She came to the end of the block and rounded it quickly to put more distance between herself and the aliens. The copy/paste twins were killers and she needed to get out of here if she didn’t want to be their next victim.
She hadn’t been consciously running for her car and when she came to it, she almost passed right by it in her panic. But her brain finally registered the lines of her beat-up brown Honda Civic and she skidded to a halt, breathing hard.
Thank God! Fumbling in her little purse, she found her keys and pressed the fob to unlock the car. As she slid behind the wheel, she saw another beam of brilliant light in the street she’d just left. This one hit a squat blue mailbox on the corner and also a fire hydrant.
Letters fell out in a flood just as a spout of water shot up into the air. Vicky had a moment to wonder why the alien weapon had so neatly sealed the wound it had made in the bartender but hadn’t sealed the holes it had made in the inanimate objects, but then she was driving—driving for her life.
She just had to get home, where they couldn’t find her, she told herself. She just had to get home and then everything would be all right.
She hoped.
Chapter Three
Chainor knew he had to get to the Varians and eliminate them quickly—before they got to the curvy Earth female whose name he had never even learned before he thrust the T’lix-Kruthe into her hands and placed her very life in danger.
In his defense, he’d never intended her to hold the stolen artifact for long. He had believed he would be able to get inside the Varians’ minds and convince them to go back to where they’d come from before anyone got hurt.
As an M-Switch Kindred, that was his specialty—allowing his consciousness to leave his own body and inhabit the body of another male. Using this natural ability, he was usually able to make his host do most anything he suggested to them.
But the Varians had been tough—maybe because they were a reptilian species and their brains were so different from his own. They were colder—more logical and linear than a warm, feeling mammalian brain. In fact, just being inside them had made Chain feel like he’d taken a bath in icy slime. Fucking disgusting.
He had no time for disgust now, however. He had to get to the little Earth female. Though she was not so little as most, Chain had to admit to himself as he stood outside the establishment where he’d first met her and raised his nose to the wind, trying to catch her scent. Many Earth females were so small and fragile-looking he was afraid he might break them if he got too close. But not her—she’d been substantial in a way he found immensely appealing.
At nearly seven standard feet and with the heavy musculature of all Kindred males, Chain was no lightweight himself. But the Earth female had been what the Twin Kindred called an “Elite”—one blessed by the Goddess with full and bountiful curves. Just the memory of her in that tight red dress made him half-hard all over again, though he told himself he needed to concentrate.
There had been several unattached females sitting in the bar but he had zeroed in on her immediately. With her full curves and that striking silver streak in her dark hair, he’d been unable to resist her.
But it wasn’t just her looks that drew him—it was her scent. When Chain had sat down beside her, the scent of her sexual hunger had tugged at him immediately—teasing his nose with her need. He knew at once by the absence of any other male’s scent on her that this little female had been alone for a long time—perhaps even years—and she desperately needed some male attention.
Maybe that was what had driven him to kiss her—which he probably shouldn’t have done. But her lush lips had looked so tempting and she had tasted sweet—like that red Earth fruit. What was it again? Berrystraws? Strawmarries? Whatever it was, the taste of her had been intoxicating—literally.
He had barely been able to make himself stop kissing her, despite the imminent danger posed by the Varians in front of them. And Gods, the way she’d kissed back…it was clear she knew what she was doing and that she would be happy to do more if given half a chance.
Her evident experience—and the fact that she was clearly older than him—was intensely sexy to Chain. He liked a female who knew what she was doing in the bedroom. A female who knew what she wanted and was willing to guide a male and show him exactly how to pleasure her…damn, that was appealing. So appealing that his shaft went from half-mast to full attention as he found her scent at last, very faintly on the nighttime breeze.
Keeping his nose high and making sure to avoid the busy beehive of activity the Last Call bar had become after the Varians had shot it up, Chain followed the warm, alluring fragrance of his little female. Luckily, he was wearing his scatter-light hood and cloak, which caused any available light photons to bounce off him in such a way as to render him technically invisible. So all he had to do was make sure not to bump into anyone and nobody would even know he was there. The stealth tech had cost a ridiculous amount but it had saved his ass more than once and Chain was glad to have it now. He stepped casually aside as an Earth peacekeeper ran past him, speaking into a communications device.
He caught the Earth female’s scent again
