He shoved it open and the school’s alarm bells went off, filling the room with a deafening tone as three more teams of two armed men came into the room from outside.

  Ten of them?

  I stumbled toward the hallway, pulling Brody with me.

  “Where do you think you’re going, Krystal?”

  The woman’s voice sent a chill down my spine. I’d heard it before.

  Turning slowly to look over my shoulder, I shifted Brody away from her and shoved him behind my back. “Daciana.”

  Her smile was cruel. It made her normally timid face nearly unrecognizable.

  “What do you want? You already have all of Brody’s money.”

  She looked at me like I was the biggest idiot ever born. Perhaps I was. I’d hoped, if we didn’t take any of Brody’s inheritance off planet, they’d leave us alone. That whoever had killed my sister and Rojak would leave us the hell alone.

  “We aren’t going back. Rojak can have everything.”

  She cursed at me in Everian, words so vile the NPU struggled to keep up. “Rojak is worthless. My sons carry the Elite bloodlines. Not from their father.” She tilted her head and stared, almost as if she could literally see through my body to where Brody clung behind me.

  How had I been so wrong about her? I’d been around her on Everis. Watched her wipe tears from her eyes at the funeral. Seen her cower and defer to her mate and sons, act as if she had no courage, no ambition, no desires. I’d believed her to be barely more than a bump on a log. A mouse in a house full of predators.

  I was wrong. So wrong. “Does Pridon know what you’ve done?” I didn’t like Rojak’s cousin, had assumed he was the one who’d sent assassins to hunt Brody.

  She signaled on of the two man teams to move into position behind Iven. “You really are stupid. He’s next.”

  “Your sons will never forgive you for killing their father.”

  She scoffed. “They’ll never know.”

  “You killed Rojak?”

  She bowed as if proud of herself.

  “You murdered my sister.”

  She stared at me like I was reading her the ingredients list from a cereal box.

  “And?” She motioned with her hand for me to continue. “Try really hard to use your little human brain.”

  “You sent assassins after us,” I said. “You took control of Brody’s inheritance. You’re going to kill your mate and what? Keep it all for yourself?”

  “For my children, dear. Not for me.” She held a Coalition Fleet ion blaster now—she must have had it in a hidden holster—a small, silver handgun I’d seen on one of my visits to space. I knew the innocent looking weapon could blow a hole in the side of the school with one shot. She had it pointed at Iven.

  “So just let us go,” I pleaded. “We’ll never go back to Everis. I swear.”

  “Brody is an Elite Hunter. You truly believe he will obey you when he is an adult? If he returns to Everis, I lose everything.”

  I pulled Brody around to my side and looked down into his eyes, begging him to play along. “Tell her, Brody. Tell her you’ll never go back.”

  The little boy I loved to distraction blinked slowly and turned to look his cousin by marriage straight in the eye. “When I grow up, you’ll be the first person I hunt.”

  Daciana cackled with glee. “See?” She snorted as she lifted the blaster higher, aimed at Iven’s head. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with, human.”

  “I’m getting tired of listening to this bullshit, lady.” One of the men dressed as a S.W.A.T. officer lifted the end of his rifle, pointed it at me. “You didn’t pay us enough to listen to a fucking speech.”

  Pay them enough? They were what then? Human mercenaries disguised as police?

  Daciana, wife of Pridon of Everis, grumbled then shrugged. “Fine. Get on with it.” She smiled at Brody. “Make sure the boy is dead.”

  She turned around and walked out of the room.

  “Sar, we doing this?” one of the men asked. “I fucking hate doing kids.”

  “I’ll do it,” Sar shifted his weight, lowered his rifle to point it at Brody.

  “Brody, now!” Iven shouted.

  Brody threw his body into mine, took me down at the knees and flung his body on top of mine where I sprawled on the floor.

  Bullets flew.

  Glass shattered. I saw a flash of fur, heard one of the men scream as Alexander the Great’s familiar screeching echoed through the room.

  Where the hell had the cat come from?

