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  She turned to go, but Kayde grabbed onto her arm to stop her while Toran spoke. “You’re saying there’s a hostile out there? You’re a civilian, we can’t sent you back. Kayde and Raze will go.”

  “And how do they plan to find where we landed?” Peyton challenged. “I know the way back.”

  “Landed?” asked Sierra. “What happened to you guys?”

  “We’ll deal with that later,” said Toran. He nodded at Peyton. “Fine, but you stay back. Kayde and Raze will join you and you’ll bring Dryce back.”

  “Of course.” Peyton wasn’t leaving these woods without her mate.

  She was happy to have found the team, would be ecstatic once they were all safely on their way home, but the longer she was separated from Dryce, the more her anxiety began to grow. Had something gone wrong? Was he hurt? Or worse? Bile rose in her throat at the thought and she had to strangle the thought and bury it deep. She’d know if something was wrong with Dryce, she’d feel it in her soul. He said they were bound together by some sort of fated connection. If he was hurt, she’d know.

  Please, she prayed, please let him be okay.

  It wasn’t easy to find their way back. Though Peyton had thought she was clearly marking the trees, the cuts were difficult to see in the encroaching darkness. But eventually she recognized a giant flowering bush that she’d passed not long after leaving the spot she’d promised to stay in and it took almost no time after that to find where she and Dryce had landed back on Earth.

  And there her mate stood with an injured alien at his feet and a mad look in his eye. They were glowing red and he looked ready to tear the forest down to find her.

  Peyton stepped in front of Raze and Kayde, heedless of any danger the injured alien might have posed. Dryce saw them and it took him a moment to realize who they were; his fear for her must have been clouding his judgment. But in a blink they were clutching each other tight, holding on like the world was ending, but nothing could have been farther from the truth.

  She forgot they weren’t alone until one of the Detyens behind her, she thought it was Raze, asked, “Is that Yormas of Wreet?”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Even though she’d been sitting on the sidelines the entire time this felt like one of the most eventful weeks of Laurel’s life. Just hearing it secondhand from Dru was enough to make her head spin, and she couldn’t imagine what Dr. Cho had gone through.

  “So they accidentally teleported to one of the Oscavian ships?” She shuddered, remembering her own time under Brakley Varrow’s care. She still had nightmares about it, though the tight embrace of her mate was enough to keep them at bay most nights. With him gone on his missions this past week, she’d barely slept, mostly snatching moments in catnaps and otherwise living on caffeine and exhaustion. “And she managed to hack an Oscavian teleporter to get rid of a bomb big enough to destroy the planet?” Laurel wanted to meet this woman, not just to thank her for saving the planet, but because she was one of the most impressive people Laurel had heard of.

  Dru set a tall glass of soda in front of her and drank from his own bottle of water. She watched his throat work, that luscious purple skin of his moving as the liquid poured down his throat. She didn’t hear what he was saying until he waved a hand in front of her face and offered a cheeky grin. “Did you want me to answer your question?”

  Not anymore. Laurel’s tongue darted out to lick her lips and she caught Dru’s eyes tracking the movement, the dark orbs briefly glowing red before settling back to their normal black. The rest of the Detyens who shared the suite with them were off somewhere and Laurel hadn’t cared to ask why they’d been granted privacy. The suite was big, but with so many people living there it was also crowded, and stealing a few minutes alone outside of their room was a gift she couldn’t ignore.

  But she did want to know what had happened. They could make the discussion quick.

  “Yes, answer, please.” She batted her eyelashes at Dru, as if she needed to entice him with feminine wiles, not that she’d ever been able to manage a single wile.

  “The basic recap then, is this. They accidentally appeared on the same ship that they teleported the weapon to. The weapon caused some sort of structural damage that sent the ship into self-destruct mode. They found a functioning teleporter and were able to send themselves home, but not before Yormas of Wreet, the man who started this whole mess, found them. He followed them, but Dryce managed to injure and capture him. The Sol Defense Agency and the Detyen Legion made easy work of two Oscavian destroyers, and about half of the fleet has retreated.” He spread his hands as if emphasizing a point. “There, satisfied?”

  “You manage that pretty well.” Exceptionally well, actually, though Laurel didn’t need to stroke his ego. Despite the danger that had hung over their heads since they’d found one another on Brakley Varrow’s ship, Laurel had never felt more happy than when she was around Dru. He settled the wandering places within her and helped her understand how she could find the life she’d been looking for, make something more of herself than what her family had planned for her.

  Her mate lifted her up and made her see all the possibilities that the world had to offer.

  “I think you could use the reminder.” Dru set his bottle down and had her scooped up in his arms before she realized what was happening.

  Laurel clung on, and once she was firmly settled in his hold, she leaned in close and sealed her lips over his. Was there a word even better than satisfied? ‘Cause the things her mate made her feel surpassed anything she’d ever known before.

