When she heard something hit the house, Penny started running. Whatever it was, it was too big to be a bird and she couldn’t think of why any other wildlife would try to attack them. As her feet pounded up the stairs, her gut twisted and she just knew what she was going to find on the other side of her door. Who she was going to find.

The door swung open and there he was. Penny flicked the light on with one hand and reached for her blaster with the other. A sizzling awareness blasted through her, heat and desire and other darker things. Thoughts that tried to tug her eyes to her bed, even as she kept them trained on the alien.

She hadn’t been prepared for his eyes. They glowed red, a burning ember over coal black where the whites should be.

Penny’s fingers tightened around the grip of her gun.

Krayter held his palms out in a in a pacifying gesture. “Don’t scream,” he said quickly and quietly.

“You should tell me not to shoot.” She raised her arms, cradling the blaster and looking him down over the sight. In these close quarters, she couldn’t miss, but since she was only holding a blaster, it wouldn’t be fatal. Not unless she made a very lucky shot.

“Fine, don’t shoot.” He raised his hands further up in the universal sign of surrender.

Penny couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. In the shed, it had been intense, but nothing compared to this. Her eyes darted down to his lips. Something pulled between them, a taut cord tugging her closer to him. Penny dug in her heels. “Stop doing that,” she hissed.

“I’m not doing anything.” Krayter stood loosely, surprisingly at ease for a man—an alien—under the threat of blaster fire.

Penny kept her weapon trained on him. That couldn’t be right. She didn’t normally feel so… pulled. “What are you?”

He grinned, and that lopsided tug of his lips was further proof of the reputation he claimed to have. “Detyen, I told you already.” He took a small step towards her.

“Stay where you are!” Penny raised her weapon, having loosened her guard just a bit. Her focus narrowed in on him and she let her finger rest on the trigger, ready to pull if he made another move.

“I didn’t mean to startle you.” He stayed where he was, but dropped his hands down to his sides, as if he’d come to the conclusion that Penny didn’t plan to shoot. Too bad for her, he might have been right.

She narrowed her eyes and caught sight of the broken screen lying on the ground behind him. “How did you get out?”

He raised a hand and wicked sharp claws flashed out, as big as a jungle cat’s and sharp enough to rip out a man’s throat. “Nifty trick, isn’t it?” The claws retracted and his hands were hands again, teal and covered with those dark markings.

“Sure is.” So he’d been armed the entire time she sat with him. And while her sisters took him in. If he’d woken up just a few minutes earlier, they both might’ve been dead.

But Krayter stared at her with a scary level of intensity, those red eyes actually glowing. “I promise I won’t hurt you.” He said it like a vow.

“Why should I believe you?” She hadn’t let go of the blaster, but she lowered it slightly. She couldn’t keep her arms up like that forever; already her fingers were tingling and turning cold. She had to be going crazy. There was an alien in her bedroom and she wasn’t shooting him. She even sort of believed him!

A stricken look crossed his face. “Because you’re… I won’t.” He changed whatever he planned to say at the last moment, which only focused her attention on it.

Because she was what? Under his influence? Being affected by weird alien pheromones? “What are you doing to me?” She wanted to spring across the room and capture his lips with her own, feel the hard press of his muscles up against her. And Penny had never felt that for anyone before. It had to be something weird and alien. No human had awakened her sexuality, so there was no reason to think an alien could.

Krayter flattened his palms and moved them back and forth, crouching down and signaling in every way that he wasn’t dangerous. “I promise you, I’m doing nothing.”

Penny opened her mouth to say… She didn’t know what she was going to say, but she was saved at the last moment by a sharp knock at the front door. Her heart was already pounding too fast from the strange alien and she couldn’t muster any more excitement. Not tonight. She shot Krayter a harsh look and holstered her blaster. “Stay here.”

He nodded.

Penny didn’t even think of tying him up. Well, not until she was half-way down the stairs. Given the circumstances, he’d probably be gone by the time she got back. And, in the end, that might be for the best.

Strangely, even though her sisters were asleep in their rooms just down the hall, it didn’t occur to her to worry. If Krayter was no danger to her, he wouldn’t harm her sisters. That wasn’t exactly logic, but she could feel the truth of it deep in her soul.

Penny came to the kitchen at the base of the stairs and saw Nicole sitting at the table, an array of knives laid out to be cleaned and oiled. Apparently only Resa was getting a good night’s sleep tonight.

