Zoey stopped beside the outermost gas pump, threw the SUV into park, and had Ren kill the engine. When she climbed out, she made sure to leave the door wide open for him. Her breath fogged around her as she stood aside. Country music twanged on the overhead speakers, and the lights were almost unbearably bright after the impenetrable darkness that had assailed them through the mountains. She loosely balled her fists and rubbed her tired eyes.

The SUV swayed as Ren — still invisible after remaining cloaked for the entire ride — climbed out.

Zoey looked around the parking lot nervously. Fortunately, there weren’t many people present — it was after eight o’clock in the middle of December, and the light snowfall was enough to keep most sensible people indoors.

She wished, not for the first time, that they’d stayed in the cabin, where they’d been warm, happy, and comfortable. Instead they were on the run, strapped for money and lacking so much as an extra set of clothes. Just to make the situation even better, the contrast between the heated cab of the SUV and the icy winter air outside had her instantly shivering.

“Are you sure this will work?” Zoey asked. “That we won’t…get caught?”

“I don’t know if it will work,” Ren said from somewhere beside her. One of his hands settled on her hip, and its welcome warmth seeped through her clothing. “But regardless, we will not be captured.”

“Okay. Let’s get this over with.” She battled the urge to look for cameras; the feeling of being watched made her skin crawl, but looking up would only offer a clear view of her face. She’d seen enough TV to fear the government had facial-recognition technology that would allow a computer in some secret base to pick her out of a million simultaneous video feeds if it got a direct image to work with.

She stepped close to the pump and raised her hand as though she were going to insert her debit card.

Ren’s hand remained on her hip, her only source of comfort. The display on the pump flashed, the numbers changing wildly — displaying all eights, flickering out, switching to strange, distorted characters — before the screen prompted her to select her grade of fuel.

“It worked,” Zoey whispered. Her relief was short-lived; she wouldn’t be able to relax until they were back on the road, away from prying eyes…and even then, her relaxation would be minimal.

She hurriedly opened the SUV’s fuel cover and removed the cap. After selecting unleaded fuel, the display changed to BEGIN FUELING. She lifted the nozzle, inserted it into the tank, and pulled the trigger. It began to pump.

Releasing a shaky sigh, she leaned against Ren and watched the numbers run steadily higher. The sound of flowing gasoline and the faint ticking of the pump seemed oddly in-time with the current country song. The more she focused on it, the more soothing it became.

Zoey’s eyelids drifted shut.

Her knees buckled, and her head dipped back, jarring her to sudden alertness.

You’re about to eat pavement, kid.

She threw her arms back to catch herself reflexively, but it was Ren’s unseen hands that prevented her fall.

“Are you all right, Zoey?” he asked, voice thick with concern.

“Yeah. Just tired. Really, really tired.” She smiled slightly, staring at the place she believed his eyes to be as she righted herself and all but one of his hands moved away. “Woke up pretty early this morning, remember?”

And since then, she’d been pleasured well beyond what she’d thought possible, cleaned a house and done two loads of laundry, helped Ren clear snow from around the buried truck, been pulled over and shot at by a cop, been carried through the woods by an alien, stolen a car, and driven for five-and-a-half hours along dark, winding, icy roads.

She didn’t regret the first thing on that list, but she could’ve done without all the rest.

“Then you need to sleep,” he said.

“We can’t stop now, Ren. Not when they got so close. Plus, I don’t have enough money for a room, and I doubt I’d be able to find one that didn’t want an ID and a credit card.”

“Such obstacles have not stopped us before, and they will not stop us now.” His light touch on her cheek gently guided her attention to the convenience store. “They have food and drink in that building, correct?”

Zoey leaned her face into his warm palm and nodded. “Yeah.”

“Do you have enough money to obtain some for us?”

“Some.” She was thankful she’d been in so much of a hurry leaving the last convenience store that she’d stuffed some cash into her coat. It wasn’t much, but it was a hell of a lot better than nothing.

