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Chapter Two

  Sienna snapped around, expecting to see a cameraman pop out and yell “surprise!” But no one did, which meant she was alone with a man who was like no man she’d seen before. She had assumed military, but the two men could also be members of some rival cultish gangs or guns-for-hire. Regardless, she was in way over her head.

  And she’d seen plenty of crazy in her life. For her first eighteen years, she’d followed her parents across the globe with their humanitarian efforts. After a relatively normal college career, she spent the next ten-plus years with the military’s elite 51st Division, which was a close tie to the shit she’d seen with her parents. But this guy … and the other guy …

  A shiver ran across her skin as fear seeped through her. If only she had her phone. To call for help, to call her mother, hell, to even call her late husband’s pal. Her mother — who’d always gone by Kat because she thought Mom made her sound old — could be stuck in the middle of a bloody coup, and she’d simply pin up her hair and get to work with a transceiver in one hand and a medical kit in the other. She always knew what to do.

  But Kat’s not here.

  This mess fell squarely on Sienna’s shoulders. For better or worse, Sienna was the one who pulled the pilot from the crash site and witnessed the shooting.

  Then it hit her. She spun on a heel and headed to the living room, to the PC connected to high-speed internet.

  Pulling out the chair, she typed a quick email to her mother:

  Hey Kat —

  Hope you’re enjoying Argentina. Need info on any groups that have something to do with wings (not the feathery kind) or bronzing-slash-tattooing skin. It’s important.

  Love, Sienna

  Only Sienna’s mother wouldn’t find the question odd. Her parents’ hobby had been researching societies that claimed to have connections with life among the stars. After Dad died, humanity’s connection with the universe became Kat’s obsession. She was convinced not only that Earth wasn’t alone in the universe, but that the small planet already had guests. Kat had sworn she’d found proof.

  Sienna wished she’d listen to her mother’s ramblings closer. She’d never put down her mother’s beliefs. She’d just never really drank the Kool-Aid. After all, it was her parents’ hobby that dropped their daughter into the niche career helping the government plan for the improbable and unlikely … like alien invasions. At least, that had been Sienna’s job until her husband Bobby died, and she started her now-going-on-three-years’ sabbatical to write her parents’ memoir at her mother’s request.

  Giving her head a shake, Sienna went back to typing, sending the next email to Jax, Bobby’s best friend and a Black Ops guy. If anyone could help, it’d be him. Unfortunately, she hadn’t talked with him since her husband’s death and had no idea if he was even in the States, let alone if the email address still worked.

  The third and final email took longer to find the address than to type the message. After pulling up the Hot Springs Police Department’s website, she left sketchy details about a hunting accident and her address. With no crash site, it wasn’t like she could leave any specifics without her email completely being written off as a hoax. Now if only someone got her message before it was too late.

  Note to self: buy two phones next time.

  Wringing her hands, she came to her feet. “That ought to do it.”

  Glancing down the hallway, Sienna’s legs didn’t want to move, but she willed them forward anyway, edging closer and closer, until she was back in the bedroom, and finally stopping in front of the man who lay unmoving, sprawled across her bed.

  Convinced he wasn’t playing ‘possum, she ran her hands over muscled arms, feeling for broken bones. So far, so good. Then she moved to his chest and down his abdomen, stopping when she discovered a spot where the material was saturated.

  She tried to cut down the front of the flight suit, but the thin fabric was much stronger than she would’ve guessed. With both hands clasping the shears, cutting through the fabric was a painfully slow process. When the final bit of fabric covering his torso was cut away, the chest of a sun god bared itself to her. More tattoos unfurled like vines across a torso marred by a mass of small X-shaped scars.

  Other than the golden shimmer of his skin, there seemed to be no discoloration or swelling, no signs of internal injuries. That was, until she found the source of the wetness about an inch below his rib cage. Blood seeped from a deep gouge. But it was unlike any blood she’d ever seen before. It was thick and dark and definitely not crimson.