Nicole nodded towards the front door. “It’s Braxton,” she said. She had the front door monitor called up on the table screen and Braxton’s shadowy form was visible in the dim light of the porch.

“You should be asleep,” said Penny. It was too long after midnight and they’d had enough excitement to last a year.

Nicole blew out a sound so derisive, only a teenager could make it. “Like I could sleep tonight.”

With Braxton waiting, Penny didn’t have time to deal with this, so she settled for saying, “Don’t say anything.”

Nicole rolled her eyes. “I’m not dumb.”

“I know.” Hotheaded, a little too violent, and quick to act, Nicole was anything but dumb.

“What hit the house?” she asked, showing that inquisitiveness.

“Don’t worry. I’m handling it.” She wasn’t about to tell her sister that the alien had escaped and was probably now rifling through Penny’s closet. Or her panty drawer. Nope, she wasn’t going to worry about that.

“What are we—” Another knock interrupted Nicole.

“I’ll be right there!” Penny called, loud enough for the sound to carry. She shot her sister a warning look and left the kitchen, closing the door behind her. The faint light from Nicole’s lantern wasn’t strong enough to shine through the crack.

Penny took a deep breath before opening the door, trying to center herself and project calm. It might have all been for nothing. She swung open the door to find Braxton standing there, eyes peeled and gun in hand.

“I thought I heard an impact after I walked away. Did you?” he asked without greeting.

Krayter had smacked into the house loud enough to wake the dead. She couldn’t just pretend she hadn’t heard it. “I heard something,” she said. “I thought it was a branch snapping out in the woods. Happens all the time.” That excuse had the benefit of actually being true.

Braxton didn’t seem convinced. “Mind if I take a look around out here?”

“Of course not.” Denying him would only make this last longer. As long as Krayter stayed inside, he’d be safer than if she told Braxton to go away. After all, if Krayter was in her house, he couldn’t be found by patrol.

Why did she even care?

Braxton took her invitation and stepped forward, trying to crowd his way through the doorway, the gun making him too large to sneak around her.

“What are you doing?” Penny demanded.

Braxton gave her one of those looks, like she was a small child in need of explanation. “Looking around.”

No. That wasn’t happening. Not with Krayter inside, and not after everything that had happened. Penny pitched her voice low and harsh. “My sisters are sleeping. It’s the middle of the night. I just checked the house and it’s clear.” She stepped towards him, staying within the door so he couldn’t get around her, no matter how he tried. “You’re free to check the grounds. But if you need to come inside, come back after sunrise.”

“I’ll be quiet,” he promised, suddenly conciliatory. “You know I nee—”

“I don’t know anything. It’s late, Braxton.” The guys in the Settlement forgot that there were rules. She was a citizen in good standing and he had no cause to enter her home. Not at 2AM.

And still he tried to bargain. “My comman—”

Penny cut him off. “Think it through before you say it.” The commanders answered to one man in Highland, and that man wasn’t going to take kindly to his daughter being harassed by a newcomer in the middle of the night. Penny didn’t often use her position, but when she did, it worked.

Braxton’s eyes widened and he finally stepped back. “Okay. Radio if anything happens. I won’t disturb you anymore.” He stepped back down the steps and walked off to the side of the house, circling back to the woods.

Penny closed the door and locked it, then leaned against it and took a deep breath. Finally, at least one thing had gone right. She had no idea what she would have done if Braxton had made it inside.

But Krayter was still upstairs and Nicole was awake. Penny had to manage the two of them, figure out what to do with Krayter, and determine how to get them all out of this mess before sunrise, or things would get bad.

Fast.

She opened the door to the kitchen and swore. Krayter hadn’t stayed in her room. No, now he was pressed up against the counter, Nicole standing in front of him with a knife to his throat.

***

He hadn’t expected the human girl, which was one of the more idiotic mistakes of Krayter’s life. One moment he found himself compelled down the stairs, trailing off after Pen like a lovesick boy, and the next he was flush against a counter, held at knifepoint by a scarily competent girl.

His hand flashed up and latched onto her wrist, keeping that knife several centimeters away from the tender flesh of his neck. It wouldn’t take much to get out of this position. Slash at her arm, tug her aside, spin her around, and then she would be the one with something sharp at her neck.

