by Mel Teshco
“Not a chance.”
Baron blinked at the soft glow of Misha’s palms. It didn’t light up the corridors, but it was enough to break through the absolute blackness.
“I’ll be back soon,” Misha said. “Don’t leave without me.”
“We won’t,” Piper said. “Just stay safe.”
Baron moved behind Piper and pushed her against him. Somehow he had to distract her from the dark, and the loud, shrieking noise. But then the alarm cut off and the silence was almost deafening, and possibly just as frightening.
“How did you know about the PDA before I met you?” he asked.
“From the drink labels. One of them said the PDA is watching you.”
“Deliberately building your paranoia,” he murmured, even as anger against the humans went up another notch. Piper had been an innocent pawn on the PDA’s chessboard.
“It worked.” Her voice sounded so small and far away in the tomb darkness.
“Well now you know you have everything to be paranoid about.”
Her laugh sounded high-pitched and strained. “Exactly.”
His arms tightened fractionally around her. “Just as long as you also know I’ll always be here for you.”
She turned in his hold, and though he couldn’t see her silhouette he imagined her gorgeous shape, had memorized the soft curve of her lips and the flash of defiance in her stare that as quickly became yearning.
“I’m scared,” she admitted softly. “We’ve only just found one another and it could all be taken away from us.”
He kissed her gently, tenderly, even as desire slammed through him. But this wasn’t the time or place to act on the fireworks. Not fully. “I know how to take the edge off your fear,” he said huskily.
He brushed his hand down the side of her body, making use of her dress thigh-splits to push inside her lacy panties.
Her breath caught. “What are you doing?”
He smiled. She knew exactly what he was doing!
“No one can see. I want to help you relax.” He nuzzled her ear and gently massaged her clit. She gasped and subsided against him, before he growled “There’s nothing quite like an orgasm in the middle of danger.”
She cried out seconds later, her whole body shuddering and her pussy scent saturating the air and making him groan in return. Fuck. If the rest of his body was weak, his dick was harder than a post and throbbing with life.
He ached to sample her tight pussy once again. But sometimes the anticipation made the act even more pleasurable ... he’d cling onto that reasoning.
“You’re right,” Piper said weakly. “I do feel better.”
He removed his hand and bent his head to kiss her once more, soaking up her curves pressed against him. He kept his head bent, imagining her big blue-green eyes rounded with warm satisfaction. But there was so much more he was feeling right then, his emotions fierce as danger closed in around them.
But he wasn’t sure if Piper was ready to hear his heartfelt feelings. For the moment he’d bury his emotions and focus on protecting her and getting them out of their present hot mess.
The soft glow of Misha’s hands interrupted any further thought, even before the hybrid’s disembodied voice floated toward them. “I can scent the aroma of sex from here.” She laughed. “I’m glad you found a way to keep occupied.”
Piper cleared her throat, ignoring the hybrid’s mention of sex to instead ask huskily, “What did you find?”
“I grabbed four meat pies that were still piping hot in the oven, no doubt put in early for the cooks. I also found some fruit and biscuits and a couple of bottles of water.”
The glow of Misha’s hands neared before she stilled beside them. Something rustled, probably a bag, before she announced, “Here you go Baron. A meat pie.”
He reached out, wrapping his hand around the food that smelled amazing. He bit into it. Meat oozed into his mouth in a soft, tender burst of flavor. He barely took the time to chew. He swallowed and shoveled the last of it into his mouth. He needed energy, and he needed it yesterday.
“Will you get enough energy from the pies?” Piper asked.
Baron spoke around his mouthful. “I will in time.”
Misha snorted. “Great table manners.”
Baron was too busy consuming the next three pies and then the dry biscuits and piece of fruit to worry about something as trivial as manners. Energy was already slowly building within.
Only once he was finished eating did he uncap the water bottle and glug down some of the liquid. The lights flicked back on along with the almost silent buzz of the air conditioning system when he took one more swallow of the water.
