tugged against Taso’s hold on her arm. He turned. What she saw on his face frightened her more than the unidentified sound.
“We’re burning up.”
As he said the words, she felt sweat break out on her forehead. “Like on re-entry?” Images of shuttle landings and the movie Apollo 13 flooded her mind. Taso gave her a blank look, before starting to run down the corridor, dragging her behind him.
“Wait…” She pulled back. He turned, glaring at her.
“What? There is no wait?”
“Pleas, Taso…we need to get to the other girls…the ones you took…”
He shook his head. “I cannot do anything for them right now. It is you I need to protect. Now come with me, or we’ll all die.”
She tried to pull away, but he had her wrist in a vice grip. She twisted her arm, then tried to kick him, but the corridor was too narrow, and he was faster than she was. He dropped his shoulder, caught her legs and just like before, hefted her over his shoulder. Then he turned, ducking under a doorway, and she watched the metal grating under his feet as he ran.
Chapter Six
“Max…Max…” Someone was shaking her shoulder. She opened her eyes, looking up at Taso’s face. Blood ran down his forehead, flowing freely. Behind him the yellow sky was filled with acrid black smoke. Taso had her arm, pulling her upright. It hurt to breathe, but she nodded.
“I’m okay.” She reached to touch his face. He jerked away. They were in the lee of a piece of metal, jagged burned metal edges sticking up into the air. Cables and wires hung down, some spitting sparks, others leaking green and blue liquid.
“You hit your head.” Did shifters get concussions? For some reason it was vastly reassuring that the blood on his face was red.
“I am fine. It is nothing.”
“It looks like something.” She tried to touch him again, but he slapped her hand away.
“We do not have time for this. We need to find weapons, to get ready. We need…”
Something whistled through the air, hitting the wreckage with a metallic Clang, then shrieked away into the depths of the ship. Taso tackled her, knocking her to the ground, knocking the wind out of her. Pain blossomed across her left side, below her arm. She was pretty sure there were broken ribs, more than one. Another metal Clang, and the dust in front of them puffed up.
“What was that?”
“We are being attacked.”
“By aliens? Like you?”
“No, not like me. By whatever lives on this planet.”
She shook her head at that. “I take it they’re hostile?”
“Yes. Very.”
They sc
rambled into the interior of the wrecked portion of the ship. Sparks landed on her arms and legs, burning her skin, but she was more interested in keeping up with Taso than a few burns.
Whatever part of the ship this was, she hoped it had weapons. At some point in her life she’d fired a gun, once, and even though they scared her, she thought she’d be able to shoot at something that was shooting back at her. Something hit the side of the ship again, and it finally registered that she wasn’t hearing the sound of gunfire, just the sound of whatever was hitting them.
“Are they shooting at us?”
“Shooting?” Taso turned, looking at her over his shoulder. “It’s not important how. We are being attacked.”
“And how are we supposed to fight back? Do you have any guns? Any kinds of weapons?”
They’d come to a compartment and Taso stood up. “I have myself.” With surprising gentleness, he touched her cheek. “And I have you.”
He took a step away from her, eyes locked with hers. She had no idea what he was talking about, or what he was doing. A question—many questions—came to her, but before she could get the first out Taso threw back his head, his voice rising in a deep growl.
The veins and cords stood out in stark relief on his neck. His body suddenly and inexplicably began to thicken, his chest and shoulders stretching his shirt, the mesh pulling taut with a soft metallic hiss. For a minute, she expected the shirt to split, but it somehow managed to stay together, molding to his new shape. His thighs bulked up, thickening, the pants stretching with him. His calves shortened, thickened, until he was squatting on thick heavy legs, massive and powerful. And definitely furry. With something like horror, she realized his bare feet were thick, covered with dense black fur, long sharp claws digging into the sand beneath him.
She watched in fascination, the horror deepening, as his face began to change, his jaw jutting forward sharply, a row of ivory-colored fangs growing from his gums. Then another row erupted, giving him a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth that looked more like an alligator than a bear. Instinctively, she pulled her hands back, even though he wasn’t making any move to bite her.
Mesmerized, she watched as his forehead sloped back, ears growing smaller, moving upward on his head as the very shape of his skull changed. The blood on his forehead disappeared into a thatch of thick dark fur. There was a popping sound, and she blinked in something like awe, as spines appeared, thrusting out of his skull between his eyes, three of them, like horns. Even from here, she could see the light catch on the deadly sharp edges.
His hands had been clenched into fists, but now he spread his fingers, the nails peeling back as thick claws jutted out and took their place. His fingers shortened as the claws grew, contracting, the palms of his hands widening, growing leathery and thick and black, turning into the heavy paws of a bear. There was a tearing sound and thick spikes pushed out of the backs of his hands, like the jagged spine on some reptile.
She met his eyes, and for a moment it was Taso, looking at her. Then she blinked, and it was a bear, standing on its hind legs, front legs thrown wide. It opened its jaws and roared. With a last look at her, he swiped the air between them, his claws slicing through the air, whistling close enough to catch the fabric of her shirt, leaving behind four parallel slices in her shirt.
It had seemed to go on forever, this terrible changing, but it all happened in the space of a handful of heartbeats. The bear—she supposed it had to be Taso in there somewhere—dropped to the floor, shaking his head. He looked up at her, growled low in his throat and walked toward her. There was another sharp ping against the hull. He looked up into her eyes.
Veronica wanted to scream, wanted to run as fast as her legs could carry her, but she couldn’t move. She stood, frozen in place. She had never been so terrified in her entire life. Finally, she found words.
“I have no fucking clue what just happened, but I’ll follow you. Okay?”
