Chapter Four

Ceno followed her out of the store and helped her into her truck. It took every ounce of willpower he had not to boost her up into the vehicle with his hand on her lovely ass.

“Are you following me home then?” Was she afraid he wouldn’t or afraid he would?

“Sure.” He glanced back toward the car, which belonged to his sister-in-law. It sat where he left it, looking as innocuous as any other automobile. “I just need to get some gas. You won’t leave without me, will you?”

“No.” She smiled. “No matter how tempted I might be. I owe you, and I pay my debts.”

“Give me a few minutes, and I’ll be ready to go.” Ceno trotted to the car, ran his card in the reader and filled the tank. He’d planned to get something to eat inside. It was why he’d gone into the building in the first place. Now, it just seemed prudent to fuel up the car and follow Sela to her home.

After what happened with JC, there was no doubt in Ceno’s mind Sela and her grandfather were going to need protection. The part of him she’d awakened wouldn’t rest until he made sure she was safe and in his care.

It took about three minutes to fill the tank. Still, it was the longest three minutes of his life. As much as he wanted to protect her, shifting shape in front of her wouldn’t be his first choice. Not yet. Unfortunately, he might not have another option if someone threatened her.

Sliding behind the wheel, he started the car and put it in gear.

“It took you long enough.”

“Yeah, well, there was an altercation in the store,” Ceno answered the unspoken question. He put the car in gear and smiled. “What do you care? You’re just a car. You should be glad that no one slammed into you while I was gone.”

“They wouldn’t dare!”

“Was that outrage,” he asked as he followed Sela out of the gas station and onto the road.

“No. It was indignation. Besides...” the female voice made a sniffing noise. The two men who checked me out seemed rather nice until they tried to open my door. You know, you really shouldn’t leave the keys in the ignition. It invites criminals to try to steal me.”

“Someone tried to steal you?”

“Yes. And they would have if you hadn’t installed that lovely force field.” It chuckled before continuing. “I raised it just in time, too. They tried to break the window.”

“Shit.”

“You should say merde.”

“Why? It’s the same thing.” Ceno shook his head while keeping Sela in sight. She turned left onto the highway and shot out into traffic.

“It sounds more civilized.”

“Right,” he said with a snort. “You’re an old clunker. What do you know about it?”

“I know those men wanted to steal me. Right up until I put up my force field and scolded them.”

What?

“Please tell me you didn’t talk to them.”

“Of course I did. They were trying to steal me! I didn’t see you anywhere about, ready to defend my honor.”

Ceno almost lost sight of Sela. She was in the right lane and headed down an exit he nearly shot past in his agitation.

“I told you not to talk to people, damn it!”

“And you promised to take care of me. Instead, you were in a convenience store making a date.”

“Oh, my goddess. Are you... you can’t be. Are you jealous?”

“I’m a car. How could I possibly be jealous of a human woman with such a large posterior?”

“I love her posterior, and don’t you dare make her feel self-conscious about it.” Since when had the car developed an attachment to him?

“See?” She sniffed. “You’re beginning to ignore me already. I’m just a car. I don’t have an ass unless you want to count my trunk. I do have lovely trunk space.”

Oh, my goddess. Is Birgit’s psycho car coming on to me? Why did I ever put that voice chip in the damned thing?

He’d done it to make Birgit, his brother Reno’s wife, return to Magic after they repaired her car. He couldn’t think of a better idea to bring the woman back to Magic fast enough for the zidalpham he’d put in his brother’s drink to work on Reno.

Zidalpham wouldn’t bring a couple together if they weren’t compatible, and he’d gone to the trouble of getting some of Birgit’s blood and making up the small batch of the serum to get Reno up off his dead ass and looking for a bride.

As much as Ceno wanted to make a dose of zidapham for Sela, he didn’t have the equipment or the heart. It would be wrong to tie her to him in that way without her permission. It was one thing to give it to a male. They couldn’t bond with a woman not meant to be theirs.