Misha exhaled heavily. “Thank fuck for that.” She pushed the elevator’s button. “Let’s get out of here.” She frowned, and stabbed once more at the button, before she glanced at the downward arrow lit up beside the elevator doors. “Holy shit, someone’s coming down.”
Baron’s jaw hardened. “Tantonics.”
Chapter Sixteen
Piper turned to Baron. His face was hard and uncompromising, and somehow it eased the anxiety escalating within. “What do we do?”
“You need to hide. Do whatever needed to protect you and our baby.”
She gaped. “You’re going to fight them?”
He nodded. “I don’t have a choice, not if we have a chance of escape.”
Her heart hammered. As much as she wanted to fight alongside him, Baron was right, she needed to find someplace safe. She was no warrior. She’d only get in the way. And she didn’t have just herself to consider anymore.
“I love you,” she said in a hoarse whisper, all too aware this might be her one and only time to say the three words burning in her throat.
Baron sucked in a breath, his eyes glowing as he cupped her face and kissed her hard. “I love you too, more than anything.”
Emotions filled her from the inside out. She didn’t have time to think about them. “Just please be careful.”
“You know I will. Nothing will stop me from coming back for you.”
She only hoped he was right.
Tears burned the back of her eyes when she pulled free of him, then spun on her heels and ran, leaving him before she gave into a powerful urge to stay.
*
Baron pushed aside all fear for Piper and turned to Misha. “Are you ready for this?’
She nodded, her eyes glinting red and the tips of her white fangs showing. She pulled free her gun. “Bring it on.”
He grinned, his lips twisting with dark humor. “Aim for their throat.” He pressed his back against the wall next to the elevator on one side while Misha took the other side. A few seconds later the elevator doors swooshed apart and at least twenty Tantonics piled out, their war cries punctuated by blood-chilling hisses.
Baron stepped forward and tapped the shoulder of the nearest Tantonic. It turned toward him and Baron punched his fingers into its throat. The hideous creature dropped to the floor with barely a gargle and Baron pulled back his bloodied fingers before he scooped up the alien’s crystalline laser gun. The ice vaporizer that’d clattered to the floor too wouldn’t harm the cold-loving freaks.
Another Tantonic spotted him. It raised its ice vaporizer and fired off a shot. Baron threw himself into the air and rolled on the ground, firing back as he climbed to his feet. He dropped the one shooting at him before dropping two more. One alien’s leg was severed and black blood freely spurted. The other Tantonic was hit in the arm, its stumpy limb hanging by a flap of skin with even more blood spurting.
Baron didn’t have time to revel in their imminent deaths. He didn’t have time to do anything but dodge more laser and vaporizer fire.
He was only distantly aware of Misha’s fighting ability, but understood why the general didn’t want to lose his hybrid. In quick succession she shot three of the aliens in the throat, before she spun around and leapt, delivering a hard kick in the throat of another.
Baron moved back into the fray
. Though many of the aliens were dead or dying on the floor, there had to be easily twelve or thirteen more to defeat. He fired the laser into the snout of the nearest Tantonic. Its face split open, before Baron finished the Tantonic off by opening up its throat.
He had no time to do anything but kick the armored gut of another Tantonic. He should have known better. It was like kicking a rock wall.
The Tantonic swung at him, cracking him across with jaw with the butt of a vaporizer. Baron flew back, straight into the arms of another Tantonic. But using his momentum he rammed his elbows back, straight into the alien’s face. It roared and suddenly Misha was there, her palms radiating scorching heat into its neck.
“Die, asshole!” she shouted.
The Tantonic collapsed and Baron nodded thanks and swung back into motion. Somehow the use of his killer reflexes and unused muscles felt good after too long in hiding. His laser shot through the neck of another alien and it fell to the floor clutching its throat.
“Baron!”
He turned at Misha’s terrified shriek as three of the aliens aimed at her with their ice vaporizers.