“Go use the restroom. Purchase food and drink for us. When you come back, I will drive.”

“What?” Zoey straightened, her eyes widening. She suddenly felt quite awake. “You don’t know how.”

“I’ve had plenty of time to observe you. It’s not that complicated, human.”

Zoey snorted, rolling her eyes. “Back to just human, huh?”

The automatic shutoff ended the flow of gasoline with a pop, signaling a full tank.

“I tend to be terse when I desperately need to relieve myself,” he replied.

She snickered, removing the gas nozzle and hanging it on the pump. “Okay, okay. I’ll hold the door, if you want to slip inside around me.”

He patted her shoulder. “No need to trouble yourself. I think, this time, I will try it in the snow.”

“Men,” Zoey muttered as she screwed on the fuel cap.

“It was on TV,” he said, tone slightly defensive. “Male humans seem fond of doing it.”

“You shouldn’t do everything you see on TV, Ren.”

His hand slipped between her legs. She gasped, and heat immediately flooded her.

“I’ve done many things I saw on TV, without you complaining before now.”

“I’m not complaining,” she said breathlessly.

“Good. Now cease your argument,” he commanded, and his hands moved away. “Go see to yourself, kun’ia, so we may be on our way.”

Zoey walked away with a big, stupid grin on her face, and it took a surprising effort to wipe it away before she entered the convenience store.

The clerk, a young man with long, dark hair, looked up from his magazine and raised a hand in greeting. “Hey.”

“Hi. I just need to use the restroom, and I’ll be right back.”

“Sure thing. It’s in the hall at the back of the store.”

“Thanks.”

In the restroom, she moaned as she emptied her bladder; she hadn’t realized how badly she had to go before sitting down. They hadn’t stopped since leaving Vail. It didn’t help that Ren usually pumped her full of enough seed to start a damned farm.

She chuckled to herself.

After washing her hands, she exited the bathroom and strolled through the aisles. She grabbed two large bottles of water from the fridge and, though she cringed at their prices, selected two sandwiches from the deli area. At the register, the gold-and-red wrapper of a Twix bar caught her eye. They were Ren’s favorite.

She added it to the pile and paid.

“Ren?” she asked quietly when she returned to the car.

“Here,” he answered softly from nearby.

She opened the passenger door and leaned in to deposit the drinks and snacks in the center console. She stepped back when she was done, allowing him a few moments to climb in before she closed the door again. Rounding the car, she slid into the driver’s seat, closed the door, and buckled up.

The engine started as she picked up one of the sandwiches.

“Here,” she said, handing it to him.

“Thank you,” he replied. The moment it left her hand, the sandwich vanished. The only evidence that it had existed was the soft sound of the wrapper being opened.

Zoey tilted her head. “Why don’t I vanish when you touch me?”

“I have to extend the cloaking field to encompass other objects or individuals.”

“Does it…feel strange, when you’re invisible?”

As she stared at the seemingly empty space where he sat, she caught sight, for an instant, of falling crumbs. They disappeared before she could tell if they were real or not.

“No,” he said with his mouth full. “But I was trained to use it for a long while and have employed it frequently during my service. It is natural to me.”

Maybe it was because she was tired, but a naughty thought slipped into her mind, making her grin.

“What does that look mean, Zoey?”

“Oh, nothing,” she replied, grin widening as she shifted the SUV into drive and pulled back onto the highway.

Once they were beyond the lights of the gas station, Ren’s form materialized beside her. He held the sandwich — missing a huge chunk — in one hand, seemingly forgotten.

“I know there’s something,” he said.

“Hmm?” She arched a brow.

“You had a thought, and whatever it was, it made you grin like you do when we’re about to mate. What was the thought?”

“It was such a dirty thought, too.” She glanced at him. “So, you’re saying I have a certain grin for that?”

“I will not allow you to shift the subject.” He frowned, all four eyes intent upon her, and folded the wrapper over his sandwich before setting it down. “What was the thought? Surely your people have some sort of saying about teasing like this, and how it is dangerous and discourteous.”

