“Escape…. I’ve got to escape,” she frantically muttered to herself when she heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

She pushed the dresser as tight as she could against the door, then picked up the shovel, and hurried to the window. Reaching up to unlock the latch, she stopped. There was no escape. Outside, the full force of the Nor’easter had arrived, and all she could see was white. Even if she was dressed in her warmest clothing, she wouldn’t last more than a few minutes out there.

She jumped when she heard the knock on the door. Turning, she gripped the shovel with both hands and stared at the door in terror. She frantically scanned the room, looking for a better weapon or some place to hide. Except for the bathroom or under the bed, there was nothing – not even a closet.

“Delilah, open the door,” one of the men ordered.

She didn’t answer. It wasn’t the brightest plan, but she hoped that not responding would make them think she had slipped outside. If they fell for it, she could sneak down, release the dogs, and…. Her mind went blank after that.

“We know you are in there. You cannot escape with the weather like it is outside. Come out. There is no reason to fear us,” he continued.

Padding silently over to the dresser, she sank down in front of the drawers and pressed her back against it. She laid the shovel over her lap and drew up her knees. Leaning her head back, she stared out the window at the falling snow. They were right. There was no escaping, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t go down without a fight. She reached into the pocket of her jacket for her cell phone. A quiet curse slipped from her lips when she remembered laying it down on the kitchen table with the groceries.

She bowed her head when she remembered that she didn’t have the chance to put the cold stuff in the refrigerator. For the moment, the house was still cold. However, it wouldn’t take long for some of the food to spoil once the house warmed up. Her head jerked up and she made a face when another knock sounded on the door, this one louder and harder than the first one.

“Open the door.”

This voice was different. It was deeper, rougher, and held a touch of a growl that triggered a response in her that she hadn’t been expecting – sexual awareness. The first voice had been meant to sooth her, make her want to answer him. The arrogance in this guy’s voice made her want to grab him by the ear and give him a piece of her mind. The visual image that came to her mind caused her to release an unexpected snort. She covered her mouth.

“I knew she was in there. Let me break down the door,” the rough-voiced man said.

“Brogan, have you forgotten everything that Pearl, Jaguin, and Sara told us? Human females are delicate. Plus, we promised Sara we would not frighten her friend,” the calmer, smoother-talking man stated with a touch of irritation in his voice.

Delilah stiffened when they mentioned Sara’s name. In her mind, she sorted through all the information that she had learned. Sara had been kidnapped by a Columbian Cartel boss named Cuello. Delilah had tracked down a reporter who said that an unidentified witness had confirmed that Sara and another woman had been held and tortured by Cuello because he wanted revenge against a woman named Carmen Walker.

Carmen Walker and her husband, Scott, had been bodyguards. They had been protecting a political family who Cuello had targeted. They had both been shot. Scott had died, but Carmen had lived.

That was when the story had gotten rather weird with the witness claiming that Carmen and three men had entered Cuello’s compound and killed everyone but herself before disappearing. Delilah’s best friend, Sara, and another girl named Emma Watson were never found. Neither were Cuello or the men in his cartel, but all evidence indicated that the thugs were dead.

The girl’s story had ended with her swearing that Carmen and the men had turned into dragons and flown away. The reporter swore that she’d found evidence to corroborate the girl’s testimony, but no editor would believe – much less publish – her findings so she had been forced to water down the article.

‘You are the only one who knows what I really found,’ Faith Sanders had said. ‘I’ve been keeping an eye on the ranch in Wyoming near where Carmen Walker grew up. I still live nearby and check when I can, but it is kind of hard to make a living and do that,’ she’d said with a shrug. ‘My hope is one day to get a break. Who knows, maybe dragons really do exist!’

Had her research led some of Cuello’s men to North Carolina? The university wouldn’t give her any information because she wasn’t a blood relative. The only one she had talked to was Faith and…

“The ranch…,” she whispered, rising to her feet.

Was the man who worked at the ranch tied to Cuello and the Columbian Cartel? He hadn’t looked like he was, but what did she know about an illegal business and dealing with drugs and stuff?