She threw herself one way. A vaporizer hit the wall behind her. The next two vaporizers hit her chest and thigh. She landed on the floor with a heavy thud, her cold body already rendering her immobile.
Except the Tantonic assholes weren’t interested in killing her. They captured her and dragged her body into the elevator even as Baron fought off the rest of the aliens.
“Misha, no!” he roared.
But even as he killed another Tantonic, it was too late for the hybrid.
The general rounded the corner of the corridor even as the elevator doors slid shut. He ran toward them with twenty or more soldiers, shouting out his orders, “Kill the Tantonics, get back Misha!”
It was Baron’s turn to throw himself through the air as a hail of bullets hit the Tantonics. Most pinged off the aliens’ armor as they marched toward the soldiers, forming an attack line, but more than a few bullets found their mark in the aliens’ throats.
Five soldiers were cut down by the aliens’ crystalline lasers, two more soldiers by ice vaporizers. But the humans were soon the victors, with the last of the Tantonics dead or dying from their throat wounds.
The general swiped a splatter of gore from his face and waded through dark streams of blood. “Fuck!” He stabbed the button at the elevator. “They’ve got Misha!”
Baron climbed back to his feet, blood and bits of bone and skin clinging to his uniform. But nothing mattered right then other than sensing his mate’s approach even before she rounded the corner of the corridor. “Piper!” he croaked.
The general turned blazing eyes Baron’s way. “You protected your breeder, how is it that Misha didn’t get the same treatment?”
Baron barely spared the general a glance as he bit out, “Piper is my mate, I’d do anything to protect her. That makes Misha your responsibility.”
The downward arrow lit up beside the elevator doors, and the general growled, “Now it’s your responsibility to help get her back.”
But Baron was already jogging toward Piper and dragging her into his arms. When he finally pulled back, he said huskily, “Thank the goddess you’re unhurt.”
She smiled up at him, before glancing at all the dead bodies and shuddering. “I can’t believe you made it out alive.”
“Misha helped.”
Piper blinked up at him. “If she’s been taken, we need to do everything we can to find her.”
The elevator doors opened and the general stepped inside with his remaining soldiers. Baron smiled at Piper and said, “Then allow me.” He bent and lifted her against his chest, stepping over all the blood and gore before he set her back on her feet in the elevator.
Only then did her realize her once white dress was stained pink by the splatters on his own uniform.
The doors slid shut behind them and the carriage quickly ascended. Baron clasped Piper’s hand and took stock of the situation. He was only glad the elevator didn’t hold more weight or the Tantonics would have easily outnumbered them all.
He pushed back the grim thought and instead focused on the tight-lipped general. “You have Intel aboveground?”
The general nodded. “Of course.” His jaw hardened. “Don’t worry, your mate will be safe. The moment the alarms sounded we raised and activated our remote-controlled automatic weapons. Every single Tantonic who didn’t squeeze into this elevator became minced meat.”
“Could those same weapons have not killed the three Tantonics that took away Misha?”
“And have Misha killed too?” The general’s stare turned frigid. “At present, saving her is my top priority.”
Baron’s lip curled. He couldn’t imagine exchanging vows and a hair bracelet with his mate, then sleeping with someone else. But clearly the general’s idea of marriage to a human woman while fucking his hybrid was the least of his problems.
The elevator stilled and its doors slid apart, bright sunlight flooding inside.
“Move out,” the general ordered.
Baron wasn’t about to tell the man he didn’t take orders from anyone, least of all an arrogant human. But while their goals were the same—to rescue Misha—he’d do everything in his power to find the hybrid before it was too late.
Goddess help Misha if they’d already left it too late to save her.
He stepped outside with Piper and she tensed beside him at the dead aliens with their throats opened up. Then he spotted a blonde woman lying amongst the Tantonics.
Piper gasped. “Rebecca!”
Baron followed Piper as she hurried to her housemate, and all the while he scanned the area, looking for any survivors who might have the strength to draw a weapon. There were none.