  In a shocked daze, Sienna closed her mouth and watched his chest rise and fall and rise again, the wound continuing to ooze the strange fluid. This was something her unerring sense of logic couldn’t defend. Here she was watching dark liquid gold bleed from a wound. The color was so alien.

  Bending at the waist, she tried several awkward positions to get a closer look at the wound but was unsuccessful. Holding in her breath, she pulled herself, inch by inch, onto the bed, trying not to wake him even though he was clearly passed out cold.

  When the pilot showed no sign of consciousness, Sienna leaned in to get a better angle. The injury looked nasty as she dabbed antiseptic across the skin, and new blood rose with every gentle touch she made. The cut was too deep for a bandage and too much for her meager first-aid skills. Even if she was successful in stopping the bleeding, infection was another story. Hopefully help would arrive soon.

  With a sympathetic wince, she threaded a needle and placed her palm near the wound. The instant before piercing skin, heat bloomed under her hand. She jolted back, tumbling off the bed and onto the floor, tripping and landing hard on her butt. She barely registered the impact. Shock did that to a person.

  Like a kid unable to turn away from a movie guaranteed to cause nightmares, she pulled herself up and looked at his wound. Where her hand had been, his skin shimmered more brightly, fresh skin now covering the edge of the wound her pinky finger had covered a moment earlier. Air turned to stone in her lungs. “Fuck. Me.”

  Scanning the floor, she found the needle and plunked it onto the nightstand. Rubbing her neck, Sienna tried to make sense out of something that made no sense. Maybe it was shock, maybe it was the aftereffect of adrenaline wearing off, but she made only a half-hearted attempt to reason with herself. Shrugging, she gingerly placed her palm against the wound.

  After a moment, heat hit her hand like buckshot. She leaned back onto the mattress, feeling woozy but held steady against the injury. Watching the clock, she counted out thirty seconds — all the while heat tickling her palm as though her hand rested on an anthill — before pulling back to see a fresh scar where the bloody cut had been.

  Holy freaking hell.

  She stared at her hand still smeared with blood, at the scar, and at her hand again. With a grimace, she wiped her hand on her cargos, leaving behind amber streaks on the cotton. Still lightheaded from the surreal healing experience, she sat on the bed and watched her patient.

  His breathing already sounded stronger than the ragged breaths from before, like a deep sleep had taken hold. Feeling a bit guilty — but not too much; after all, he had pointed a gun at her — she brushed a hand over his swollen eye and focused on the tingling under her palm. This time, she could make out the tiniest bit of energy being drawn from her through the sensation. When she’d finished, there was no swelling and nothing more than a faded bruise remained. It was a neat — and totally bizarre — trick.

  Finished playing magic witch doctor, Sienna sat down next to the unconscious pilot to regain her strength and stared at the man laid out before her. She touched the golden skin, just to brand her memory with how it felt. His heart pounded under her palm. While warm to the touch, it no longer tingled against her skin.

  An unbidden image of his naked body under her, inside her, came out of nowhere and fogged her vision. She winced and yanked away from the man.

  It had been over three years since her husband Bobby was killed by a driver too busy texting her
BFF. Three years since she left the cold city behind and moved to away from humanity, away from senselessness. And three long years since she touched a man.

  But this wasn’t just some man. There was a reason he was tied to her bed. He’d pointed a gun at her, and that was most definitely not the sort of thing she took lightly. And who knew what he’d been up to before he crashed in the Ouachita Forest. But most importantly, however, she had no clue who — or what — he was. Until she figured that out, he would remain in the “bad guy” category.

  Sienna gave the pilot another look and found eyes darker than midnight, without any surrounding white, watching her.

  In a flash she was off the bed and standing several feet away, at the same time leveling the Glock at him. “Who are you?”

  He ignored her, choosing instead to tug at his restraints while he muttered beautifully strange words, which, if going by the look on his face, were more likely a string of cussing so colorful they’d make a sailor blush. Sienna mentally shrugged. I guess I’d be pissed, too, if I woke up tied to some stranger’s bed.

  “Do you speak English?” she asked, pausing between each word.

