by Rena Marks
The groan that shuddered from his chest reminded her of the old Zee, the primordial being. Then his mouth crashed to hers. Their teeth clashed as they kissed.
One thrust of his hips had his hard cock speared into her.
“Oh, god, don’t stop,” she begged, lifting her hips for better access. He drove into her again and again, until her legs quivered around his hips as she tried desperately to stave off her orgasm.
But he wasn’t going to let her. His hand left her hips to cup her breast, teasing the nipple. The connection shot down to her clit, and she gasped as her inner walls suddenly clenched around him. His rhythm continued on, slicing through her wet flesh despite the thickened resistance. Everything inside her tightened, and when he flicked her nipple, she released a long, shuddering breath.
Both of their bodies were slippery now with a fine sheen of sweat. She clung to him as he continued to pound out his rhythm.
And then it was simply too much. Everything inside her rippled, and ignited a tingle that spiraled through her body. She arched her back, her nipples poking into the air as she came, everything rhythmically clenching as he continued pounding in and out, dragging her orgasm on and on. She felt like he’d never let her come down from the high peak she was on.
Then he growled low in his throat, and his thrusts changed, becoming hard and rough as he lost control and sought his own release, burying his face against her throat as her heart pounded and she gasped for air. His roar was loud as he came.
Time stopped as they froze against the wall, panting together. When she finally allowed herself to move, Zee lazily pressed kisses to her neck.
“That one was a baby-maker.”
Even with his face pressed against her throat, she could feel him grin.
“Shut. Up.” She grinned as she hissed the words.
He leaned in and kissed her again, this time softly. But there was a wealth of meaning in that long, ongoing kiss. That kiss showed that he had felt the same connection that she did.
Neither of them would annul their mateship.
Chapter Thirteen
“S o this is why you weren’t afraid to enter a strange Xeno Sapien’s territory,” Zee said, flat on his back as he looked up at her. She’d just flipped him onto his back and halted his movements with her foot across his throat.
“Honey, child,” she purred. “You were as sweet as a mewling lamb.”
He raised one eyebrow. “I don’t think lambs mewl.”
“You do.”
She was distracted when he grabbed her foot, stroked along the sensitive calf up to her knee, and pulled her down so she was on top of him. “Gotcha.”
“You’d run around for hours panicking when you couldn’t find me in the pen.”
“I remember,” he said, his eyebrows knit together. “Where were you that you watched?”
“The trees,” she whispered, leaning over to kiss his nose. “I watched you take many a beating from those trees. In their defense, you kicked some ass until they darted and muzzled you.”
“Bastards were always muzzling me.”
He allowed her up so they could take their defensive positions again.
“Now, let me show you how to break a breastbone, instead of ripping a torso open.”
He shrugged, but his eyes gleamed. “Same diff.”
“It is not! Your way has us swimming in blood. What if we have to get away? You don’t think a bloodbath will attract drones?”
“We have methods of clean up,” he said.
“It’s best to know how in case those methods aren’t available,” she said. “Like now.”
“My Xeno Sapien brothers wouldn’t leave us hanging, angel. They’d arrive as soon as we gave the signal to come clean up.”
“Humor me and learn to slaughter neatly,” she said, exasperated.
His lips twitched. “Have I mentioned today that you’re the perfect mate?”
She felt her grin spread along with his. “It did sound a little ridiculous.”
His smile sobered. “I’m not going to ask you to rough it with me in my den again. But I am going to let you choose between us in my apartment, or us in yours.”
“Mine is next door to my sister’s.”
“Then yours it is,” he rumbled. “Now bring it to me again.” He widened his stance, distributing his weight between both legs. He extended his hand out, palm up, and curled his fingers into a come hither move.
That, she could do. She pelted him with blows and blocked his—all to show him she wasn’t some damsel in distress. She was his partner in every way. She could take a life with him.
