Mad Panther (Alien Guardians of Earth Book 2)

by Donna McDonald

  But then Axel had left his lair and come to the palace for her sake. So he could do the right thing when properly motivated.

  For now, Sugar would cling to that memory and hope for the best.

  10

  It was morning by the time the airships and weary passengers returned to the palace. Sugar had talked continuously and told stories to keep Rodu alert during the long flight back. Unfortunately, she’d exhausted herself doing so and had fallen asleep for the last half hour of the trip. That meant once again she’d failed to see where they had flown back to.

  How could her luck keep being this bad? It was like everything in her life was conspiring to keep her clueless about her location. She intended to renegotiate her promise to the Lyran queen not to ask as soon as possible.

  Rodu had been completely exhausted once they landed so she’d shooed him off with a frowning, concerned Nyomi hovering at his side.

  She fought off her own exhaustion a bit longer and made sure Lake was settled. His Lyran-rigged talking bed would alert the guards to any change in Lake’s sleeping activity.

  She left a request for both her and Rodu to be notified if Lake woke which caused the artifact to promptly inform her that it would be at least two weeks before that happened.

  By the time everything was arranged and Lake was settled under Marta of Rodu’s care, Sugar was damn tired. Both of Axel’s sisters had insisted on undressing Lake to look for trackers and other dangers.

  She couldn’t recall what kind of fanciful story she’d ended up telling them about Lake having the same kind of fused breastplate in his chest that she and Rodu had.

  At first she’d thought they just wanted an excuse to check Lake’s youthfully buff body out. He was a good-looking man and both Axel’s sisters were half-human after all.

  Whatever the reality, she’d had to say something to explain the blade being wrapped around him when Marta’s gaze flew to hers in surprise.

  After making sure the Lyrans weren’t planning on tinkering with the new blade host’s body, Sugar had directed her blade to talk to Lake’s blade if it could. She wanted the new Protector to know that the people at the palace were caretakers and posed no threat to its existence.

  Once that was done as well, Sugar managed to feel relieved for the first time since she’d returned.

  Axel had kept his distance from her since they returned and Sugar was grateful for the reprieve. She was too exhausted to argue with him about her actions. She was also concerned about having brought yet another powerful artifact to Nyomi’s people to guard.

  Her mind raced with questions as she made her way to their quarters.

  How did all those bad guys keep finding her? And why didn’t they find her here at the palace? It was the only place no one had shown up to retrieve her.

  When she reached the room she shared with Axel, he wasn’t there. Relieved by his absence, Sugar got naked and fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

  When Sugar woke from her exhausted sleep, it was in the middle of the night. A large, familiar arm was thrown over her. A strong sense of déjà vu descended as her heart contracted in her chest. Mixed emotions poured through her like water.

  Any other time Sugar would have laughed at herself for feeling so relieved that Axel had come to bed to sleep beside her despite being angry. Tonight, though, her sense of humor was nowhere to be found.

  He’d come to mean so much more to her than she’d ever imagined feeling for a male again. Her divorce had been awful. Her history with men, in general, had sucked even though she liked them.

  But Axel? Well, her bad panther was nothing like any other male she’d known.

  She gently lifted Axel’s arm and slid from under it. She padded softly to the bathroom and took care of business. Suddenly remembering that she’d rolled on the cave floor and through bad guy dust, she stepped into the shower to remove all traces of what she’d done to protect Rodu and Lake—and herself.

  Lyrans used a recycled liquid for cleansing instead of regular water. It didn’t require the additional use of soap or shampoo, so Sugar ducked her head under the spray and let it wash away all lingering traces of her fight. Afterward, she felt incredibly grateful to be clean again.

  Gut-level gratitude just for surviving was becoming a repeating theme in her strange, new life.

  She dried off in a heated stall that used different colored lights to dry and sanitize. When she emerged from the cylinder, she felt both refreshed, and her short hair was completely dry. She came out of the bathroom and went to the closet to get clothes.

  It crossed her mind to go check on Lake again. She also wanted to visit the library and look into the boy’s background.

  Then she turned from the closet and looked at Axel in the bed and changed her mind. If she left again without telling him where she was going, it would only make things worse between them.

  So instead she walked back the bed and lifted his arm to slide under it again. She settled it over her gently and closed her eyes to get comfortable.

  “I’m glad you didn’t leave. I’m too tired to chase you again,” Axel whispered.

  Sugar turned her head and met his gaze. She knew it humbled him to confess his gratitude. “I didn’t leave you before, Axel. The artifact and I had work to do. You can’t get mad every time duty calls me away from your side.”

  “I watched them fire their weapons at you—close range and all of them at once. I saw your body fly through the air and bounce off a rock wall. I was so scared that they’d killed you that the roar of protest never left my throat. For the first time in my entire life, I found myself unable to act. I did not like that feeling of helplessness. I wish never to feel it again.”

  “I understand,” Sugar said as she cuddled closer, trying to see it from his point of view. “But you also know how Golden Girl operates. By the time I got back up, the sentient blade had boosted my shield and my weapons. I took out all of the bad guys despite their sonic guns. They never stood a chance. I was surprised when the blade let me send the others away without killing them too.”