  DRYCE WAS GOING TO murder someone if they didn’t let him out of this debrief soon. He’d lost track of the hours some time ago and he had no idea what day it was. His communicator had been confiscated to make sure that nothing had been transmitted through it while he’d been aboard the enemy ship, and the room they had him stashed away in looked more suited for a criminal than a warrior.

  He didn’t know where Peyton was, though he’d been assured that she was also being debriefed.

  Yormas of Wreet had been hauled off to a cell somewhere and Dryce was sure that an army of Detyen warriors and the SDA were debating what to do with him. Dryce would leave them to it. He’d done his part by bringing the man in alive, done more than his part. He just wanted to shower, see his denya, and sleep. The last days had been more eventful than any in his entire life and he could barely keep his eyes open.

  Had he slept in the past two days? He couldn’t remember.

  It was another half hour before a woman in a severe SDA uniform informed him that he was free to go. He jerked out of a half slumber and nodded at her before stumbling his way to the locker room outside of the main training area. He wanted to find his mate and gather her close, but he couldn’t do it when he was still covered in all of the filth of the day.

  Dryce slathered soap all over himself and stepped under the spray, letting the water do the work for him. It beat down heavy against his head, massaging worn muscles and lulling him into a sense of safety.

  He must have nodded off and a harsh hit of cold water startled him. He didn’t know how long he’d been standing in the shower, half leaning against the wall, but if the water had run cold, it must have been for a long time. He shut it off and grabbed a towel, drying himself with brutish efficiency, nearly hard enough to bruise.

  There was no way that he was in good enough shape to make it home, so he decided to catch a few hours in an on call room before heading out. Though it was just as likely he’d be called back to duty again while the people in charge decided how to settle the threat against them for good.

  He stepped outside of the locker room and nearly jumped out of his skin when he spotted Peyton leaning against the wall, arms crossed and clearly waiting. She smiled when she saw him, and bit her lip as if holding back a laugh at his over-exaggerated response.

  “You look like you haven’t slept in a week.” Her own hair was damp and she looked fresh, even if the skin under her eyes was dark
from exhaustion. He wondered if she’d managed to grab a nap in the time he’d been interrogated.

  “I’m not sure I have,” Dryce admitted. “Things have been happening so quickly that I’ve lost track of time.”

  His mate nodded. “I know what you mean.” She held out a hand. “Want to get out of here?”

  Dryce wanted to collapse where he stood and hold his denya in his arms while he did it. “I fear I won’t be good company until I’ve rested.”

  Peyton wiggled her fingers and didn’t stop until he reached out and laced their hands together. “I figured that out. But I’ve got a nice big bed at home, and escaping the base for a little while will do us both good. Escaping to safety, I mean. No more running through the forests or ending up on enemy spaceships. Just a nice soft mattress and warm blankets. Paradise.”

  There was no other answer he could give. “Yes.”

  Her grin grew huge and they made their way out of the SDA compound to where Peyton had a taxi waiting for them. She pushed Dryce into it and followed behind him, leaning against him as they sped off. Dryce tried to stay awake; he had his mate beside him and for the first time in days there was no imminent threat, they could just enjoy being with one another. It didn’t seem to matter. His eyes fell closed as they drove through dark streets, and though he didn’t slip completely into sleep, he had to be jostled awake when they made it to the building that Peyton called home.

  It wasn’t much to look at, a squat brick structure that had seem centuries in the city. His glance around the neighborhood showed that it was nice enough, though he didn’t see the larger houses he’d viewed when he was sent to talk to influential humans in the government and military.

  She led them to the door and let them inside, her moves cautious, like she didn’t want to alert someone to her presence. But as soon as the door opened, a light flicked on and a young woman stared at them as if each of them had grown additional heads and tentacles.

  “You’re home,” Peyton told the woman. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

  Dryce wasn’t sure if it was the exhaustion or the fact that he’d met so many people, but the woman looked familiar. He hadn’t slept with her, that he was certain of. He could remember the faces of his partners, and this woman wasn’t one of them. But he was almost certain they’d met before.

  “You told me that you were working on some super-secret project and not to get worried, no matter what I heard. I was about twelve hours away from sending the Marines after you,” the woman said. “You look like—seriously, Peyton, what’s going on.”

  Peyton took a deep breath before turning to Dryce. “This is my sister Ella. Ella, this is—”

  “I know who Dryce NaFeen is,” Ella cut her off. “And after all the crap you’ve given me about aliens, I’m shocked that he’s the one you’re bringing home.

  Peyton gave him a forced smile. “My room is right through there,” she pointed down the apartment’s single hallway. “First door. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Dryce knew what it was to argue with a sibling. He and Raze had almost torn down buildings when they disagreed. He wanted to stay with his mate and offer her support, but he would only get in the way. Whatever the sisters had to say one another, they wouldn’t say it in front of him. So he walked down the hall and found Peyton’s room. He slumped down onto the bed and was asleep before he could even begin to hear the whispers of an argument.