  “Move! Move!” Brody shoved me in the direction of one of the art tables. We scrambled on our hands and knees. When we were close enough, Brody reached up and pulled the table down onto its side and ushered me behind it. “Go. Stay down.”

  I huddled with him behind the table, shocked to the core. “Brody? What? How are you…?” I didn’t know how to ask a six-year-old boy why he was acting like a trained soldier four times his age.

  “Iven taught us. He’s been teaching us what to do.”

  “The whole class?”

  “Uh-huh.” He peaked his head over the top of the table and grinned like he was having fun. “Father told me about beasts.” His voice was filled with awe, admiration, as he watched whatever was going on, on the other side of our makeshift blockade.

  “He did?”

  “Yeah. He said they were the best fighters in the universe.” He ducked just in time to avoid being hit by a flying mercenary whose lifeless body slammed into the wall behind us before sliding into a lump on the floor.

  I expected Brody to be terrified. Panicked.

  Like me.

  But then I realized that wasn’t exactly true of me either, not with Iven here. In fact, I had no doubt every single one of the bad guys was going to end up on the wrong side of the dirt, and that Brody and I would be just fine.

  Because my mate was a Warlord. A beast.

  I smiled and flipped around so I could peek over the edge of the table, too.

  Alexander the Great prowled past and launched himself at one of the three men still fighting. The bastard never stood a chance. The cat had him on the ground, his throat shredded, before the man took two steps. And he was still a kitten.

  Brody was watching as well. “Told you he was coming.”

  “How did he know?”

  “We talk to each other inside our brains.”

  “Even when he’s home and you’re at school?”

  “Yep.” Brody turned his attention from the cat to Iven, and I did the same. I’d think about alien cat telepathy later.

  Iven wasn’t Iven. Not anymore. His clothes were ripped to shreds. Pants in tatters around thighs bigger than tree trunks. His shirt was, once more, in tatters, but this time I understood the cause. Iven had transformed. Grown nearly two feet taller. His head almost touched the ten foot ceiling, and his shoulders were almost as wide as the teacher’s desk. His face was his…but not. His jaw was thicker. Wider. His handsome face was less refined, more primal. He was Iven to the tenth power. The same, but more.

  As I watched, he plucked a bullet from his shoulder and laughed. The flesh moved, filling in the gap, healing him faster than the attackers could do any significant damage.

  “Holy shit.” Did they all heal like that?

  “Told ya.” Brody was practically giddy, like we were in the front row of a rock concert watching his favorite band. “My father said Atlan Warlords are the strongest warriors in the whole fleet. He said he never worried about going into battle if they had beasts with them.”

  I tried to imagine Iven on a battlefield surrounded by hundreds of Warlords in beast mode. Iven was unarmed, mostly naked. What would it be like facing a thousand beasts wearing armor? Carrying blasters or blades?

  How was it possible the war with the Hive had been going on for hundreds of years, as the Prillons claimed, if the Warlords all fought like this?

  11

  Krystal

  * * *

  There were only two attackers still moving.

  Iven moved faster than I thought possible for someone his size and picked up one of the men by his feet. Iven swung him around and tossed him like a frisbee. The man’s head slammed into the wall with a sickening thud.

  Only one left. The one who’d bothered to voice a protest about killing a child. He had both hands in the air above his head in surrender. His rifle lay on the ground at his feet. He kicked it away and backed away from the beast. “Please, no. I didn’t know she wanted us to kill a kid, man. I’m sorry.”

  The rumble that came from Iven’s chest would have made most people run away, screaming in terror. The man had obviously looked death in the eye more than once, because that’s what Iven was right now. Death personified. Vengeance.

  Alexander the Great moved behind the mercenary. Bumped his legs with a hiss.

  The man jumped. “Look, she offered a lot of money. I swear, I didn’t know we were coming for a kid.”

  “Warlord Iven, stop.” Brody stood up and stepped out from behind the table before I could stop him. He moved faster than a normal child when he wanted to. For the first time since I’d brought him to Earth, I realized hiding him here was going to be more difficult than I had hoped. And that damn cat was going to keep growing. What was I going to do when Brody was breaking every track, football or baseball record on the books, and he had a pet cat the size of a pony at the house?

