Sitting down, he shoveled cooked meat and chopped vegetables from his garden into his mouth. In the beginning, he’d hated the silence—no voices, no television—but now, he was used to it.
After scarfing down her food, Blue had moved to her favorite spot on the rug to curl up. But as Nate sipped one of the last few bottles of beer he had, the dog rose, her body stiff. She let out an unhappy whine.
He frowned. “What is it, girl?”
Blue took a step toward the door, and this time, the cattle dog let out a growl.
The hairs on the back of Nate’s neck lifted and he straightened in his chair. He heard a noise outside, and he shoved his chair back and shot to his feet.
That sounded like…a woman’s scream.
Nate strode forward, grabbing his laser carbine off the hook beside the door. He shoved his feet back into his boots and a second later, he was pushing his way out the door, Blue on his heels.
As he raced outside, he noticed that darkness had fallen like a thick, impenetrable blanket. The moon was out, but currently trapped behind some clouds. He heard the sounds of a chase in the trees. To the left. He pivoted and started running.
His eyes quickly adjusted to the gloom. Branches slapped at him, but he powered onward. He could hear the aliens now. Their guttural voices were pretty distinctive.
Nate pushed for more speed, leaping over a fallen log.
A second later, he reached a clearing. The clouds shifted and a shaft of moonlight speared down.
A young woman broke out of the trees. She was practically naked, except for a stained, white T-shirt that left her long, coltish legs bare. Her feet were covered in mud and blood.
Honey-blonde hair was a tangle around her face. A bloodstained face. She was also clutching a bloody knife in her hand.
Her wide eyes met his. “They’re coming!”
Nate took two steps forward and lifted his carbine. The woman headed in his direction and tripped.
He lunged and grabbed her with one hand. Their gazes met.
She had huge, brown eyes.
Then two enormous alien soldiers broke out of the trees behind her.
The bastards were big, packed with muscle, and covered in thick, mottled-gray, scaly skin. Heavy brow ridges and elongated jaws dominated their faces, along with glowing, red eyes. Each alien soldier clutched a huge, scaled weapon in their clawed hands.
Nate shoved the woman down to the ground and opened fire.
The laser fire made her jolt.
Even though she wanted to hide and cower, Ariana Matthews forced herself to look up. The man beside her was firing at the aliens, calm and focused.
Her bent knees rested on his heavy boots. The leather was scarred and well-worn. She wondered if she was in shock to be thinking about something so inconsequential.
Can’t lose focus. Can’t get distracted.
Her heart beat in her chest like a frantic, caged animal, fighting for freedom. She curled her fingers, with their broken, ragged nails, into her palms. She wouldn’t go back to the aliens’ fucking lab of horrors. She was done being their chew toy.
Ari swiveled on the ground. Her savior kept firing, and he held his weapon like an expert. He had military training for sure.
A second later, the raptors were both down—groaning and bleeding.
The man lowered his weapon and glanced down at her.
She got a good look at him in the moonlight. Rugged face, auburn hair, and thick scruff on his cheeks. He also had a wide, wide, wide chest. His T-shirt was strained to the limit, the bands of his sleeves biting into his huge biceps.
He strode toward the downed aliens, and she jumped to her feet and followed. Dispassionately, the man fired his weapon again, then crouched, checking that they were dead. She noted that the aliens were bleeding from their eyes. She knew that it was the trees that affected them. They really didn’t like the Aussie vegetation. Ari’s grandmother would have gotten a kick out of knowing the native plant life repelled the invaders.
Ari’s throat thickened. But her nan was gone now, probably like the rest of her family.
“Thank you,” she said.
The man glanced at her. “You escaped from them?”
She nodded, a shiver running through her. “I’ve been trapped in one of their labs, not far from here.” She wrapped an arm around herself. She’d seen so many people die, suffered so much.
Free. You’re free.
The man rose from his crouch.
Ari swallowed. “I’m Ariana. Ariana Matthews. My friends call me—” her voice cracked, her chest tightening. “They called me Ari.”
The man lifted his chin. “Nate Caldwell.”
A noise broke into their conversation. A stick snapping.
They both spun.
Another huge alien stepped out from behind the trunk of a large Eucalyptus tree.
It was focused on Nate, its demonic eyes flaring red. Time seemed to pass in slow motion, the alien lifting its scaled weapon. Ari knew from bitter experience that the guns fired poison that burned and paralyzed.
Nate was turning, raising his own weapon, but she knew he wouldn’t be fast enough.
Without conscious thought, Ari threw the knife she was holding.
The blade slammed into the alien’s face. It let out a loud grunt of pain. She couldn’t even find it in herself to be horrified. Instead, anger exploded inside her.
This alien had come to Earth intent on destruction. It had kept her caged like an animal. It had cut into her skin. It had hurt her.
The alien went down, making horrible, guttural sounds. She rushed forward, brushing past a stunned Nate, and snatched up the alien’s weapon. Damn, it weighed a ton.
She wrestled with the gun, struggling to hold it up. But she managed to aim it at the alien’s chest and fired.
Poison splattered over the alien’s scaled body, the green substance burning and sizzling. The alien let out a choked scream that cut off a second later.
She kept firing the weapon. “You evil
