Chapter 5
Daria
That rotten bastard. He’d stolen the pin! I should have known he was after the same data I was, but his soldier’s posture had fooled me into thinking he was an undercover guard, one whose lust for me had inspired him to warn me that I was being watched by his colleagues.
How wrong I was, but how could another operative know what data was on the general’s pin? It had been a sheer fluke that I’d gotten my hands on the memo about this information hand-off Darryl was doing tonight of all nights. Had it leaked even further?
I slipped from the party with unease as my cloak.
I was as good at being the center of attention as at sliding into shadow when I didn’t want to be seen, but tonight that didn’t make me feel better.
Those watchers were good, and they were focused far too much on me.
So much that they hadn’t realized what Ian had done.
Granted, his switcheroo trick had been almost perfect.
He was talking in a low voice to someone just around the corner.
His tongue twisted around foreign words in a language I didn’t recognize.
It sounded vaguely Gaelic, but that’s where the familiarity ended.
I spoke six languages fluently, and a dozen more I knew well enough to understand the basics.
I should have recognized at least something.
That I didn’t was a shocking revelation, but it made so much sense at the same time.
“Callum,” he barked at that moment, clearly a name. Scottish by root even, just like Ian could be… A rapid flow of more words followed, but he ended with. “No, I’m doing this my way. Back off, brother.”
I had two choices now. I could turn that corner and confront him, demand the answers I was after, and demand the data he’d stolen. Or I could slip away unnoticed and try again, maybe try to follow him.
“I know you’re there, Daria,” Ian said before I could decide. He didn’t move, didn’t step around the corner, and that felt like an olive branch. It was beyond me how he’d known I was even there. I’d removed my heels to silence my steps, and I purposely didn’t wear a scent.
With my heart in my throat, and my hands clammy at my sides, I stepped around the corner to face him. The very foe I was here to fight.
He should look like a monster, but all I saw was the handsome man from before.
Golden tan, tousled surfer blond locks, and those deep gray eyes.
His features were so human, so how could he be what I now suspected he was?
The alliance I wanted to expose… every indication was that the creatures involved looked nothing like us.
The stare he leveled me with was challenging. His chin lowered, his jaw firm. Then he reached up a hand slowly and brushed his gold hair behind his ear revealing a sharply pointed tip, rather than the usual curve. He had freaking elf-ears, like a creature of myth, or some weird, abnormal mutation.
That one gesture was meant to show me the truth, to show me what he was, but I couldn’t figure out why he’d do that. Emotions swept through me at his revelations, fear foremost, but also rage. He was one of them, for real, an alien bent on using the Earth for his own gain.
My mind flashed to my good friend Stella, a former pilot who’d had her own dealings with the aliens, and with the government.
I’d helped her, and so had Pike, another friend.
And now she was gone, forever. But her last act of defiance had been a broadcast heard by every ham radio on the planet, demanding people look at the sky.
The media was still abuzz with it a week later.
With the objects spotted in orbit over Earth, objects that were definitely not meteorites.
Speculation ran rampant, and governments worldwide were doing everything they could to cover it up.
Here was my evidence, an actual flesh and blood alien, and I knew he was here to conquer, not protect.
With an angry cry, I leaped forward, my training kicking in. I’d already identified the handful of places he could have hidden his loot, the data chip I was after. I just needed to take it, catch him by surprise, and then escape.
I caught him by surprise: my first blow struck him in the neck at a specific angle.
It should have made him drop like a ton of bricks, but it didn’t.
I was small, and I was not nearly as strong as the opponents I was often up against, just like him.
That blow should have hit a nerve just right…
Of course, alien that he was, he probably didn’t have a nerve there.
He was ready for my next attack, dodging agilely, and catching my fist in his palm. My kick slashed him in his side and he made an ‘oomph’ noise as it forced air from his lungs, but pain shot up my shin as if I’d struck concrete. “Stop, you’ll hurt yourself…” he warned with his next breath.
The condescending prick didn’t know who he was up against. I didn’t give up because it stung a little.
He wasn’t attacking, only defending, and he wasn’t trying to restrain me.
That was downright insulting. We traded blows, and he took a few to the chest before stumbling a step back from a glancing blow to his iron-hard jaw.
“Ouch!” I yelped, my knuckles aching, and I reflexively shook out my now numb hand.
“Enough!” Ian growled, the sound deep and inhuman as it erupted from his chest. In a blurring move, so fast I couldn’t track it, his arms shot out, and he yanked me into his chest, pinning my arms at my sides.
The bastard had been holding back all this time, and with fury, I realized I never stood a chance against him.
He’d been humoring me, it was humiliating.
I snarled in his face, his handsome and still so human-looking face.
“Let me go!” It was obvious he had no intention of doing anything of the sort, and the dangerous glint in his eyes made my insides squirm.
My pulse thrummed between my thighs, letting me know that my body knew what he’d planned, even if my mind hadn’t fully caught on yet.
His mouth descended, crashing against mine. An indignant protest was muffled, then embarrassingly morphed into a breathy moan. The adrenaline of the fight, the sense of betrayal, clashed in my body with the intense desire and attraction I felt for him.
“That’s it, Tally,” Ian murmured against my lips when I melted in his arms. I wanted to deny him that victory and tell him he got my name wrong, but then his tongue swept into my mouth. I clung to his wide shoulders, my legs going limp as passion took over.