“We do have a lot of sayings. I’ll have to think about it for a bit.”

“Zoey. Do not play these games with me.”

“But it’s so fun!” She laughed; behind her laughter, weariness crept around the edges of her consciousness, as though seeking a crack through which to invade her mind. Teasing Ren helped keep her awake, but it would only be a matter of time before the urge to sleep struck again.

“If you had some specific thought, perhaps we could work together to make it a reality?” He settled his lower left hand on her thigh. High on her thigh.

Her sex clenched, and liquid heat pooled between her legs. It seriously didn’t take much to get her going, apparently, when it came to him. She bit her lip.

“I was thinking…it might be naughty if we were to…if we were to have sex while you’re invisible. It’d be like having sex with a ghost, or being blindfolded, but not. I’d never know what you intended to do to me next.”

A slow grin spread across his lips, revealing his fangs a little at a time — it was wicked, and promising, and only turned her on more.

“Whenever you’d like, kun’ia,” he said.

Right now. I can pull over right now…

Zoey blushed as she peeked at him from the corner of her eye. He stared at her intently, hand inching a little higher, his thumb massaging her leg. Cruise control could take care of the speed, but would she be able to keep the car straight if she had him pleasure her while driving?

“Oh, fuck it,” she said. There were no lights, traffic was nearly nonexistent, and she was horny as hell. She pulled onto the shoulder and threw the car into park. Ripping off her seatbelt, she turned to Ren. The devilish gleam in his eyes told her he knew exactly what she wanted.

She shimmed out of her coat and shoved her leggings and panties down as she climbed across the central console to position herself on Ren’s lap. Her hands fell to the top button of his pants, desperately seeking to free his cock.

And Ren disappeared. She felt him beneath her, though part of her mind dismissed it as an impossibility; all that remained in the car were shadows, and shadow could not have solid form.

Three of his hands settled on her bare skin, hot as branding irons. The seat tipped back suddenly. He caught her upper arms, holding her steady, allowing her to fumble with his buttons. Then that fourth hand made itself known, sliding between her legs. One of his thick fingers slid into her folds and stroked her clit.

“Ah, Zoey. So wet and needy for me.” His gravelly voice rumbled through her, felt as much as heard.

“Yes,” Zoey whispered as pleasure pulsed outward from her core.

She moaned, grinding against his finger. Two of his hands dropped to her hips, encouraging her undulations, pushing her harder but allowing her no more speed. His remaining hand slipped under her shirt. It trailed fire over her belly before lifting the cup of her bra to caress her hard, sensitive nipple.

Zoey released the final button. His erection sprang free, radiating heat as it brushed against her hands. She wrapped her fingers around it. Ren growled and lifted his hips. His shaft was hot steel in her palm, throbbing with need.

Biting her lip, she guided the tip of his cock to her entrance. In the faint light from the dashboard, she could see the depressions on her hips where his fingers pressed into her skin, but there was nothing beneath her, nothing in her hand — only darkness. Wicked, tempting, delectable darkness.

Ren’s strong hands lifted her and impaled her on his thrusting length.

Zoey’s mouth opened in a silent cry as she fell forward, flattening her palms on the hard scales of his broad chest. He filled her, stretched her, claimed every bit of her. They connected in a way that was beyond the physical; she felt him in her heart, in her soul, like he’d become part of her.

Guided by his hands, she raised and lowered her hips, relishing each slow, deliberate, maddening stroke of his cock. His other hands glided over her skin, their touch equal parts fire and honey; the delicate brush of his fingertips raised goosebumps on her arms, the scalding press of his palms over her breasts fanned the flames of her lust, the firm grasp of his hands on her thighs and calves made her sex clench with want, the scrape of his blunt nails on her lower back made her moan in delight.

The rasp of his scales over her skin amplified every sensation, pushing her body to the limits of pleasure and beyond. Shivers coursed through her, made stronger by the ridges on his shaft sliding over her clit.