Piper crouched beside Rebecca. “You’re alive,” she whispered.
Rebecca’s fists pressed against bullet wounds in her torso. It didn’t stop the blood from leaking out. “Ironic isn’t it. I escaped the Tantonics with you only to run into the damn aliens when I returned here.” She coughed, her face paling and blood splattering her lips. “Even more ironic is that it was my peoples’ weapons that killed me.”
Baron frowned. Perhaps the irony was that the general hadn’t cared about saving Rebecca because she was a plain, ordinary soldier. A human with no particular ability.
“You’re not dying on me!” Piper said vehemently. “Not now.”
Rebecca smiled weakly, her voice feeble. “I’m sorry. For ... everything”
Piper shook her head. “Don’t be sorry. You know I believe things happen for a reason. If it wasn’t for you I might never have met my soul mate.”
Rebecca’s smile was more grimace as she battled with mortal injuries. “You’ve always been my one true friend. My only friend.”
The general stomped over, his face pale and his stare hard as he focused on Rebecca. “Just tell us where the aliens have taken Misha,” he grated.
But Rebecca’s eyes stared sightlessly ahead.
“Goodbye Becs,” Piper said in a trembling voice, before she gently pressed closed her friend’s eyelids. “May you be forever at peace.”
Baron curled a hand over Piper’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
Piper nodded, staring down at her once best friend and housemate. “Yeah, so am I.”
He stroked Piper’s head. “Rebecca would understand you saving your grief for later. She’s gone now, but we still have a chance to save Misha.”
Piper appeared to gather in her all emotion before she nodded and pushed to her feet. “Rebecca is now free of pain. The same mightn’t be true for Misha. Let’s go find her.”
*
Baron pulled Piper into his arms for a brief hug, but it was enough to give her much needed strength. She looked up at his strong, implacable face and whispered, “Thank you.”
For always being there for me.
The general exhaled impatience and ordered, “Soldiers, spread out, see if there are any tracks.”
Baron brushed a tender hand beneath Piper’s jaw before he said loudly, “There’s no need.” He turned away and squatted, pointing to the ground. “Those tracks are Tantonics. They’re faint because the bastards know how to leave behind very few clues.” He pointed to a small, flat rock with flecks of coppery-colored blood. “Misha’s been injured.”
“Which way did they go?” the general bit out.
Baron scanned ahead and pointed. “They’re heading to that next rise.”
The general pulled out a small set of binoculars and trained them in the vicinity Baron had pointed. “I see them!” He turned to his men and snapped out commands. “Retrieve the jeeps. We go after them!”
Baron straightened. “You’ll never get to them in time. They’re headed to a safe zone where it’s been prearranged for their flyer to recover them.”
The general’s eyes hardened. “Do you have a better idea, then?”
Baron nodded. “Actually, yeah, I do.”
Piper sensed his shift into dragon even before he conceded, “Flight will get me there far quicker than any jeep.”
The general nodded. “You can take me with you.”
Baron shook his head even as his eyes glowed and he peeled out of his uniform. “No. My mate comes with me. I won’t leave her behind. Not even to save your hybrid lover.”
The general didn’t have a choice and he knew it. Instead he nodded and grated, “Do whatever needs to be done to save her.” He withdrew a small weapon out of his leg holster. “You might need this back.”
But Baron was beyond talking, let alone retrieving a weapon. He dropped to his knees with the skin on his face rippling and enlarging, his snout emerging along with his wings that pushed free from his spine. Convulsions overtook him before he fell to ground unconscious.
Piper took the gun and knelt beside Baron, stroking his glistening scaly skin while he continued to transform. Now that agony no longer tormented him, she gave into wonder. As if he wasn’t perfect enough in his human form, as dragon he was faultless.
Huge big wings stretched out from his sides, his webbed feet revealing he’d be an amazing swimmer in his dragon form. Little horn nubs protruded from the top of his head, while his skin shimmered from black to silver to midnight blue.
