Chapter 4

Drake stood in the bushes outside Jamie's one bedroom apartment, his eyes trained on her bathroom window. Not for the first time, he cursed the shades that obscured his view of the Earth woman.

His nerves were still frayed from their earlier encounter. His rage had overwhelmed him when he'd seen that asshole put his hands on Jamie. He'd sworn to himself that he would never reveal himself to her, despite the desire he might have to drag her into his arms and explore every inch of her delectable little body.

Still, he couldn't let those goons touch her. They deserved what they got. And more. If my mission weren't so critical, I would have killed them both and disposed of their bodies.

Then I would have carried the luscious Jamie Cohen back to my room and worked her body over for the next century or so.

Drake tried to push those thoughts from his mind while he stared at the steamy bathroom window. It was difficult though since he knew that right behind those shades and that pane of glass was a beautiful woman, submerged in warm bubbly water.

Would her skin flush pink with the heat of the water? Would her nipples grow hard as she soaped those perfect breasts?

Drake almost groaned aloud, his cock starting to thicken at thoughts of the Earth woman. Once she'd forgotten to close the blinds completely, and he'd seen her in her bath, soaking, her red curls piled atop her heads, her eyes closed in the candlelight.

He still didn't understand his attraction to the female. He'd never felt anything for any of the other human women he'd interacted with. He'd had a normal working relationship with them, nothing more.

But Jamie Cohen was something else entirely. Her pale skin resembled the rare flowers that blossomed on the tops of the reefs on his home world. They bloomed only once a year, under the light of thirteen full moons. Drake bet her skin was as soft as their petals.

But you'll never know because you won't be touching her again.

Drake scowled. He couldn't risk revealing himself to her. It had jeopardized his mission just stepping in earlier tonight. She was his only hope at gaining access to the inner circle at NASA. That had to be where the Hareema had focused their efforts.

Jamie Cohen could come and go at headquarters with impunity as Dr. Sylvia Cohen's irate sister. And she would be his key to infiltrating the enemy. If only he could figure out how...

From inside the house, he heard the faint ring of her phone. Probably her wretched fiancé. Just the thought of the handsome astronaut had Drake’s fists clenching.

The bathroom light clicked off, and in a few moments, the bedroom light clicked on. Jamie was getting dressed for another night on the town, on the arm of NASA’s most eligible bachelor.

It was impossible to trust any member of NASA’s hierarchy, but he distrusted Lance Cargraves more than any other. It wasn’t just his ability to touch the woman Drake wanted more than he wanted his next breath. It was his entire persona.

Dashing, handsome, and massively intelligent, Cargraves was a legend at NASA and frequently featured in the glossy holo-magazines Jamie flipped through when she got tired of swiping through her phone. Once humans had discovered faster than light space travel, NASA had rebounded from a dwindling federal agency to a symbol of hope for a better future.

And Lance Cargraves had become NASA’s perfect poster boy for a brave new space program.

Someone that well positioned with NASA was an excellent target for the Hareema. Impersonation of Cargraves would give a Hareema operative the ability to come and go at the highest levels of NASA, as well as sway within the public arena.

It also got the Hareema close to Drake’s obsession. The thought of an enemy infiltrator’s hands on Jamie’s skin drove Drake mad. And yet, he could do nothing but watch. He didn’t have enough information to make his move yet, no matter how much he wanted to cave in that handsome face.

The risk was too great. If Cargraves was a lynch pin of the Hareema invasion of Earth, Drake couldn’t tip his hand so soon.

So here he stood, lurking outside Jamie’s window like a creep. Enough, he thought, shaking his head in disgust. It was clear that he would learn nothing new from standing around outside her apartment tonight. Being careful to not make any noise, Drake pushed his way out of the bushes and onto the street, making certain that no one would see him and make a note of his stalking.

He made his way back towards the Metro line, but barely noticed when he walked past it, continuing down the bustling streets as the sun set over the nation’s capital. As he walked, he shoved thoughts of Jamie and her fiancé out of his mind, focusing instead on the facts as he saw them.

The Hareema had to have a presence on Earth. Their captured operative had admitted as much, even if Drake didn’t trust everything the creature had said. He’d raged against the Zantharians, laughed and threatened, and eventually, with test after test sapping his strength, he’d retreated to the corner of his cell in silence.

Until the scientists had dissected him.

Without the Hareema’s death, Drake couldn't be here now, in a disguise created from the dead operative’s remains.

Drake wasn’t bothered by wearing the enemy’s carcass. It allowed him to sneak around this planet without exposing his over-large frame and color-changing skin. And he’d been fighting the Hareema so long, his sympathy for the race was now non-existence.

They held me prisoner. Played with my mind like it was a child’s toy. They’ve killed untold numbers of victims, taken over world after world to fit their agenda of commanding and controlling the galaxy.

I will fight them with every fiber of my being, even if that means parading around inside a Hareema corpse.

Whatever it takes.

There was no doubt in Drake’s mind that NASA had been infiltrated. There had been Hareema on the rescue ship sent after Sylvie, Jamie’s sister, disappeared, after all. And Sylvie’s ship itself had been connected with the failure of the Zantharian defense shield.

Although it was unlikely the ship itself had caused the shield to fail, the coordination it would have taken to drop the shield at the precise moment the Earthling ship entered Zanthar’s atmosphere required that the Hareema have precise knowledge of Earth’s plans regarding space travel.