“Give me more, kun’ia,” Ren growled. One of his hands followed her spine from her ass to her neck, its touch so delicate it might have been imagined until it grabbed a fistful of her hair and forced her down into a searing kiss. “Give me all.”

Instinct overtook her as she closed her eyes. Her hips quickened, and she became a wild thing, desperately seeking that final piece, that release that would fully tie their bodies together as they tumbled down from the heights of their passion.

Her ragged breaths mingled with his grunts to fill the cab, their combined scents permeating the air to further increase her arousal. The SUV rocked; anyone driving by would have no doubt of what was happening inside. Zoey didn’t care.

She opened her eyes to find Rendash staring up at her, his eyes four glowing orbs, his face defined only by the greenish highlights cast on the sharp edges of his features by the dashboard lights. It hit her in that moment, like the striking of a match sparking an explosion.

Ecstasy blazed through her, ravenously devouring her entire being, flaring hotter and hotter as Ren continued his thrusts. She sealed her mouth to his, muffling her cries as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

Ren’s roar rumbled from his chest and into Zoey. His already viselike grip tightened, anchoring her body to his as he burst and flooded her with his white-hot seed. She felt that connection the instant it was made and ground her sex against him as the aftershocks of her climax resonated through her.

Finally, she collapsed atop him, panting, and rested her head on his chest. She idly stroked her thumb along his jaw. Exhaustion swept in on the tails of her euphoria, demanding she close her eyes.

Neither of them spoke; their actions had been enough. But one thought echoed her mind, solidifying with each repetition.

I don’t want him to leave me.

He released a long, slow breath, and combed his fingertips through her tousled hair. She lay in his embrace, unsure of how much time had passed. At least three vehicles drove by, their headlights casting fleeting, magical lights and shadows across his features.

“We should continue on,” he finally said. She felt his words rolling in his chest.

“Mmm.” Zoey sighed, closing her eyes. “I like where we are.”

“So do I, but we’ve far to go, and our pursuers are too close behind.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” Zoey mumbled. She moved a hand to his shoulder, giving the hard, ridged scales there a weak squeeze. She was distantly aware of his light touch on her cheek before she drifted to sleep.

Rendash lay still as Zoey’s breathing evened out and her weight settled atop him fully. Her exhaustion had been evident for a long while, and she’d fought it admirably. They needed to keep moving, needed to stay ahead of their pursuers, but it wouldn’t do either of them any good for her to push herself so hard.

He couldn’t help feeling a touch of guilt. She was doing it for him. She was sacrificing the life she’d known for him.

I don’t want to leave you.

Had she meant now or when the time came for him to leave Earth? He couldn’t be certain, and he wasn’t going to wake her just to ask, but her words had made his heart flutter and his blood heat — it was hope again, that wonderful, dangerous emotion.

My ability to detach myself from this — from her — has long since died.

What remained, then, but to look toward the future? To embrace a little of that hope?

The true problem lay in the contrast between desire and reality. He’d been taught, beyond those basic lessons, to anticipate as many potential outcomes as possible. Military action rarely went according to plan, and responding to complications grew easier when one had taken time to consider a multitude of complications beforehand.

The practice was far from perfect, but it encouraged focus, critical thinking, and improvisation under stressful circumstances.

There were enough ways for this to go wrong — enough ways for Zoey to get hurt — to make Ren’s gut churn.

He pulled the lever on the side of the chair and sat up to return the seat to its upright position, holding Zoey against him to disturb her as little as possible. His shaft had released her some time ago, but he’d been unable to bring himself to pull away. He wanted nothing but moments like this. Nothing but this easy, passionate closeness, nothing but the feeling that they were the only two beings in existence and everything would be fine.

He opened the door, wincing at the gust of cold air that flowed into the vehicle. Zoey stirred, curling against him. As carefully as he could, he slipped from beneath her and out of the SUV, leaning down to pull her leggings back up and shift her into what he hoped was a more comfortable position.