These guys here now looked like they could easily kill someone. They also had an accent.

“Delilah, open the door, little fighter. We only wish to talk to you. I am called Barrack. I promise that Brogan will not break down the door. We apologize for frightening you. It was not our intention,” Barrack said.

“You don’t just walk into someone’s house without their permission if you don’t want to scare them,” Delilah snapped.

“Have you not noticed it is snowing outside? It was cold. We knocked,” Brogan replied. “Now, open the door.”

“I didn’t hear any knocking, and of course I know it is snowing! What do you think the weather forecast has been warning everyone about for the past week?” she retorted.

She glanced around as she tried to think of a way to get out of the house, down to the first floor, back in the house to rescue her dogs, and then figure out a way to get her truck out of the shed and down the mountain without dying. So far she was coming up with nothing. Any attempt to go out the window would probably result in a broken neck. The roof would be super slick with snow and ice. A shiver ran through her. She had only turned on the fireplace downstairs.

She glanced at the one in her room. To light it, she would need to leave her spot in front of the dresser. Whether she liked it or not, she needed to turn on the heat upstairs as well. The house wasn’t equipped with a central heating system. That had been out of her budget.

“So, how much is Cuello paying you?” she asked, inching away from the dresser.

“Who is Cuello?” she heard Barrack murmur.

“He is the one who hurt Sara. Jaguin talked about him,” Brogan quietly replied before he spoke louder. “He is dead. Carmen killed him.”

“Carmen?” Delilah called over her shoulder.

She knelt in front of the gas fireplace and turned the valve. Twisting the knob to ignite, she winced when the igniter loudly broke the silence in the room when she clicked it. Thankfully, the pilot light lit the first time.

“What are you doing?” Brogan demanded. “I smell gas, which is a miracle since you nearly broke my nose.”

“Oh, you’re the one I kicked in the balls,” she said, making a face.

Maybe reminding him of that wasn’t a good idea. She turned the knob once the thermocouple began to glow a bright red. She sighed in relief when she felt the heat radiating from the fire. The room would warm up in no time.

“Yes, which hurt – a lot,” Brogan retorted.

Delilah rolled her eyes and moved back to the dresser. “You poor baby,” she replied. “So, if your boss is dead. Why are you here, and what do you want from me?”

“We answer to no one but ourselves, elila… and you. We have come a great distance and waited a very, very long time for you,” Barrack answered.

“Why do you keep calling me that? Is it like some Columbian word for you’re dead or I want to kill you or something? And you still haven’t answered my question,” she stated, leaning on the top of the dresser and resting her chin on her hand.

“Elila, means ‘my heart’ in our language. You are our elila, our heart,” Barrack said, his voice deepening and sending a shiver through her that had nothing to do with the cold.

“Yeah, right. You don’t even know me, so the sweet talk doesn’t work… elila,” she sarcastically retorted.

As crazy as it sounded, she was actually enjoying this little repartee. Maybe it was because they weren’t trying to beat down the door, but she didn’t feel threatened in a she-was-about-to-die sort of way.

Even though she was enjoying their exchange, especially now that her bedroom was warming up, that didn’t mean she was ready to open the door and let them in. They were still big guys with a funny accent who had yet to really tell her anything. Maybe it was time she asked a few pointed questions.

“Where are you from?” she asked, deciding that was as good a place as any to start.

“Valdier,” they both replied at the same time.

She frowned. She’d never heard of Valdier. Of course, at the rate the world changed and with almost two hundred countries, she didn’t know all of them.

“Where is Valdier? Is it near South America?” she asked.

“It is several million light years from here,” Brogan answered. “We are from another star system.”

“You’re from…. Are you, like, saying you’re from another planet?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes,” they both answered again at the same time.

A shiver of unease went through her. “How do you know Sara?” she warily asked, bending to pick up the shovel and lay it on the dresser.

There was a moment of silence before she heard them frantically talking to each other in a language she didn’t understand. Every once in a while she would hear different names: Sara, Jaguin, Delilah, Pearl, Zoran, and Aikaterina. That was about all that she got out of their heated conversation.