But getting sweaty with Zee always led to one thing and she didn’t protest when he picked her up, threw her over his shoulder, turned off the camera that signified Robyn watching, and stomped off to their bedroom.
* * * * *
“Something’s wrong,” Zee said, sitting up in bed. He tossed her clothes at her. “Get dressed.”
His face was distracted, as if someone spoke to him mentally.
“Zee?” she asked, pulling up her pants. When she wriggled into the close-fitting shirt, she felt it brush against the bump on the back of her shoulder. She’d forgotten about that tender spot, but now it throbbed with heat below the surface. Like it was a swollen, burning infection.
“What is that?” she murmured, trying to maneuver her hand back there to feel it. She was distracted by his next words.
“They’re breaching,” Zee said. “No one knows how they figured out our location, but we have a security team on the way.”
“They’ll get in from downstairs, right?” she asked, her eyes looking down the hall. Surely they could block the hideaway entrance with a bomb and get away.
But Zee looked a little worried. “They have a team on the balcony also,” he admitted.
They were trapped? How would Crested Ute know how to trap them? They had to have been able to see inside the home somehow. Her eyebrows worked into a frown.
“Hey.” He turned her face to him with the stroke of a thumb along her jaw line. “I’ll die before I let them take you.”
“I don’t want you to die,” she said. Didn’t he get it? Didn’t he understand her feelings for him?
“I made a promise to Everly to get you back to her. I’m fulfilling that promise, no matter what.”
Their time was up. They could hear the explosion downstairs of the breach of the house. Likewise, footsteps sounded on the balcony as men climbed.
“But they can’t get in,” she said, clutching Zee’s chest. “We can keep the downstairs men from coming up.”
“There’s too many,” Zee growled. “And you’re tired. Our best option is to delay them until our own team can arrive.”
That was the safe route and he obviously didn’t trust in her abilities to take care of herself if he chose the safe and foolish route. But he had no idea of the dangers of Crested Ute. Delay wasn’t an option. They always had a trick up their sleeve. Always. And dammit if she hadn’t been trying to show him that with their training earlier, she was capable.
“Zee, listen to me,” she said. “We can take them. With your strength and my training…”
“No. I won’t compromise you, Angela. Not on this.”
He strode to the balcony and flung a chair through the impenetrable glass. The shatter sounded like a roar as the glass initially cracked, held for a moment, and cracked some more, spreading in fine, spider-webbed lines. Then the whole thing fell, pinging to the floor in pieces.
“Zee!” she screamed. “Nooo!”
But it was too late. One by one, the men on the balcony filtered through, stepping over the mound of shattered glass.
“Well, there you are, my pretty.” The man who stepped through first wore glasses and was dressed in black—so unlike the usual white lab coats the Crested Ute officials wore. “Or should I say Angela? Not Everly?”
Angela’s fingers flew up to her temple. Of course, she could feel her scar. It was still there
, it had always been there. Yesterday, it appeared as if the concealing makeup was fading, but who knew how much of the scar was visible today? She didn’t even look when Zee mentioned it was back.
“The first thing I’ll do when I hook you up to the machines is find out how that scar was concealed,” he continued. “But it makes sense as to why you were so stubborn. Honestly, I expected Everly to cave and start blabbing with the smallest amount of drugs in her system. Not hold out as long as you did. Bravo!” he clapped his hands lightly, then started to laugh. “All this time we had the wrong twin.” The man chuckled, holding his belly. “Very clever. Very, very clever.” He started laughing even harder.
It was incongruous in the situation.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped, “but here we had you kept drugged and freezing, when really just chains would have sufficed. You’re not the one with psychic abilities at all.”
“Yeah, chains sufficed real well the last time.” She raised her eyebrows, reminding him that she had escaped their facilities once.
He wiped his eyes. “Oh, trust me, we learned from our mistakes. Which is why we placed the tracker in you.”
She saw stunned disbelief in Zee’s eyes, followed by guilt. He never checked her. Hell, she didn’t think to check herself, why would he have?