A shiver crept up his spine; it was cold despite his nyros adjusting his body temperature. He reached down, regretfully stuffed his cock back into his restrictive pants, and fastened the buttons. After clicking her seatbelt into place, he found Zoey’s coat on the floor and draped it over her. Before he closed the door, he used the lever to ease the seat back down.

The road was deserted as he walked to the driver’s side. All the better; he might have exaggerated his confidence in being able to drive the human transport, and from what he understood, there were protocols specific to their operation that were expected to be obeyed. The fewer the potential witnesses, the better.

Rendash pulled the door open and crouched to adjust the seat. The control on this side was automatic and moved the seat in a variety of directions. He shifted it as low and far back as it could go. When he entered the vehicle, his knees bumped the steering wheel at its sides.

Frowning, he tugged the door closed, hissing in pain as his knee was caught between the wheel and the door.

The vehicle shook as he fought to tear his leg out of the tight space. Once it was free, he bent his leg at a more acute angle to keep it clear of the wheel. His gaze flicked to Zoey; fortunately, she slept soundly, undisturbed by the closing door and his car-shaking reaction to his pain.

Control, Aekhora. This is no difficult task.

He closed two hands around the wheel and tested its responsiveness and range of motion — the latter of which was somewhat restricted by the position of his right knee.

It would’ve been simple enough, in theory, to wake Zoey and ask her to explain some of the functions, but he couldn’t bring himself to disturb her slumber. Besides, he was Blade of the Aligarii; he would not be bested by this primitive technology.

Eventually, he figured out how to operate the mechanism to adjust the angle of the steering wheel and shifted it into a more comfortable position.

“Much better,” he muttered as he turned the wheel from side to side again, checking the resistance from the otherwise motionless tires. It felt strange, but he supposed vehicles limited to moving only on the ground were strange to him to begin with.

Tilting his head down until his chin was against his chest, he studied the pedals on the floor in front of him. He’d not lied — he had observed her frequently while she drove, and he knew the narrow right pedal was to accelerate while the other, wider pedal was to decelerate.

Simple. Easy. No challenge for a being trained to operate interstellar ships and sophisticated machines of war.

He pressed his foot on the accelerator. The engine revved with a guttural growl, but the vehicle didn’t move. Frowning, he pressed harder. The engine roared, and the movement of hidden machinery in the vehicle’s front end was strong enough to make it vibrate.

Lifting his foot, he mumbled a few of the inappropriate words he’d learned from Zoey.

What am I missing?

He glanced at her again while, in his mind, he sorted through days’ worth of memories of her driving.

Ren almost slapped himself when he realized what he’d done wrong. The vehicle had several different modes, one of which was its currently stationary state. He pressed a foot down on the wide pedal, as he’d seen Zoey do so many times, and moved the stick on the right side of the wheel down until the display showed a crescent closed by vertical line — a human symbol for forward, or go, or something along those lines.

As he eased off the decelerator, the vehicle slowly rolled forward.

Ren moved his foot to the other pedal and pressed it down. The vehicle lurched ahead, the burst of speed forcing him back against the chair. He turned the wheel, and his stomach lurched as the transport darted onto the main road. Lights illuminated the interior from behind.

A high, droning sound, reminiscent of battle horns from the aligarii historical annals, preceded a car approaching rapidly from behind; the other vehicle sped past, a hand’s breadth from a collision.

Startled, Ren wrenched the wheel to the right to avoid the other vehicle, slamming down the decelerator. The tires screeched. His vehicle turned wildly, and he felt it trying to pitch over as its momentum dragged against its high center of gravity. He threw his weight against the spin’s force, clutching the wheel desperately as his insides seemed to mash together. The world rotated wildly around him.

Finally, the spinning ceased, and the vehicle rocked for a moment before halting completely. Ren blinked and reluctantly released his crushing hold on the steering wheel.

They were facing in the direction they’d been heading. The vehicle that had nearly collided with them was fading in the distance, little more than a pair of red lights in the darkness, like the eyes of a smug, playful predator.