Of course, doing so would risk injuring her, and Krayter couldn’t do that. Not to a member of his denya’s family. Recognition of the bond pulsed within him, a seething red mass of heat and desire and longing so potent that it was a sharp knife to his gut.

Pen stood in the door, her eyes darting between him and her sister, sizing up the situation and determining what kind of threat he posed. She narrowed her gaze at the weapon in her sister’s hand. “Put the knife down, Nicole.”

The teenager didn’t seem eager. “He’s an alien,” she protested.

She spoke calmly and quietly without inflection. “He could have ripped you in half by now.”

That was a bit of an exaggeration, but Krayter wasn’t about to naysay her. Nicole’s arm tensed up under his fingers, but he wasn’t sure if it was to hurt him or pull away. She stared at Krayter for several long seconds before tugging her arm away. He let her go and breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped back.

“Penny…” she whined. It wasn’t a tone anyone wanted a young woman with a wickedly sharp knife to take.

Penny. Not Pen. Krayter rolled the name around in his mind, letting it settle onto his tongue, though he didn’t speak. A sweet name for a harsh woman. He liked it.

“What did you think would happen?” Penny asked, dangerously quiet. “Did either of you have a plan that went a day past tying him up in the shed?” Exhaustion was starting to set in. It must have been a long day. He spotted the clock above the door and saw it was after 2AM. Too late for humans to be awake. Detyens as well.

“I…” Nicole hung her head, defeated.

Penny sighed and crossed her arms. She nodded to the stairway. “Go upstairs. Try to sleep. And if Dad calls, ignore it until morning.” She stared Nicole down, waiting for the younger woman to hesitate, but after only a moment, she passed both them by, climbing up the staircase beside the kitchen, one knife still clutched in her hand. Krayter glanced over at the table and saw there was a collection sitting out in the open. He’d been on Earth long enough to know that was unusual, but he was happy that Nicole hadn’t tried to wield the machete as long as his arm.

Once the sound of a bedroom door slamming reverberated through the kitchen, Penny turned her attention to him. The silent threat transformed into something darker, harder. “I told you to stay upstairs,” she said.

“I’m not one for orders,” he shot back, crossing his own arms and leaning back against the counter casually. It was much easier without the knife at his throat.

Penny narrowed her eyes. “Do you have a death wish? Or is it a problem with my orders specifically?”

“It’s the farthest thing from a death wish you could imagine.” Life pulsed between them, a fragile bond that he could almost see, and with it, the promise of hope. Of tomorrow. An evolutionary quirk would see him snuffed out at thirty, but Penny was the one person who could stop that, who could save him. If she wanted him back.

“Why didn’t you run away?” she asked. Her eyes darted to the window beside his head and Penny stepped forward and switched off the lantern on the table, leaving the kitchen shrouded in shadow. “Why did you come here?”

Krayter glanced out the window and saw nothing. Still, it could have been the man who was at the door earlier. “Friend of yours?” he asked.

“Not an enemy.”

The man outside with the gun, in the settlement dedicated to killing aliens, wasn’t an enemy. Not an encouraging sentiment from his mate. How great was the divide between them? She’d left him tied, abandoned in a shed, in the middle of enemy territory, and had never offered to help him. But when he freed himself, she didn’t move against him.

Krayter wanted her. She was tough and fair and if he got to know her for more than a few hours, he thought he would like her. A lot. But he held his tongue from telling her about Detyens and the denya bond. A normal human woman would have difficulty accepting it. A human raised to hate and fear aliens? That would take a bit of finesse.

When he didn’t respond, Penny filled the silence. “You can’t stay here.”

“I know that.” With patrols and weapons, he’d soon be discovered and there was no telling what would happen to the people who took him in.

“You’ll be killed,” she pressed. “I don’t know what my father would do to me, and if he knows what my sister did—”

 “Penny, I know.” He wanted to step forward. His hands ached to touch her. But he held himself in place.

“You shouldn’t have come to my house. Why didn’t you just leave when you got out?” Her arms seemed to tighten around her, like she needed a hug. She sounded defeated, and Krayter wished he could do something to make it better. But she didn’t know him yet, couldn’t trust him. So all he could do was give her himself and hope that it was enough.

“I don’t know.” But he knew that he couldn’t leave her. Not now. Not until he’d sealed the bond between them. Not until he’d seen if she could find it in her heart to become his mate.