For a female, the serum would take away her free will, and he was selfish enough to want her to choose him because she wanted him. He didn’t want her to stay because of a chemical reaction to an alien serum made from his blood. One designed to enhance her desire for him as her mate. Sure, he’d used it on his brother, but the ass had deserved it. Sela didn’t.

“I don’t believe you actually spoke to them.” He shook his head with a sigh. “You can’t draw attention to yourself. You’ll have people coming to Magic to see what the hell is going on there and why we have talking cars. We can’t have that. I knew I should have removed your voice chip after Reno and Birgit got married.”

“You can’t. Birgit would never forgive you.”

“Did I just hear a note of smugness?”

“So what if it was,” she said with a sniff or what sounded like one anyway. “Birgit has become rather fond of our conversations.”

“Goddess save me from know-it-all cars!”

“Don’t you start saying that, too.”

Good grief. He needed to get that voice synthesizer out of the damned car. S.T.A.T.

“Did it ever occur to you that people might say those kinds of things because you’re a pain in the ass?”

“Well, I never!”

“Sure you have. And probably more than once.”

“I’m not talking to you anymore.”

“Promise?” Ceno couldn’t believe he was arguing with a car. Still, it was no one’s fault but his own. He was the one who had given the damned thing the ability to talk in the first place.

He drove the next half hour in silence, mostly because she’d made the radio stop working.

“You know, the silent treatment is an immature, passive aggressive action,” he said as he followed Sela down a bumpy dirt road.

“You deserve it. I’ll turn off the radio any time I damn well please.”

“I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.” Can a car even have feelings? He frowned.

“No, you’re not. You’re just saying that because you want me to turn the radio back on.”

“Shut up.”

“Shut... what? Well, I oughta—”

“Please be quiet. We just pulled into her front yard.” He brought the car to a stop and shoved the gearshift into park. “How will I explain you to her?”

“Don’t you tell me to shut up,” she mumbled just before she went silent and the radio finally switched on, playing something loud and obnoxious he’d never heard before.

At least she’d decided to stay quiet for the time being. He didn’t know how he would have explained a talking, sentient automobile without telling Sela everything.

Though, he planned to tell her who and what he was before he asked for her commitment, he didn’t want to open with the phrase, “Hi! I’m Ceno, and I’ve come to Earth from another galaxy. Don’t mind my sister-in-law’s car. If it’s rude, it’s all my fault. I added alien technology to the annoying thing.”

Yeah. That would go over like a turd in a punchbowl.

Pulling the keys from the ignition with a sigh, Ceno slid out of the car and quickly made his way over to help Sela pull the tanks from the bed of the truck.

“Let me do that,” he said as she climbed up into the back and started wrestling with the worn tanks.

“It’s fine.” She waved him off. “I have a block and tackle. I’ll just hook onto them and set them back in place, one by one.”

And risk her getting injured?

No fucking way!

“Just let me lift them down for you.”

“Are you kidding me? This is a team lift, and I can’t help you. I’m not strong enough to even lift half the weight of one of these tanks.” She swiped her forearm across her forehead.

“I’m a lot stronger than I look, Sela. I can lift these, no problem. Believe me.”

“Nope. I don’t want you to risk it. Maybe, if there were two of you.” Sela climbed down and headed for the barn with a shake of her head. “I’ll be right back. I’m just going in to get the gear.”

Ceno climbed into the back of the truck after she disappeared into the barn and lifted all three over the side, one at a time. After he had them all on the ground. He moved them to their obvious positions, next to a large, five hundred-gallon pig, and hooked them up in tandem.

He might appear human because of the spell surrounding him, but his kind was much larger and stronger than any human male. Plus, according to his brother Reno, their strength increased as their beasts grew aware within them—and his beast had been growing stronger and stronger every moment since he’d met Sela.

Taking off his hat, he swiped the sweat from his brow with his forearm. Damn, it was hot on Earth. Was there anywhere on this Goddess-forsaken planet where the temperature didn’t skyrocket over one hundred degrees come June? If he didn’t know better, he would think it was the place the humans called hell. It was damned hot enough.