Andie had yo-yoed back and forth between “this dude is awesome” and “get this freaking alien with a murder basement away from me” like fifteen times in the last five minutes. She didn’t think she could yo-yo any more than that.

She was wrong.

Andie mentioned that her grandmother was sick, and Kragen’s entire demeanor had changed. She could almost read him like an open book, probably because of the weird bond thing Kragen kept talking about, and that she had definitely felt (and that she would probably be thinking about during her special vibrator time for the rest of her life). She knew—she could feel—that Kragen’s concern for her, and now for Gramzy, was genuine. Almost tender.

And yet he was still bossing her around like he owned her. And so she was still pissed off. And now she was even more pissed off, because he was making this so complicated.

“Yeah, she’s sick,” Andie said again. “She needs my help, whether she wants to admit it or not. That’s why I have to go home. Not that I owe you an explanation, or need a reason to, you know, go where I want to go.”

They were still standing out in the damn rain, in the rapidly darkening night. Most of the light in the area reflected off his skin, giving Kragen a sort of glow. She didn’t mind it. She did mind the expression on his face. For some damn reason, she cared that he was upset.

“I did not know,” he said gravely. “You are right, on both counts. I apologize.”

Andie tilted her head.

Did he just apologize?

That might actually be the first time she’d ever heard that from a male, of any species. And definitely the first time she’d heard that from a male who was so effortlessly Dominant.

“I will take you to her,” Kragen said, crossing the distance she’d put between them easily, athletically. It made her feel better. Which was still crazy. “I will take you to her, and I will find a way to hide us. It will be temporary. But I will find a way.”

And he held out his hand.

Andie couldn’t believe it. She looked up into his eyes, even though she knew, by now, how dangerous that really was. She could get lost in them. She had gotten lost in them. In the future she saw there. In the love she saw there. The lust. The raw power.

She was only human, and trying to figure out how this male standing in front of her, nearly seven feet tall, glistening in the rain as he looked down at her, was both so concerned about her and her family that it was almost tender…

And that that same male had, back at his lair, what could perhaps be described as a murder basement.

It made no freaking sense. And thinking about it wasn’t getting her any answers.

And then, just as she was about to throw her hands up, she saw a pair of headlights approaching on the highway, behind Kragen.

She could flag them down.

Kragen wouldn’t want to risk exposure. He would let her go. He would have to. And Andie didn’t look forward to enduring whatever would happen to her as she got farther and farther away from her “mate,” but she was tough. And she could be even tougher for her grandmother.

Her brain made a pretty convincing case for flagging that car down.

And her heart disagreed.

Andie watched herself, almost in disbelief, as she watched the car pass without doing anything at all.

“Ok,” she said, finally, looking up at the Leonid who had invaded her life like a wrecking ball. “Take me to my grandmother.”

* * *

Andie didn’t know, exactly, how she expected they would get back to Gramzy’s house, but she also hadn’t given it much thought.

It turned out “running at the freaking speed of sound with a woman in his arms” was well within Kragen’s abilities.

Do not get sick. Do not throw up all over the hot alien. Do NOT.

Andie clung to Kragen’s neck as he ran, his breathing barely changing. This was apparently a light stroll for him. The extended physical contact—her bare hands wrapped around his neck, his arms underneath her, cradling her—was building the now familiar furnace inside her, a hungry fire that demanded more. It was only counteracted by the unsettling, vaguely nauseous feeling she got every time she opened her eyes.

The trees were a total blur. Occasionally they passed a light on the highway, and she’d watch it fall away from her like someone had tossed it down a well. There was no way Andie was going to turn her head to see what that looked like coming at you.

Nothing in nature should move this fast. Was this how the first people to ride a train felt? Or the first passengers in a car? Like they were flouting the rules of nature, and nature was sure to be pissed off about it?

None of it seemed to bother Kragen. He was a machine, seemingly impossible to tire, even though by his own admission he’d injected himself with some kind of poison, after being literally stabbed in the back, and while fighting off this whole mating call bond thing.

So he was impressive. There was that. Andie shut her eyes hard and tried to think about the future, rather than the hard-working giant of male muscle that currently held her in his arms.

She was nervous to introduce him to Gramzy. For obvious reasons, but also because Andie did not have a great track record with the guys she’d brought home to meet her grandmother, and Gramzy was not shy about that. And after everything Gramzy had done to help Andie clean up her life after Trevor sold her out, the idea of disappointing her again was heartbreaking.

Of course, Kragen the Leonid warrior of wherever the hell was definitely not her boyfriend. They had both made that very clear to each other. Plus, they’d literally just met. At a kidnapping.

On the other hand, whenever Andie closed her eyes against the blurred background of what should be a normal tree line, what she saw was…Kragen’s face. Specifically the expression on his face when she’d laid down the law.