  He stilled but didn’t look away from his restraints. “Why am I here?” he asked in rough English.

  “You were hurt, and I couldn’t leave you at your ship. It sort of blew up.”

  “Blue? I do not understand.”

  “Exploded. Ka-boom.” She emphasized the word with her free hand.

  After a moment, the pilot began tugging at his restraints again, showing no surprise at the fact that his ship couldn’t be repaired.

  Sienna frowned. The beeping back at the ship resonated in her mind, and things clicked. Her mouth dropped open. Shit. “You expected to die when you crashed.”

  At those words, he looked down from his restraints and met her eyes with a look of resolve. It was just like any classic sci-fi movie: he couldn’t risk being seen until his people were ready to show themselves, or take over the world, or whatever aliens did when they came to a new planet. Even at the cost of his own life.

  “If it weren’t for me, you would have died,” she said, not realizing she’d spoken her thoughts aloud. “Were you running from the other guy?”

  “I was hunting the Draeken,” he replied with a snarl.

  Draeken. That name rang a bell. Something her mother had said. Sienna shook away the thought, making a mental note to ask Kat about it later. She narrowed an eye at the pilot. “Why are you here?”

  “You brought me here.”

  She shook her head. “No. I meant, why are you here?” She gestured around her to emphasize the question.

  He didn’t answer for the longest time. Instead, he lay there and watched her with those compelling dark eyes. “Let me go,” was all he said.

  A soft snort escaped her. “Like hell. You were going to shoot me.”

  He yanked against his restraints and grunted before surrendering to the mattress with a wince. It was then she saw a pool of blood she’d completely missed before. Sienna gasped, and, without thinking, scrambled over to him and rolled him onto his side, all the while keeping the gun securely aimed at him point blank.

  “Release me.” He weakly pushed back, but with his wrists tied — thank God — she had the upper hand.

  Sienna glared. “Behave. Can’t you see I’m trying to help you?”

  With his wrists tied, she couldn’t roll him all the way onto his stomach. Unable to see, she had to go off touch, feeling for the wound, moving her fingers over his skin until he sucked in a breath. Thick, warm moisture enveloped her fingers.

  Damn. The wound was near his spine. Sienna gritted her teeth. An inch to the left and he would have been paralyzed. Or worse.

  Her back straightened and she looked directly at her patient, prisoner, whatever. “It’s bad. I’ve got to get a closer look, so no funny business or else I’ll poke a finger in the wound.”

  The pilot’s lips tightened, but he said nothing.

  After giving him a wary eye, she set the gun next to her on the mattress where she could grab it in an instant if necessary and moved to get a closer look at the wound.

  “Ow!” Sienna snapped back her finger to find a bead of crimson blood forming on the tip. The culprit was still embedded in his skin.

  Wiping still more crimson and amber blood on her cargos, she got down on her knees for a closer look at what had cut her. A shard of dark metal protruded from the skin, creating a gouge similar to the one that had been on his abdomen. It had never occurred to her to check for an exit wound. She glanced back up to see the injured pilot glaring at her over his shoulder.

  She chewed on her lower lip. If he’d been a normal person, she’d leave the shrapnel in there until it could be removed by a professional. But this man was anything but normal, and she couldn’t risk leaving it. “There’s something still in there. I need to get it out before you do that healing thing again and seal it inside. On the count of three.”

  “Three what?” Grumpy asked, his rough voice betraying the pain he was clearly battling.

  “Never mind.” The metal came out with a quick tug. He grunted but didn’t yank away. Blood spilled forward, she slapped her hand over the wound, and warm liquid poured out between her fingers. Just like it’d done the other two times, heat surged under her hand. A familiar blanket of dizziness fell over her, and she fought to stay steady on her knees. After several more seconds, the bleeding slowed, then stopped altogether. She pulled back and tossed the shard onto the nightstand. It made a metallic ping when it bounced off the hard oak.

  He rolled onto his back and eyed her, his brows furrowed. “You helped me. Why did you not break contact?”

