Chapter Eleven

A position they could defend? She didn’t know he meant hunkering down on a giant hill and watching things, animals, possible people slowly moving toward them. He saved her life only to get her killed.

“Caden this is ridiculous; we need to get back in the Jeep and run as far as possible.”

“What happens when we have to stop for gas?”

“Gas?”

“Yes, they aren’t going to attack until they feel they have the advantage. What happens to the ones filling their tanks when we’re attacked or the ones paying on the inside.”

“This is crazy.” She pulled at her hair just to make sure this was actually happening, and it wasn’t a dream.

His hand went over hers making her free the strands of hair she was pulling on.

“I’m sorry. This isn’t the best introduction to me or what’s been happening lately.”

“What are those things?” She went to her knees and stuck her head out to watch them. They were behind several large boulders that were acting as a shield for them. The creatures were moving slow and looked more like shadows with an oily type of consistency. Each one took a shape, some of them humanoid; others looked like animals. The last group looked like something out of a nightmare.

“Why can’t we get help, like the police?”

“Because they will chew them up and spit their bones out and keep coming for us.”

“Us or me?”

“They want you Sageray.”

What did Sageray mean? She didn’t even have time to ask him because time was too precious when you knew you were about to die.

“What can I do to help?”

“You’re brave, but I need you to stay here. If even one of them gets its hand on you, it’s game over.”

She was the prize, as long as she was alive the game was still going on. That didn’t give her warm and fuzzy feelings.

“Here’s something I probably should have told you earlier. Most of the galaxy can change shapes and so can I.”

“We have to talk when we’re safe. It will be your chance to tell me everything, or I will walk. Understand?”

“Everything.” He came closer and drew her into his arms. She sighed before he even kissed her and moaned as his lips touched her.

She had been kissed before, but Caden made her want to say yes to whatever he asked her. Her thighs rubbed against him as her pussy was trying to take her underwear off by itself.

We need him. The alien voice in her head spoke up.

I want just a little pleasure before death comes for us. That was greedy the voice that didn’t understand why they couldn’t eat all the donuts.

He pulled back smiling at her.

“You’re a hell of a kisser, and I think you know it. So, I just sit here and hope you’re alright while you fight all of them?”

“I called for reinforcements. That’s another reason we stopped. They are slow on foot giving Xander time to get to us.”

“I’ll look for him.”

“I’m going to change forms then blend in with my surroundings. Do you want to turn away first?”

What? Did he think she wasn’t strong enough to see him in an altered form?

“No, I want to see what you become.”

He stepped back and started to change. If she thought he was tall to begin with, now he was huge. It dawned on her that he was tall enough to step on her like a bug. The claws and fangs should make her want to dive for cover. He was a werewolf, and Hollywood wasn’t even close to what the real thing looked like.

If he ever wanted to take over the planet, the humans weren’t surviving. She waited for the urge to run, scream, duck for cover. Instead, she stood there with a goofy smile pasted on her face because he was all hers. Both humanoid and werewolf belonged to her, and for the first time, she felt safe.

“Go get them, baby.” She gave him a grin and then ducked back down so they couldn’t see her. If he could call her Sageray, she could call him baby.

He roared and disappeared. It became too quiet. She could feel sweat sliding down her back as she waited for any type of noise. One glance over the top of the boulder she was hiding behind showed her that the army of beings had stopped advancing. They were waiting for Caden to make a move. She was waiting for the same thing. When it came, the screeching drove her to her knees.

One moment the army was silent the next, it was in disarray as she watched a head sliced from its body by a form she couldn’t see. Caden was on the move. She bent over placing her hands over her ears as she heard sounds of fighting.

It was the scream that tore from her that halted the fighting temporarily. Someone put a hand on her shoulder. She turned around to find that she was surrounded by Kur’iks and humans.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” Xander gave her a sincere smile.

“No problem, I was paying attention to the fight. I need to learn to be more diligent.”

“Stay here where you’re safe I’m going to help Caden.” He was gone before she could say thank you.

“I’m coming,” Jessie said moving out behind Cole.

“No, you’re not. Stay here with Sage.”

“We’re all staying here with Sage.” Fire tore her eyes away from Declyn while he and the rest of the males moved out.

“What was that?” Deja knelt beside her.

“Deja think. We have no idea what those beings are. We don’t know what they want, and we don’t know what we are. Is Sage one of us? I have a thousand more questions to go with those. Then there is the whole know your enemy saying. We already fought an enemy we didn’t know, and you almost died. I’m tired of being on the wrong side of this war.”