His reversal—his apology —was immediate. His dedication was absolute. It was like he didn’t question it at all. He was on Andie's team, so he was on Gramzy’s team. He would get it done.

That is not a helpful line of thought, Andie.

It didn’t matter. She opened her eyes, she saw the warm skin of his neck, shining slightly in the low light. She closed her eyes, she saw his face. And every passing second fed the fire in her core that wanted him inside her.

And now he was stopping.

Shit.

“Are we there?” she asked.

“No, lubcha,” he said. “This is the border of the settlement called Silver Creek. I require directions from here.”

Her eyes opened wide.

And he asked for directions when he needed them?

Also, what the hell was a lubcha?

“What did you just call me?”

“Andromeda,” he growled her name low. “I am sure you feel the hunger growing between us. Please do not delay.”

“Go down this road until you get to Rooster Lane. Make a right. It’s at the end, and I can show you when we get closer.”

“We will not stop again,” he announced, gripping her tighter. “I will be able to smell your kin as we approach.”

Which begged the immortal question: was that sexy or creepy?

Andie didn’t have time to answer that one, because Kragen raced the couple of miles to her grandmother’s block in what felt like literally seconds. But they did stop again, and not in front of Gramzy’s house. Instead, when Andie was finally able to open her eyes, and when she’d steadied herself on her feet—without Kragen’s help, because she felt like she was going to explode—she realized they were actually hiding in the hedges of a neighbor’s house a few doors down.

And then she saw why.

There was a police car parked outside her grandmother’s house. Andie's first instinct was to run to the house, screaming her head off for Gramzy, but Kragen wrapped one arm around her body and put a hand over her mouth, saving them both.

Because in another instant, after she got over the shock of pleasure she felt whenever Kragen touched her, Andie realized there was no police tape. No real presence. Just a guy in a car.

And she knew that guy.

Gary Broden. Another one of Trevor’s old crew. Andie had forgotten about him entirely, especially the now-salient information that he had become a cop. After Andie's experiences, she generally tried to avoid law enforcement, especially in this town. She knew that wasn’t entirely fair, but she did it anyway. Unfortunately, Gary in particular had never been one of Silver Creek’s finest, and the uniform hadn’t changed that.

Trevor must have gone and talked to Gary directly, and now Gary was staking out Gramzy’s house, waiting for Andie to get home. She didn’t know what their plan was after that, but she didn’t want to find out, either.

“That is an officer of the law, is it not?” Kragen said.

“Worse,” Andie said. “One of Trevor’s friends.”

Kragen didn’t seem bothered. “Trevor was assaulted. That he was the guilty party does not matter. An officer of the law still needs to investigate.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t have a whole lot of confidence in the Silver Creek judicial system,” Andie muttered. “What are we going to do?”

For the first time, Kragen looked down at her, startled. And then he laughed.

It was a warm and rough laugh, and it made Andie's spine tingle in variously pleasant ways.

What Kragen did next made her shake.

He just walked out. Beyond the hedges he’d hidden them in. He strode down the street, bare-chested and with a sodden bandage wrapped around his muscular waist, his opalescent skin glowing dully in the row of porch lights.

None of which did anything to hide the fact that he was a freaking seven-foot-tall Leonid.

Just…walking around. In Silver Creek.

After a second, Andie followed him. Her body didn’t like watching him get farther away. Plus, she needed to be there to yell at Kragen just in case he forgot her “no killing humans” rule.

Yeah, that’s the reason.

Which was why, when Kragen did what he did, Andie was close enough to see what happened.

Kragen walked out in front of the police car, his massive bulk almost blocking the windshield from Andie's view. But not entirely. She definitely saw Gary Borden’s face, the second he saw Kragen looming in front of him. His eyes went wide and his pudgy cheeks flushed with that spotted red blush he’d always gotten when his friends made fun of him, and his mouth opened and closed a few times, like a startled fish.

Kragen reached out his hand, and made a fist.

And Gary Borden slumped forward onto his steering wheel, unconscious.

Kragen turned, his eyes glowing slightly, and hit Andie with the full strength of his gaze. Her knees went weak. She’d just seen him do…something, to someone, without so much as moving a muscle, and still, when he looked at her, it was like he could make her feel whatever he wanted. Tendrils of heat snaked out from the surface of her skin to wind themselves through her body, wrapping themselves around her nipples, invading her core. Her heart beat even faster, and she knew because she could feel it between her legs.

“What was that?” she said.

“That was nothing,” he said, eyes burning into her. “Compared to what I have the strength to do with you by my side.”

Andie swallowed. Two minutes ago they’d been hiding. Now they were staring at each other out in the street, because apparently Kragen could wave a hand and put people to sleep.

“Yeah, but do you literally have magic powers?” she said.

“There is much about the Leonids that we did not tell you,” he said, with a tone that brooked no questions. “But we have been out in the open for too long. You will get inside. Now.”