Rendash looked at Zoey, ready for her to declare she was taking over and that he was never allowed to drive again.

She had turned her head toward him, features strained and brow drawn, but her eyes were still closed. “Make sure…you drive…” She yawned widely and nuzzled her face against the seat. “…the speed limit.”

Wide-eyed, he watched as she sank back into sleep. After what felt like an eternity, he released the breath he’d been holding.

Zoey slept like the dead; in most situations, that wasn’t a good thing, but he found himself grateful for it now.

His hands ached, likely due to how tightly he’d clutched the wheel, as he figured out how to adjust the mirrors so he could see behind the SUV.

Now that he had a better feel for the transport’s handling, his second attempt to get on the road was far smoother.

As he drove, something dinged at him inside the vehicle. The sound repeated a few times and ceased. After several moments, it returned, slightly faster. Keeping part of his attention on the road, he searched for the source of the sound, but it seemed to come from all directions at once.

It faded again, but when it returned for the third time, it was with an incessant insistence that almost made his skin crawl. The sound grated on his nerves; the closest thing he’d ever heard to it were impact alarms — either warning of an imminent crash, or of some sort of weapon about to strike.

Yet the road was once again empty and dark; he saw no sign of other vehicles about to hit his, no sign of weapons being discharged, and the SUV seemed to be suffering no performance issues, as far as he could tell.

“Ren,” Zoey groaned, covering her ear with one hand, “put on your seatbelt.”

Annoyed and confused, he reached over his shoulder and grabbed the latch. “I will slice you in half, vehicle, if you do not cease this noise,” he grumbled.

The seatbelt locked twice as he attempted to pull it across his torso. All the while, the sound continued, each repeated note more piercing than the last.

Heat blossomed along one of his forearms; it took him a moment to realize he was about to form a vrahsk to cut the cursed seatbelt off.

Control!

He redirected the gathering energy, allowing it to disperse throughout his body, and drew in several deep, steadying breaths. The seatbelt finally clicked into the buckle. The chiming sound ceased abruptly.

“I have never hated a machine, but you are pushing me to reconsider,” he said through clenched teeth.

Before long, he passed one of the white signs Zoey had told him about while they traveled away from Vail — a Speed Limit sign. He adjusted his pressure on the accelerator to match the number on the vehicle’s internal display to the number on the sign. The pedal seemed a bit overly sensitive, making it a challenge to maintain the right number, but he figured it was close enough.

Though it was dark and overcast, Ren could make out enough of the surrounding landscape to tell that it was unlike anywhere he’d been on Earth so far. They’d descended from the mountains onto a vast, flat plain that had begun so abruptly its existence seemed impossible, contrasting far too heavily with the rocky peaks they’d left behind.

It didn’t take him long to feel exposed; there was nowhere to hide out here.

Without a map to guide him — and unable to read anything but the numbers, which he’d only learned by playing Cards with Zoey — he followed the road’s course without deviation. If nothing else, it was leading in roughly the right direction to bring them to his ship, though he sensed the distance was still great. Their direction changed when the road merged onto a larger pathway — the Interstate, perhaps? — but he didn’t panic. They were moving closer to the ship, and that was all that mattered.

He reached into the bag between him and Zoey with one of his lower hands, feeling around for one of the water bottles she’d purchased, when his fingers brushed over something familiar — a smooth wrapper with two solid, stick-like objects inside. He withdrew the item. Its wrapper gleamed in the glow of the vehicle’s control panel.

Twix.

Even when she’d been rundown, exhausted, and pushed beyond her limits, Zoey had still taken a moment to think of Ren and obtain something he enjoyed. A small gesture, but so full of kindness and consideration.

Ren looked at her again; she was fast asleep, her tousled hair partially obscuring her face.

After all he’d been through in his life, all the battles, all the blood he’d given toward fulfilling his duty, he wasn’t sure that he deserved her.

But he sure as hell wasn’t going to give her up for anything.

“A little longer, kun’ia. Then we can find peace together.”