Sage looked up to see the enemy disappearing. They weren’t dying they were leaving as if they were choosing to fight another day.

“I don’t like this. I don’t know who they are, but I know what they want, and that’s me.”

“Then we protect you.” Fire told Sage moving closer.

“Each one of us has been targeted, maybe it’s because we are different, or because we love our guys. I don’t have the answer to that. Whatever happens, we have to protect each other.” Deja stopped talking to stare off into the distance.

“So, none of you know what’s happening?”

“Not really,” Jessie told her.

“Have any of you seen this symbol?” She drew a circle in the dirt, inside of it was a Z and then two lines coming down from the top the circle to the bottom.

“I saw it in Ron’s apartment, but it was just a small drawing, so I didn’t pay attention to it.” Fire told her looking at it closer.

“It means something, but I don’t know what. Jim has them all over the apartment. He even took the living room rug up and placed this symbol in the middle of the floor.”

“It’s too quiet.” They looked over the hill to find it totally empty.

“Where are the guys?” Jessie was scanning the area looking for them. One by one they stepped out of their surroundings so they could be seen.

“They are all there.” Sage sat with her back against the boulder and waited for Caden to make his way back to her.

He came and sat next to her. “I told you it would all work out.”

“We survived if that’s what you mean. What about next time?”

“What were those things?” Xander sat by Caden but was looking at Sage.

“Don’t look at me. How am I supposed to know?”

“They’re a race of beings we’ve never encountered before. As far as I can tell they have had no interactions with the galaxy as we know it.”

“What makes you say that?” Xander asked Caden.

“There was only one way to save Sage’s life. It was to mate with her without actually mating.”

“How’s that possible? I thought you had to be in the act to claim someone as a mate.” Fire was staring at Declyn.

Declyn was looking at Tristan.

“This is new to all of us. We don’t know the rules. It wasn’t like our makers gave us an Instruction Manuel. It’s trial and error from here on out.”

“Tristan’s right. We’ve no idea what we can do until we’re pressed to make a move. I claimed Sage as my mate, pushing both my blood and my enzymes inside of her and taking her blood into me. With the blood came the entity.”

“Entity?” Declyn asked.

“That’s where this gets strange.”

“Your idea of strange and mine are totally different.” Sage leaned her head against his shoulder and held back a laugh. She was sitting behind a boulder on a hillside with him; his brother and other Kur’iks and they were making it look like it was an everyday experience. At least, life was giving her reasons to laugh again.

He took her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“I expected to be overwhelmed with a poison that I would need to push out my system. Instead, I was in a fight with an entity. I felt like my body was possessed by something I couldn’t see, but I could hear. It had one agenda; it wanted information on Sage.

“It started trying to go through my memories looking for any mention of her. It was an internal fight. If I won, I would be able to eradicate it from my body. If it won, it would strip my mind bare and use me to control my mate.”

She turned and placed a kiss on his lips. He was her mate after all.

“How did you defeat it?”

“I kept seeing the look in your eyes when you pushed the entity back enough to offer to help me. I refused to be weak when you had been so strong.”

“Only you see me as strong,” she whispered.

“Those beings that we just fought not only have the ability to take any shape but under certain circumstance can enter our bodies,” Xander said looking at Caden waiting for him to correct him.

“That’s about it.”

“What happened to the one inside of you?”

“I killed it.”

“How did you kill it?” Declyn asked.

“That’s a little tricky. Inside of my body, it couldn’t take a shape unless it took my shape. The more we fought, the easier it was for me to see it as small black particles flowing through my blood. It was using mental waves to keep itself in some semblance of order. I used my mental frequency with Xander to disturb its frequency. The more I blasted it, the thinner it got. I watched as it began to die, and I kept hitting it with burst after burst of mental energy until it was dead.”

“That could have killed you,” Tristan told him.

“It was that or allow it to leave with information that we might not want to share.”

“So, they can be killed if they are inside of us, but we didn’t manage to kill them in tyhe confrontation. We need to know more.” Declyn stood and stretched before holding his hand out for Fire. “We’re going back to the compound. I want to get the guys started on researching the beings we encountered today.”

Sage placed her hand in Caden’s when he reached for her.

“Looks like I’m going back home after all.”

Xander stuck out his hand. “I’ll drive.”