These facts pointed to Hareema agents having taken up residence on Earth. The pieces fit. Still, it wasn’t enough to give Drake a full picture of the situation. Random puzzle pieces still floated around, seemingly without a connection.

Drake had learned from Ontarii and his human mate, Captain Brooklyn, that the FIDOs on her ship had somehow been able to distinguish human from a Hareema shape-shifter in human form. Although Zantharian scientists had been looking into the makeup of the defense robots, they so far had no leads on what tipped the FIDOs off, as the Earth robots did not have means of scanning DNA.

And then there was the most troubling advancement of the Hareema in the last hundred years. They were no longer vulnerable to Zantharian bioelectricity.

For decades, the Zantharians’ inborn ability to project bioenergy had protected them from a full-scale Hareema invasion. When a shape-shifter was hit with bioelectricity, it was forced to revert to its original form, a six-foot tall block of red jelly.

However, recent developments now made them impervious to bioelectric attack. During his last days as a Hareema prisoner, Drake had seen Hareema fight off an electrical attack. Although not all Hareema seemed able to do so, as those on Captain Brooklyn’s ship and the Zantharian flagship had proven, it seemed likely that it wouldn’t be long before all Hareema were upgraded with the defensive capability to withstand bioelectricity.

How long would it be before they made a full-force invasion of Drake’s planet? Not long, he supposed.

That’s what made Drake’s mission so vital.

It was growing darker, and with the departure of twilight, a stiff breeze had started kicking up the streets. Drake’s steps slowed, and he lingered to take in the sights around him.

Earth was so different from Zanthar. So much land, so little sea, compared to his own planet which was almost entirely water. Zantharians were most comfortable under the swirling surface of their oceans, and almost all of their structures were deep under the waves.

But here, tall structures made from materials dragged out of the earth, sprung up all around him. He felt strangely exposed, walking the streets where vehicles and pedestrians teemed around him.

The buildings on his home world seemed somehow more delicate, more organic, than the concrete and brick ones surrounding him now. Most had been tunneled out of the rock and coral, a warren of hallways and chambers. On Zanthar, the people were enclosed, in their caves and under the water.

But here, on Earth, the open sky oppressed him in ways he’d never experienced back home.

He found himself on a busy street, full of shops and eateries. He recognized the area as Georgetown, not far from the university. Well-dressed men and women strode in and out of storefronts and restaurants, talking quietly and walking with a purpose that was lacking in his own meandering steps.

Drake found himself peering into windows as he walked, trying to relate to the humans around him. They often seemed obsessed with inconsequential things, like acquiring and consuming cheap goods and gadgets. He idly wondered if their forays into space would change that mindset, now that the universe was at their doorstep.

Easing his way around an older woman laden with shopping bags from exclusive boutiques, he marveled again at the human penchant for purchasing and surrounding oneself with so many things. Always on to the newest, the brightest, the rarest. His thoughts naturally ran back to Jamie, who seemed to excel at such behavior.

She was always immaculately attired, endlessly searching for new trends to be on the vanguard of. While such behavior would be looked upon as foolish by most Zantharians, for some reason Drake found it oddly endearing. She was just so good at it.

He realized suddenly, as he came to a stop outside the floor to ceiling windows of an eatery he was passing, that the object of his thoughts was seated inside. He’d know that shock of red hair anywhere, the reflected light from the candles on the tables seeming to see her locks ablaze.

Drake couldn’t help himself. He stopped and stared, his eyes taking in her elegant form like a man gulping the air after being submerged beneath the waves for too long. She was just so beautiful. Flawless skin, shapely limbs, and a smile that made his chest ache.

A smile that she was currently gifting to the man seated across from her. Lance Cargraves. A scowl took residence on his face as he watched Lance return the smile with a charming one of his own.

Drake knew he should hurry on his way, but his body refused to obey him. He’d never felt such longing for another before. It made him feel irritated, out of sorts, no longer in control of his own actions.

Suddenly his obsession turned her head, her eyes meeting his. Drake was frozen, staring into their gorgeous green depths. Then he caught the look of recognition that entered her eyes and was hit with a jolt.

Get out of here, Drake, he told himself. You’re endangering the mission, standing here like a dolphin in rut.

But he couldn’t make himself move. He stared as if to memorize the perfection of her features.

He noticed that a faint blush started to tinge her pale skin, and that hint of color caused a strong reaction. He could feel the blood racing to his cock, making it ache with an agony he’d felt too often the last six weeks.

Too soon, Jamie’s head turned away, and she responded slowly to a question from Cargraves. Drake caught a look of concern on the astronaut’s face, and suddenly his body was once more his to control. He moved from the window and picked up his pace, walking swiftly down the street and towards the nearest Metro entrance.

His heart was beating fast, he threw himself into the hard plastic seat and focused on slowing his respiration. Drake wanted to punish himself, to hit his fists against his stupid head. His whole mission hinged on his being able to blend in, to not alert his targets of his presence.

Instead, he’d stared at Jamie from the street. It was a wonder he hadn’t been drooling when she’d locked eyes with him.

You have to focus, he admonished himself. The fate of multiple worlds hangs in the balance.

And yet, as the train swayed towards his stop, it wasn’t thoughts of his mission that filled his mind. It was the memory of a woman, beautiful but untouchable.

Noruma, how I want to touch her.