“On your back. Near your left shoulder.” Her right hand came automatically to feel the swollen bump. The bump. All the times she’d nudged it…and meant to check it. But never did.
“How do you think we found exactly where you were? We watched as you climbed from the downstairs kitchen to the top floor in the last day. The sensor has a heat tracker, enabling us to see just where the walls lay, where the hidden staircase lays.”
God, she even remembered the soreness when she pulled her shirt over her shoulder. But not once did she think to check what was causing it.
“Careful. It’s more than just a tracker. One button pushed by me and it ruptures, filling your body with poison. You see, my dear. If we can’t have you, no one will.”
“You’re bluffing,” she said.
“Am I? After all, you’re the wrong twin. We wanted Everly all along. When we decided that one would live? It wasn’t going to be you. The threat of your demise isn’t as worrisome to us as Everly’s would be. And we can’t have her, so now we’ll take you, dead or alive.” His gaze settled on the scar on her face. “Though we lost a lot of men. A lot of good men, because of you. Not just during the last escape, but this one, too.”
“It wasn’t her,” Zee said. “It was me. Let her go. How much value does a Xeno Sapien hold as opposed to the worthless twin?”
Everyone was silent for a few breaths.
The man raised his brow. “Go on.”
“Take me and rip the tracker out of her. Allow her to go in peace to be with her sister, because it’s obvious you’ll never get Everly now. You still win, because you get to bring home a Xeno Sapien instead. Hell, you can even put the tracker inside me.”
“No,” Angela said. “Are you crazy?”
“What’s to keep us from taking you both?” He lifted his sunglasses over his head. “After all, we have you where we want you.”
Zee’s voice dropped to a growl. “Me. I’m not the gentle sort. I’d rather smash that chip in her shoulder and watch her die than let her be taken by you.”
He placed his large hand on her shoulder, directly over the bump. Angela felt the device heat from his close proximity and then throb, as if it knew its end was near. Her heart pounded. Would he really do it? It didn’t seem as if he bluffed. Being faced with one’s demise was sobering, and she realized she’d never really faced it before. She always felt she could extricate herself from situations and circumstances. Hell, she’d always had the upper hand, even when she went on assassination jobs. Even when she was locked up by Crested Ute, she bided her time, knowing one day she’d get free.
“And then,” Zealish continued. “You’d all have to fight me. You’d have to risk taking me down safely. Wouldn’t it be easier to have my cooperation? She’s worthless to you anyway.”
“I wouldn’t say worthless. She’s a means to control Everly.”
“But Everly’s not here. And you have no way of getting to her. She’s protected within Xenia and now that you used your one angle of protesting her prison release, you have nothing left. It’s time to let that dream go. Or…you can go home and take me as a consolation prize. Everyone wins.”
“No,” Angela hissed. “Goddammit, stop.” Zealish had no idea what they’d do to him. Death would be merciful, but they would never let him have it. She could never live in Xenia knowing he’d sacrificed himself for her. “Let them kill me. It’ll be less painful for us both, Zee.”
“I don’t think the big guy can let you die,” the man taunted, looking between them. “I think the Xeno Sapien has foolishly fallen for you.”
“He’s right,” Zee said, turning toward her. “I love you. Go live with your sister.”
He loved her? He chose now to tell her? She opened her mouth, unsure whether she was going to argue and tell him back, but then she was distracted by a sharp pain that burned in the back of her shoulder. There was intense pressure as Zee curled his fingers into the wound, and then a popping release. His fingers came away curled around something. He tossed the bloody device to the Crested Ute official. “It’s yours. You can insert it into me right now.”
The man caught it. A few drops of blood ran down his fingers. He shuddered distastefully.
“If you really want us to take you instead, insert it yourself.” He tossed it back.
Zee’s hand snapped up and caught the device midair.
