Chapter 9 Mine to Defend #2
More gunshots. More shouting. The hunters are spreading out, trying to cut us off, but Ja’war seems to know exactly where each one is. He weaves between trees, changes direction without warning, keeps us always just ahead of the pursuit.
“Left!” I call out, spotting movement through the trees. “Two more coming from the left!”
He adjusts instantly, powerful legs eating up the distance as we veer away from the new threat. I can feel his heart beating against my ribs—fast but steady, controlled even under pressure.
A hunter breaks through the tree line ahead of us, rifle raised. Ja’war doesn’t slow down. Instead, he leaps—actually leaps—clearing both the hunter and a snow-covered boulder in one impossible bound. The man spins around, shouting in confusion, but we’re already gone.
“Jesus,” I breathe.
“Indeed,” Ja’war says, and I can hear the grim satisfaction in his voice.
We crest a small ridge, and suddenly his ship comes into view. Beautiful in a way that makes my chest tight—sleek lines and organic curves that seem to grow from the landscape rather than impose upon it. Cloaking systems shimmer around its hull.
“Home,” Ja’war says simply, not even breathing hard despite carrying me at superhuman speeds through a forest.
Behind us, the voices are getting fainter, the pursuit falling behind. But they’re still coming.
“How long until the navigation system fails?” he asks as we approach the ship’s ramp.
“Hard to say. Could be hours, could be days. It depends on how much stress the quantum matrix can handle.” I bite my lip, running calculations in my head. “It’s going to need constant monitoring. Adjustments. Someone who understands how the Earth components interface with your quantum systems.”
He stops walking. Turns to look at me with those winter-blue eyes that see too much.
“Someone like you.”
“Someone exactly like me.” The words come out steady, certain. “I’m the only one who knows how those systems work together. If you want to complete this mission—if you want to save those people—you need me.”
For a moment, we stand there in the snow, the weight of what I’m saying settling between us. In the distance, I can hear Dale Wicks’ voice calling my name, but he sounds far away now. Defeated.
“The regulations,” he says carefully, “permit couriers to transport technical specialists on critical missions.”
“Is this a critical mission?”
“Hundreds of lives hang in the balance.”
“Then I guess you need a technical specialist.”
His smile is fierce and proud and full of promises that make the claiming bite pulse with heat. “Indeed I do.”
The ship’s ramp lowers with a soft hydraulic hiss, revealing an interior that glows with the same glowing light as the quantum components. Alien text scrolls across surfaces, and the air hums with energy I can feel in my bones.
“Second thoughts?” Ja’war asks, watching my face.
I think about my garage, my safe life, my thirteen years of playing it safe. Then I look at this impossible ship, at this impossible alien who’s turned my world upside down in the span of two days.
“Are you kidding?” I step onto the ramp, feeling the alien metal solid beneath my feet. “I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.”
As the ramp closes behind us and the ship’s systems hum to life around me, I realize something profound has shifted. For the first time since I was seventeen years old, I’m not afraid of what comes next.
I’m excited.
The navigation system flickers to life on the main console, Earth technology and alien quantum mechanics dancing together in perfect, impossible harmony. Warning lights pulse amber—stable for now, but for how long?
“Ready?” Ja’war asks, his hands moving over controls that respond to his touch.
I strap myself into what I assume is a passenger seat, watching displays I don’t understand show readings I can’t interpret. Outside, I can see tiny figures emerging from the tree line—the hunters, arriving just in time to watch us disappear.
Dale stands in the snow, staring up at the ship with his mouth hanging open.
“Ready,” I say, and mean it completely.
This is going to be the adventure of a lifetime.
“Fiona,” Ja’war says softly, and when I turn to look at him, his eyes are blazing with heat and promise. “The claiming bite... it is only the beginning.”
Before I can ask what he means, he’s there, fingers threading through my hair to tilt my head back. His mouth finds the mark on my neck, and he traces it with his tongue—slow, deliberate, possessive.
The alien compounds in my system explode with sensation. I gasp, my hands fisting in his shirt as liquid fire races through my veins. The mark pulses under his attention, sending waves of pleasure and awareness through every nerve ending.
“When we have delivered the medical cargo,” he murmurs against my throat, his voice dropping to those sub-harmonic frequencies that make me shiver, “when we are safe among the stars with time to properly honor what is between us... I will show you what it truly means to be claimed by a Xarian.”
“What does that mean?” I breathe, though the alien biochemistry is making it hard to think clearly.
He pulls back to meet my eyes, his smile wicked and full of dark promises. “It means, my brave mate, that you have felt only the smallest taste of what we can share. The full bonding ceremony will make this—” he traces the bite mark again, making me arch against him “—feel like a gentle caress.”
Holy hell. If this is a gentle caress, the full ceremony might actually kill me.
“Is that a threat or a promise?” I manage.
“Both,” he growls, and the sound goes straight to my core.
Then he steps back, leaving me breathless and aching and absolutely desperate to know what comes next. The claiming bite throbs with renewed heat, a constant reminder of what he’s promised.
This is going to be the adventure of a lifetime.
And I’m going to share it with the alien who’s only begun to claim me.