“She is Jaguin’s mate,” Barrack finally said. “He was with Carmen and her mate, Lord Creon, when they confronted the human male who killed Lady Carmen’s first mate. Sara was tortured by this human. She would have died if not for their arrival. Jaguin returned to the ship with Sara where the healer onboard and his symbiot healed her,”

Delilah tightened her grip on the handle of the shovel. She bit her lip to keep her horror at what they were telling her silent. This matched everything the reporter had told her. Her mind raced as she thought of some way of confirming that they actually knew Sara.

“There was… there was another woman with Sara,” she started to say.

“Lady Emma. Lord Ha’ven’s mate,” Barrack acknowledged.

Delilah stared at the door. “How do you know about her?” she asked in a soft voice.

“Prince Adalard, Ha’ven’s brother, is the one who transported us to your world,” Brogan replied. “They are Curizans.”

“What’s the difference between a Curizan and someone from Valdier?” she asked with a frown.

“We are stronger and better looking,” Brogan snickered, his voice filled with amusement.

“You are not helping, Brogan – even if you are right,” Barrack replied, his voice laced with the same amusement. “The Curizans have only themselves to worry about when looking for a mate. We, on the other hand, have to find a woman who will be accepted by our symbiots and our dragons.”

“Which is possible as Cree and Calo have proven,” Brogan quickly added.

Delilah pulled the shovel toward herself and slowly backed away from the dresser and the door. She shook her head in disbelief. She didn’t know what in the hell a symbiot was, but the ‘our dragons’ had her attention. Faith’s voice came back to her.

‘The girl swore she’d seen dragons, and I found their footprints in the sand along a cove…’

“I’m dreaming,” she whispered, continuing to shake her head in disbelief. “I’ve fallen asleep in the snow, and I’m dreaming. There are no such things as dragons. There are no such things as dragons… or aliens or… or dragons.”

She turned her head and frantically looked around. Boots, she needed a pair of boots. There was enough snow on the ground by now that if she fell from the roof, she might survive. One thing was for sure, if she stayed here, the odds that she would make it out of this alive were dropping like a mob informant wearing a pair of cement shoes while swimming.

“Delilah… Delilah, please, little fighter, open the door. This conversation would be much easier if we could see you,” Barrack said.

“And touch… without pain, that is,” Brogan added.

Delilah ignored Barrack’s muttered curse at his brother and the admonishment once again not to scare her. She would have told him it was too late for that – about twenty minutes too late – but she was too busy lacing up the boots she had retrieved from the shoe rack in the corner of her bedroom. Removing her jacket, she pulled on two more sweatshirts with hoods. She’d take her jacket and put it on once she was on the ground.

She grabbed her jacket and the shovel and tiptoed over to the window again. Placing the two items down next to the window, she reached up and unhooked the latch. Snow, nearly six inches deep from the ongoing storm, butted up against the window sill outside. She estimated that there must be at least three feet of snow on the ground below the window. The roof sloped down to the wraparound porch, so she should be able to slow her descent a little before she went over the edge.

“Listen, I have a better idea. Why don’t you two go back to wherever you came from and we can just forget all of this?” she said in a loud voice, hoping the sound would cover her opening the window.

“Ah, elila, I fear we cannot do that,” Barrack responded.

“We do not have much time, Delilah. If you do not open the door, I will be forced to open it for you,” Brogan said.

“I… Please, just give me a few minutes to think. I… I need… just… a few… minutes,” she loudly pleaded, grinning as she slid first one leg, then the other out the window.

“We will wait,” Barrack reluctantly agreed.

“Thank you,” she said, leaning down and grabbing her jacket and the shovel. “Ten minutes. I just need ten minutes. If you… wait right there, I’ll open the door in ten.”

“Five...,” Brogan countered before she heard a grunt.

“We can give her ten minutes! We have waited centuries, what is ten minutes more if it makes our mate happy?” Barrack argued.

“She could do just as much thinking in five minutes,” Brogan countered. “I need my symbiot. My nose and groin are killing me. You could use yours as well. You have a large knot on your forehead and I think your eyelids are turning colors.”