  Exhausted, she grabbed the gun, tumbled off the bed and took a seat on the floor, using her knee to steady her aim. “You were hurt. Touching you seemed to help. Cool trick, by the way. How do you do that?”

  “Energy.” The strange man examined Sienna from his prone position. “Release me. Please,” he gritted out the words through clenched teeth, the words sounding more like an ultimatum than a request.

  “So you can shoot me like you did the other guy? Thanks, but no thanks.”

  “He was the enemy.”

  “The last time I checked, this country isn’t at war,” she snapped back.

  Suddenly, he lunged forward, his hands pulling free from the restraints, and tackled her. Her head banged against the hardwood floor. Sienna’s world closed in, and she felt the gun yanked from her hand. Still, she managed to kick and punch at him like a rabid wolverine. Not that it did any good. When the room quit swimming, her arms were pinned and his face was inches from hers, his warm breath touching her lips.

  She hit him with the only thing she could still move, slamming her forehead against his. He grimaced, but he never even flinched. Stars danced across her vision, and shards of pain ran killer sprints through her brain. The guy had a brick wall for a head. Out of options, all she could do now was glare. “Let me go, Asshole.”

  He frowned. “Why did you help me?” he asked, deflecting her command.

  In response, she struggled harder, and his grip tightened. “Ow, ow, ow,” she muttered. He loosened his grip just enough so that she didn’t feel like her bones would be pulverized.

  “Why did you help me?” he repeated, showing the patience of dog vying for its owner’s attention.

  After a long pause, he released her wrists, and she pulled them to her chest, rubbing circulation back into them. With a drawn-out sigh, Sienna laid her head back on the floor. He had her, and he knew it.

  “First.” She held up a finger. “You would’ve died if it weren’t for me. If your plane didn’t do the job, I’m guessing that other guy would have. It’s not too late for a simple ‘thank you,’ by the way. And, second, it’s not like I invited you to crash into my back yard.” She switched fingers to give him the bird an inch in front of his face.

  The grimace he’d been wearing since he awoke curled into what could almost b
e construed as a grin, and he lifted off her just enough. In a flash of movement, she launched her attack. She slid her leg around his thigh and put all her weight into him, rolling him onto his back. She was on top, but it didn’t stay that way for long.

  “Ugh!”

  He grabbed her and rolled them over, leaving her pinned once more under a wall of muscle. His face was tight — his emotions barely leashed. She couldn’t move.

  The pilot leaned back onto his knees, and Sienna punched him futilely as he picked up her Glock and bent the barrel. Then, he tossed away the useless weapon. Her punches froze. “What are you?”

  He leaned forward and ran a too-warm palm across her cheek as energy tingled through her, sending heat to all the wrong places. She meant to turn away from him, but instead her head turned closer to him so that he cupped her cheek. It was like her body craved him. Realizing what she’d done, she yanked to get away. “Whatever you’re doing, stop it,” she said in one final shove against him.

  His eyes widened, color shot through the black orbs like tiny bolts of lightning. For a surprised second, he stayed frozen. “It’s you,” was all the pilot said before he grabbed her wrists and held them with one hand above her head. He hovered inches above her, his scent woodsy, watching her with confusion and curiosity.

  The vulnerable proximity of him was too much. Heat shot through her, heat that was one part fear and another part something that frightened the hell out of her. Her heart beat like it was trying to break free from her chest. So Sienna did the first — and probably not the brightest — thing that came to mind.

  She kissed him.

  Chapter Three

  For a surprised second, the pilot stayed frozen. Then he kissed back, hard, taking no prisoners, as if he were punishing Sienna for saving him. After seconds — or minutes — of kissing her senseless, he pulled back, leaving her gasping for air. During that time, she’d forgotten why she kissed him in the first place.

  Instead, Sienna lay there in a daze after experiencing the most incredible kiss of her life. It was electric, surreal. And it had been from a complete stranger and a definite villain. She should have been terrified. But all she knew was she didn’t want it to end. It was as if her super-ego died, and her id took over. How effed up is this?