Angela was still bemused. He’d ripped the damn thing out of her shoulder with his claws. Typical Zee. A little pain for her now instead of a lot of pain later. “Damn you,” she hissed. “Don’t be a fool.”
His voice was mocking. “Quit sacrificing yourself for others, twin number two.”
What the fuck? Wasn’t that what he was doing now? Despite his earlier declaration of love, she wanted nothing more than to smack the smirk off his face. Her shoulder hurt like hell. He was unnecessarily rough in ripping it through her flesh, but he didn’t even seem to care. It was like he was trying to cause her pain. To piss her off.
And it was working. Irritation grew like the heat at the nape of her neck, prickling her anger into awareness.
“Why would you agree to something so stupid? You don’t know what the fuck they’ll do to you,” she warned.
“Don’t I? I’m Xeno Sapien. You think I arrived in the world naturally? A loving mum? An alien dad who worshipped the ground she walked on?” Taking his claw, he sliced along his forearm. “Let me make it very clear, Angela. I fell for Everly, and you look like her. I did what I had to do, and I think I gave you a good time despite it. But, I promised her I’d bring you back. I’ll fulfill my promise to her. Because I value her wishes over yours.” He slid the small, flat disc inside the flesh pocket. Blood—their mixed blood, dripped onto the floor.
“Anyone got a piece of tape to hold it inside?” Zee asked mockingly.
“Zee?” Her voice sounded broken.
He shrugged a shoulder. “Go to your sister. I want her happy. And cherish the memories I gave you. Of us. Of me and the wrong twin.”
Angela saw red. The bastard. Damn the man. This wasn’t a damn joke. But someone tossed him some fabric wrap and he calmly began to wrap the damn thing around his arm.
She exploded.
Had he really said he was with her because she looked like Everly?
Her anger felt like a living, palpable force. She wasn’t even sure what she was angriest over. Zee’s callous treatment of her? Not respecting her wishes to keep himself safe? The idea of Zee not safe? The audacity of Crested Ute to think they could take her or Everly like they were their personal property?
But this ugly, ugly bubble inside her midsection grew, growing in force and power and whirring around in her brain until she
couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
And then it charged with an electrical wallop out of nowhere.
* * * * *
Angela blinked.
Dust settled around the house. The only two standing were her and Zee—who stared unwavering at her—and they were both sprayed with an enormous amount of blood. She knew it wasn’t either of theirs from the amounts covering the walls all around them.
Body parts littered the floor. Heads, arms, fingers, legs. Torsos, cracked in half down the breastbone. It was just like when they’d broken from the lab—except the carnage was much, much more explosive.
“What the hell happened?” she asked, stunned. Just a couple of moments ago, she’d been so angry. All of a sudden the anger was gone and it was like she stood in a different time zone.
“Are you all right?” Zee asked, his voice quiet.
“What’s happened?
“You’re more like Everly than you thought.” His voice was crusty, as if still in shock.
“I did this?”
“You don’t remember?”
“No.”
“The carnage is recorded, though you may not want to watch it. Robyn was monitoring us until backup arrived. But no one expected you to explode like this.”
“You made me angry.” Her voice was flat.
“Yes. I provoked you. I wanted to rile you enough to fight. But this—” His arm swept around them.
Angela was riveted to the scene. She couldn’t remember anything past a few seconds ago, when Zee had been wrapping his arm to hold the poison inside that would control him.
She looked over at the wound, where he’d slipped her tracker inside him.
He caught her looking. “You exploded the wrap around my arm with some type of electrical energy. We could see the light zap and then the tracker flew from my flesh, across the room, and stuck in his eyeball. Remember he’d just lifted his sunglasses over his head? Then one of the other guys went to help him and his arm ripped off. Everything else seemed to happen at once. Guns were shooting and missing, lasers were going nowhere, shooting nothing but dead light into the walls. Body parts were flying everywhere.” He concentrated intently on a spot beyond her. Angela knew he was getting a mental communication.