With another shake of his head, Taso padded to the opening of the wreckage. He stopped, raised his head, and sniffed the air. She noticed that spines ran down his spine, poking through holes in the mesh in his armor. She was almost afraid of touching him, for fear his fur would be razor tipped, would cut her fingers. Gently she reached out, but the parts of him that weren’t covered in armor or spikes felt more or less like course, stiff fur.
Now wasn’t the time to lose her strength, her fight.
She stood, hand resting tentatively on his shoulder, looking out over the low sandy dunes, trying to find their attackers. They should be visible, or their weapons. She looked for the glint of sun on metal.
The air was hot, the sand around them red-tinged with yellow and odd flashes of green. The colors were jarring, the heat intense. Her head was pounding, and it hurt to take a breath. But everything she’d ever learned at each dojo, each gym, every word Gus and every other trainer had said to her, came flooding into her mind. She closed her eyes, took one last deep—and painful—breath, and then opened her eyes. Fuck the pain. If she was going to fight, then she was ready
“There…on the top of that dune.”
There was a flash and something slammed into the hull beside her head. It bounced in the dust, and she watched it roll to a stop. Reaching down, she picked it up. It looked like a rock, felt like a rock, rough, pitted, black.
“Slingshots. They’re using slingshots, not guns.” It made her want to laugh, but the laugh that came out was on the dark side. “They’re using little kid’s toys.”
But those toys could kill her if they hit her in the right place. As for Taso, she was pretty sure those rocks would leave a nasty bruise, but bounce off his mesh armor, or the thick fur that stuck out from the parts the clothes didn’t cover. This fight wasn’t going to be fair unless she had some kind of advantage. But all she had was Taso.
“Listen…you draw them out. Get them to shoot at you. I’m going to circle around, get them from behind, pin them between us. Then attack. Sound like a plan?”
Taso shook his shaggy head. She wasn’t sure if that was a yes or a no, but she wasn’t going to wait to find out. She slipped behind Taso as he stepped out from the shadows of the wreckage. A fusillade of projectiles rained down, some hitting him, one ricocheting off the spine on his back, bouncing to the ground. She smiled; maybe this was going to work after all.
She ran around the back of the ship. There was less of it than she felt comfortable seeing. A lot less. For a minute she thought about looking for Satasha, Emily…the French girl…but then she saw blood on the metal, and didn’t look any further.
The crash had left a long, deep furrow in the soft sand. Pieces of the ship littered the ground, some still smoking, most curled and twisted and burned black. She grabbed a short, thick piece with a sharp end, just in case.
Crouching down at the other end of the wreckage, she peeked around the torn metal. A ridge of black stone ran between her and the dune where the aliens were. If she kept low, she could get behind them, launch a stealth attack, maybe take out one or two. Taso could attack from the front, and they’d be in the clear. She ducked her head and ran behind the ridge.
It struck her then, the unreality of this situation. She was slinking along carrying a piece of metal from a space ship, planning an attack on an alien species—on their planet—with another alien species as her back up. If that wasn’t weird enough, the whole attack plan had come to her without any hesitation, forming in her mind as a whole, complete, in detail. And she realized she had no qualms about using this twisted piece of metal to kill one of the aliens. That thought chilled her, rather than comforted her.
The ridge ended in a pile of big boulders. She leaned against one, trying to get her heart rate and breathing under control. Her body felt good, ready, adrenaline running but not on overdrive. As far as her mind, she was a little less prepared. She still had the urge to laugh, to stand up and call bullshit on the whole thing, tell Ashton Kutcher she was so over Punked.
But the pain in her ribs was rea
l, too real for some elaborate practical joke. And she’d just watched a man turn into a bear. Or something that looked like a bear. Except for the spikes that ran down his back, and stuck out along the tops of his paws, the ones that looked like horns on his head. And the weird extra teeth. That was beyond anything anyone could just make up.
She closed her eyes, took another painful breath. From the number of pings on metal and thunks on what she assumed was Taso’s thick hide, or spines on his back, along with growls and snorts, she guessed there were at least a half dozen aliens waiting behind the dune. Gritting her teeth, she jumped out, brandishing her piece of metal. Something like a scream echoed around her and it took her a split second to realize it was coming from her.
The sand slowed her down, but she charged forward, metal shaft held high. It was only a couple yards to the aliens and she covered the distance quickly. And then she stopped.
One thing…alien…turned, looking at her with more sets of eyes than she could count. They reflected the yellow sun, burning brightly at her without blinking. How many eyes she didn’t really know, didn’t really care. In one hand it held a slingshot, looking remarkably like something a kid would buy at any store. In the other hand—or hands, because the thing had at least six more—it held rocks. It wasn’t a bunch of aliens; it was only one fucking alien. It was the same color as the sand around it, and in panic she looked for others, but no, there was only the one alien.
She faltered for a second, but in that second a barrage of rocks pelted her. One hit her hand, fingers springing open, and she dropped the metal weapon. Another hit her shoulder. The pain was immediate and intense, her arm going numb. Then she had the presence of mind to duck, and then dive behind a pile of sand, spitting out with a mouthful of grainy stuff that tasted really bad. So much for the great warrior.
There was a deep growl, and she pushed up to look over the dune. Taso crested the dune, teeth bared, eyes blazing. He charged, sand flying as he barreled down the dune. The alien shrieked, a high-pitched sound that sounded like it could cut through steel. It dropped the slingshot and rocks and went after Taso with all of its hands. She saw it was covered with scales, at least from the shoulders over the head. The rest…it was hard to tell. It reflected the sun, almost like it was metallic. Maybe armor? Although in this heat, the thing would cook in metal armor.
Dark Side Of The Moon (BBW Paranormal Were-Bear Shifter Sci-Fi Romance) Page 5