  The man dared a glance at Brody. If he thought it odd that he was pleading with a six-year-old for his life, he gave no sign. “I’m sorry, Broderick.”

  “Brody.”

  “Brody. I’ve hurt a lot of people. Mostly bad people. But I swear, I don’t do kids.”

  Iven the beast crossed his arms over the biggest chest I’d ever seen and watched the small boy with incredible patience. My mate really was magnificent.

  “All right. What’s your name?” Brody asked.

  “Simon.” Iven snarled at him and he scrambled back. “Just Simon. I swear. I’d give you a last name, but it’s fake. I don’t exist. They wiped me from the books when they put me in the programs.”

  Brody’s gaze was hard as diamonds. I’d never seen that look on his face, the look of a predator, of the future Elite Hunter he would become. “I don’t need your name to find you. I’m an Everian Hunter. Have you heard of us?”

  The man nodded. “Of course.”

  Brody tilted his head and studied the man for a few seconds.

  “Can I put my hands down?”

  “No.” Iven answered first, his beast’s barked command loud in the sudden quiet.

  “Guess not.” Brody shrugged and signaled Alexander to come sit at his side. Iven, Brody and Alexander the Great. My new alien family. I could almost hear Kimberly laughing at the irony. I’d been the one who wanted nothing to do with aliens. Nothing.

  Now I wanted everything.

  “We need to get Daciana. She’ll just keep trying to kill you, Brody.” I got to my feet and came out from behind the desk. Iven’s gaze locked onto me instantly and what I saw there made my pussy clench and my blood heat. There he was. My beast. Standing in the center of a pile of his enemies.

  Outside, the distinct sound of police sirens filled the room. Lots of police sirens. Like every cop in town was going to be in this room in the next five minutes.

  Iven’s beast spoke a full sentence, the deep timbre of his voice making my pulse race. “Simon, go. Find female.”

  Simon looked my mate in the eye. “You want me to track down the woman who hired us?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do what with her?” Simon looked around at the dead men I assumed were, if not his friends, at least men he respected. “I don’t normally like to do women either. In this case, I’ll make an exception.”

  “No.” Brody shook his head and looked at me. “We need to take her back to Everis and tell everyone the truth about my parents.”

  Go back to Everis? I sighed. “All right, Brody. All right.” I didn’t know if Iven would be allowed on Everis, or if he’d even want to go with us.

  But I hoped.

  I looked at Simon. “Find her and bring her to the police station.”

  Brody opened his mouth to protest, but there were still somethings he didn’t know. “We’ll send an official request from Everis. The police won’t want to keep her here. She’s not human. She’s not supposed to be here.”

  “Give me twenty-four hours,” Simon said.

  “Midnight,” the beast informed him. “No female, I hunt you.”

  “Done.” Simon grabbed his weapon from the floor and left the room, going out the exterior door to get away.

  Brody walked over to the teacher’s desk and sat in the large chair, arms crossed as he looked around the room. I loved watching his little mind work as he assessed the situation. No panic. I kept trying to compare him to human children. But he wasn’t only half-human. The other half? The other half was a warrior. A soldier. A hunter. It was in his DNA.

  Me, on the other hand? I didn’t know what to do. What would the police say if they found an Atlan Warlord here? Would they want to prosecute Iven for killing these guys, even though he’d been protecting Brody and me? Would they try to lock him in jail? Or worse, start shooting at him?

  Couldn’t run away, either. They authorities would want answers.

  And where was Iven, the man? Male. Whatever. The beast was staring at me like he’d never seen a woman before. “Are you going to change back?”

  “No.” One word. I believed him. The beast was going nowhere.

  Shit. I was working myself into a panic when very large arms wrapped around me and lifted me off my feet.

  Iven crushed me to his chest and stared at Brody. “Mine.”