  Axel groaned in the dark. “But what if you had not gotten back up, Sugar? The military would have captured you again. They would have captured my Father as well. With every encounter, they learn more of your weaknesses.”

  “The whole time—all I was doing was protecting your father and Lake. Protecting is what my blade is programmed to do. In those moments, all I think about is doing what I have to do.”

  She wasn’t trying to make light of his concerns, but the idea that she might not have survived the attack had never crossed her mind. On some level, she likely believed that her blade made her invincible. That belief probably wasn’t grounded in reality, but so far her experience pointed in the direction of it being true.

  She’d been captured many times and escaped every situation. She’d been shot, stabbed, and God only knew what else had been done to her. Yet here she was in bed with the sexiest male she’d ever come across. His presence in her life made it impossible for her to be cynical about her situation.

  Axel grunted. “I cannot concern myself with the well-being of yet another blade host. One is all I can handle. And I don’t like you touching him.”

  “I call him Junior because Lake’s still a kid. However, in a weird-ass way, he’s also my counterpart,” Sugar explained as she laughed at Axel’s jealousy. “Junior’s blade is still in its literal phase. If I hadn’t caught him when he fell, he would be healing a concussion as well as the damage from the merging.”

  “The man hosts a sentient blade, Sugar. He’s yet another danger to you, to my father, and to the Lyran Guardians of Earth.”

  “I know, Axel, but…”

  Sugar sighed in the dark. How could she get Axel to understand?

  Sure, the attack on her and Rodu at the Temple of the Moon could have gone down differently. She needed to learn a better strategy for handling such situations. Something to keep them from happening altogether would be grand.


  And she really, really needed to find out how in hell they were tracking her down wherever she went. That would go a long way toward helping her keep a lower profile.

  “Look, I’m going to keep on improving my fighting skills, and while I’m doing that, I’m going to keep on believing that Golden Girl is never going to lose a fight. She definitely hasn’t lost one since you started taking care of us. And no one has captured me in a long time. You need to stop worrying so much. You need to trust me to do smart things and work it out. Your father is helping me. We’re both going to be able to help Lake. We have the power of three now.”

  Axel ran a hand over her shapely body. What would he do if she was killed? Dying too was not an option for him. He had people to lead one day. “You are my concern—only you. Is it wrong that I want to ensure your safety personally? I want to take care of you, Sugar. As your mate, it is my duty.”

  “You do take care of me and you do it well,” Sugar assured him, pushing her worried lover to his back. “But you also have to let me be what I’m meant to be—the way you’re meant to be the next Lyran leader. We both have to fulfill our life’s purpose. Right?”

  “Let’s stop talking about this now. I don’t want to get upset again. I don’t like being angry at you.”

  “I don’t like it either,” Sugar said, as she climbed on top of Axel’s body and stretched out.

  She put her head on his chest, closed her eyes, and listened to his heart beating. Gratitude—deep gratitude—washed over her again. How could he not understand how safe he made her feel every moment they were together?

  She really couldn’t imagine her new, extraordinary life without Axel being a part of it, but she also couldn’t let him have control of her entire existence. She already had one supernatural being doing that job. She fought that fight every day.

  Yet even without the artifact being in her, even if she and Axel had both been average people with no special abilities, Sugar knew she still would need space to make her own decisions and mistakes.

  When they met, Axel had been hanging on to his independence with both hands, and she hadn’t asked him to change for her. Of all people, Axel should understand her need to protect what freedom she had left.

  “I don’t have any answers to calm your worries, or at least none you want to hear,” Sugar whispered. “Returning here to you is what I live for now. That is the truth of us.”

  Axel growled his ownership before he rolled her under him. He pushed inside her with his body, but to Sugar, it seemed to be her soul that he was trying to reach.

  Being with Axel was important to her, but the greatest sex in the world couldn’t undo her destiny. No matter how she’d come to be here with him, if it hadn’t been for the artifact, they never would have met.

  And her life was still in the process of changing.

  Her hand went to Axel’s face to get his attention. “You are my home, Axel. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I will always return to you if I am able to do so.”

  Sugar smiled when he nodded and began to move inside her. He took her body on the familiar journey they always traveled to bliss, and this time she let him lead the way without intervention.

  Maybe her former bad panther had finally forgiven her for their misunderstanding.

  Maybe he hadn’t.

  Outside of saying she loved him, professing her desire to always return was the only relationship promise Sugar felt she could make.

  11

  Lake opened his eyes and found himself staring up at a cat wearing a flattering red dress with an unflattering white lab coat thrown over it. Her cosplay effort was freaking incredible and looked so natural on her. She’d left her body looking totally human. Her face looked human too except for her feline ears, nose, and some tiny silver whiskers that looked so damn real Lake couldn’t tear his gaze away from them.

  The cat pressed a button on the headboard of his bed. When it beeped, she began talking. “Note time that subject woke and then calculate total sleep time achieved. Send the information to the Honorable Rodu and a copy to Dr. Sugar Jennings.”