  My six-going-on-sixteen-year-old nephew waved his little hand in a dismissive gesture as Alexander the Great curled up at his feet. “I got this. Go ahead.” He put his little feet up on the desk and locked his hands behind his head, leaning back in the chair like a big city executive. “I want you to keep us. Go. Do what you gotta do.”

  Do what you gotta do?

  He spent a few days with Iven and he was talking like a seasoned detective now? What happened to the frightened little boy who helped me hang up the baby dragon poster? Who sought reassurance that the bad guys weren’t going to find us? What was happening to my life?

  Iven happened, that’s what.

  He glared at the hunting cat. “Stay. Protect.”

  The cat yawned like he was bored out of his mind. I wasn’t fooled. If Daciana managed to make her way back here and get through the small army of police that were about to show up, Alexander would rip her throat out before she got anywhere near my boy. Still, the yawn was a bit much.

  Cats were assholes, didn’t matter what planet they came from.

  I didn’t have time to worry about any of it now. Iven’s beast carried me into the hallway, through the cafeteria, then the gym, out the back of the building, across the soccer field and into the forest.

  12

  The Beast

  Mine. Mine. Mine.

  I was free. My mate in my arms. The foolish humans who attacked her?

  Dead. All but one. Simon. I had his scent. Knew his name.

  I would hunt him later. Kill him.

  You made a bargain. Simon’s life for Daciana. She is the one who betrayed us.

  I snarled. Iven’s words meant nothing. Less than nothing. You. Betray me.

  Iven had locked me inside the cage of his mind, his small, weak body. For years.

  I was protecting you.

  Lies. That’s all Iven the Atlan did. He lied. He betrayed.

  He would lie to our mate. Betray her. Break her heart. He already had. She was my mate. Mine. I had chosen. She accepted. Mating cuffs. She said yes.

  MINE! Iven kept us apart. Fucked her. Tasted her. Kept her for himself. Betrayer.

  I shoved Iven into the dark abyss where he had kept me. Locked him away.

  My mate. My Brody. Mine.

  “Mine. Mine. Mine.” I held her as I raced through the forest, miles disappearing beneath my feet as I ran, taking her far away from the dead bodies and the human police. I could have returned to the house the traitor, Daciana, had given us. Foolish Iven had trusted her. Listened to her.

  The wicked Everian female gave us a cage to live in so she would know where to find us. Used us to track the boy so she could kill him. Brought mercenaries to kill our mate.

  Iven. Weak. Stupid. I hadn’t fought Iven when he’d accepted the mission. Protecting females and children was ingrained in our nature. But the Everian female? I would have warned him, if I’d believed, even for a moment, he would listen. But that was in the past. Krystal had me now. I protect mate.

  Let me out.

  Fuck. You. Iven.

  Iven relented. He didn’t have a choice. I was in control now.

  Don’t hurt her.

  I stopped dead in my tracks and lifted my face to the sky. The roar of rage that erupted from my throat was raw pain, the agony of years of Iven’s judgment. Lack of trust. Betrayal. We’d survived being a prisoner of the Hive because I protected him.

  Weeks of torture. Pain. A thousand, thousand voices trying to crack my skull wide open. Then one, powerful voice. The voice of a god. The Nexus Unit arrived to break me.

  I kept Iven locked away. Safe. We survived. We escaped.

  And he put me in a cage. Blamed me for everything. Punished me.

  Kept me from our mate. That was the ultimate betrayal. The one I could not, would never, forgive.

  “MINE!” My shout sent a dozen birds into flight from their roosts in the surrounding trees. I looked around. Had no idea where we were or how far I’d carried her. Didn’t matter.

  The female in my arms shifted. “Can you um, put me down?”

  “No.”

  She squirmed, her soft ass rubbing against my side. “Iven.”

  “Not Iven.”

  “Oh.” Was that shock in her voice? Or fear? I did not want her to fear me.

  “Beast.”

  “I thought—” Her small hand shoved at my chest and I looked down into her upturned face. She studied me, her gaze lingering on every detail of my appearance. “I wondered what you’d look like.” She lifted her hand to press her fingers to my lips. “You’re very handsome, beast.”

 

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