  Lake looked around as he spoke to her. “Great makeup, luv. You look like the Cheshire Cat. Where’s the Alice In Wonderland party? Do you want a date for it? I’m game.”

  His cat responded to his suggestion of a date by pressing the damn button again. “Make a note in the records to do some cognitive testing. The subject is talking about a book from his culture as if it’s real. My first thought is that he may be having an allergic reaction to the metal fused into his chest. Ask Sugar for her opinion of the matter.”

  “Allergic to the what?” Lake asked the cute cat of his dreams.

  “Oh good, you’re awake. Sugar is going to be so relieved,” a sultry, sexy voice said as it moved toward him.

  Was he awake? Lake blinked his eyes trying to figure it out. If this woman was another dream, and he’d been having a hell of a lot of them lately, he might not want to wake up from this one.

  The cat woman was cute, but now he was seeing an Egyptian goddess. With all that dark hair and those slanted eyes, she was hands down the most incredibly beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life.

  “How’s he doing today?” the goddess asked the cat instead of him.

  “He’s awake and talking about a children’s book. At first, I thought he was having hallucinations. Two weeks is a long time to be asleep unless you’re regenerating. He seems to have no awareness of such a long time passing.”

  “Two weeks?” Lake croaked the question in shock.

  It took some real effort to get upright. What the hell had happened to him? He pushed to a seated position and then realized he was completely naked under the bed covers. As good as the two women in the room looked, it was a real downer not to be able to remember how he got that way.

  Lake lifted an eyebrow as he stared at the Goddess and her cat friend. “One of these days, I’ve got to stop going home with strange women. Glad today isn’t that day. Both of you are amazing.”

  The goddess approached him and tilted her head as she stared at the tented sheet in his lap. “Is the purpose of your strange statement meant as a mating ritual of some sort? Do you think you're being charming?”

  Lake grinned, unashamed of trying to flirt with both of them at once. The goddess was his favorite, so he spoke to her. “Tell me something, Goddess. Where’s your loo?”

  “Loo?”

  “Your toilet. I need to take a piss something fierce. It’s going to be a real adjustment moving back to the states. The Oxford blokes I hung with weren’t always polite in their speech.”

  “The states? Are you referring to the location where you assume you are now?” the goddess asked, blinking her eyes as she tried to assimilate his speech.

  Irritated that they thought he had brain damage, Lake heard laughter and leaned around the goddess. The cat woman was purring or trilling or making some sort of noise that he could tell meant she was amused. “You definitely should win a prize for your costume. You even sound like a cat when you laugh.”

  “Thank you. It is good to know you perceive me as somewhat real,” the cat woman said. Then she shook her head as she looked at the goddess. “I’m heading to my quarters. He is now your charge.”

  Her charge? Lake smirked when the goddess gravely nodded.

  “I accept the responsibility of him. Have a blessed evening.”

  “Thank you. I have a social engagement. I have one tomorrow night as well.”

  “A social engagement two nights in a row? What’s that like?” the goddess asked, teasing the cat woman.

  “Neither of them are geniuses like you prefer, but they know all the important things.”

  The goddess chuckled loudly at the cat’s comments. “Your joy is my joy. I hope you have a pleasant time.”

  The cat made more cat noises and left smiling. Lake shook his head, bemused at how surreal this situation was.

  Finally, the goddess looked back at him. “T
he personal evacuation system area is connected to this room. Do you require assistance walking there?”

  “Why would I need…” Lake stopped and grinned. “Well, now that you ask, got any idea where I left my trousers?”

  “Trousers?”

  Lake wondered if his goddess had some mental issues herself. She kept repeating everything she said—and everything he said. Maybe she had some acute OCD issue.

  “Pants, darling,” Lake said.

  “Leg coverings?” His goddess looked around. “I don’t know what happened to them. Let me ask a guard to search for some clothing for you to wear. Will you let me measure you? I need to check your size.”

  “Why? Are you hoping there will be more bang for you now that your cat friend is gone? No worries on that account. You’re the one making me get it up, sweetheart.”

  Lake frowned when the goddess rolled her eyes. Maybe he was pressing his advantage too fast, but she didn’t have to act so unimpressed with his game.

  He hadn’t gotten many complaints between the sheets to date. If the goddess and the cat had found him so lacking in that area, why had they let him spend the night with them? He’d have to find out, but that would be no problem.

  This was sex math and Lake had majored in it.

  “I’m confused by all your words. Let us focus on one issue at a time. You just said you couldn’t find your leg coverings. This is why I offered to have someone search for them.”

  “I heard you. I’m not nearly as slow upstairs as you think I am,” Lake said with growing irritation.

  His goddess sighed and walked to his bed. She pressed a button on the headboard. “Schedule cognitive testing for tomorrow morning. Subject’s head wound may have slowed his mental responses. He seems to be struggling to make normal conversation.”

  “Hey now…” Lake said in protest, glaring up into her incredible green eyes with hundreds of gold flakes in them.

  He lifted a finger, and she lifted an eyebrow in response.