  PEYTON WAS NEARLY DEAD on her feet. She’d managed to catch an hour long nap after General Alvarez showed mercy on her, but it wasn’t nearly enough to counteract the exhaustion of the past week. She was long past the stage of tiredness where she felt drunk and loopy and now all she felt was a quiet desperation for her bed and the warrior in it.

  But from the way Ella was glaring at her, it was going to be a little while until she could slink away. She didn’t whimper, but that was mostly because of her older sister survival instincts that told her not to show weakness. Who knew how Ella would exploit that?

  “What the fuck, Peyton?” was Ella’s opening volley. “For all the shit you’ve given me about hanging out with aliens, I wouldn’t expect you to bring that tomcat home. And you told me you were working! Now you’re picking up some guy?”

  It flayed Peyton to hear her sister say such things, to see the lack of trust in her eyes. Had their relationship really soured so much in the years since their mother’s death? There had been a time when Ella looked at her like she made the stars shine. Now Ella was glaring like she wanted to slap her. “Dryce and I did meet through work,” Peyton began, but she could already tell Ella didn’t care. She knew how this would go. Ella wouldn’t listen to anything Peyton had to say, her mind already made up based on whatever conclusion she’d already imagined.

  And the worst part was, Peyton maybe deserved it. She’d spent the last two years judging her sister, silently and not so silently, when she took off for days at a time, hooking up with random people and bringing home a bevy of aliens who were just out for a good time. It hadn’t been Peyton’s place to judge. Ella was a grown woman, as much of an adult as Peyton, and if she wasn’t looking for a long term partner, now or ever, Peyton shouldn’t have been giving her the third degree.

  For so long, Peyton had been wary of romantic entanglements and unwilling to get involved in purely sexual relationships. She couldn’t understand the path Ella had taken and she wasn’t willing to learn. And now things had changed. Now Peyton was contemplating emotions more complex than she’d ever thought to experience before, now she was taking chances, both with her work, and her life, and the fate of the planet, that she’d never thought she’d be willing to take before.

  But Ella didn’t know any of that. Peyton hadn’t wanted to worry her sister with news of what could happen to the planet. It had little do with the fact that she was bound by secrecy rules and everything to do with no wanting her sister to worry. But in trying to protect Ella, Peyton had lied to her, hurt her. And there would be no quick and easy fix.

  She wanted to tell Ella everything she’d done, or even just let her known that she’d flown in a helicopter, more than once! But Peyton was about to collapse on her feet and she couldn’t deal with this now. The planet was saved and the rest of humanity’s, and the Cho family’s problems, could wait until morning. Or whenever she woke up. She’d long ago lost track of what time it was.

  “I haven’t slept in forever,” Peyton finally said, shrugging out of her jacket and putting her bag down on the couch. “I’ll answer anything you want once we’re awake, but I can’t do this right now.”

  “We’re?” Ella called after her. “We’re?”

  But Peyton was walking down the hallway, the conversation falling away in her wake. She smiled when she spotted Dryce collapsed on her bed, and she couldn’t remember lying down, but his warmth consumed her and she was asleep and safe for the first time in weeks.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Peyton woke alone. She didn’t know when Dryce had slipped out of bed, but it must have been long enough ago that the sheets had lost a good deal of his warmth. She curled up into a ball, trying to banish wakefulness, but now that her mate was no longer by her side and the light streaming in through the windows was assaulting her eyes, she didn’t have much choice in the matter. She threw off the comforter and flipped over to see what time it was. A little quick math, well, slow math given that she was still so groggy, told her she’d been asleep for more than fourteen hours. And now that she realized it, her bladder protested and her stomach grumbled.

  She slid out of bed and took care of the first issue. She still wore the clothes she’d scavenged at the SDA base. The outfit she’d worn on their mission was a lost cause, covered in dirt, debris, space junk, and enough tears that it looked like someone had clawed it. She’d borrowed what she was wearing from Sierra Alvarez, and it didn’t fit exactly right, but last night it had been clean, which was all that Peyton had cared about.

  But now she wanted her own clothes. It was
n’t anything special, just a pair of pajama pants and an old t-shirt she’d bought at the one hockey game she’d ever attended. Not special, but hers. And a sure sign that she wasn’t about to run straight at enemy combatants or try to disable their weapons sight unseen. She’d had enough heroics for one lifetime. She’d leave the rest to the warriors and hope that was good enough.

  When she stepped out of her room, she didn’t see any sign of Ella. Her door was wide open and a glance in her room showed her sister absent. She did hear a masculine curse coming from the kitchen and smiled when she saw Dryce standing in front of the food processor, brow furrowed, as if it were the most confusing thing ever invented.

  Heat curled low in her belly and wiped out all thoughts of hunger.

  Dryce’s shirt hung open, exposing his naked chest. When she entered the kitchen she saw that he had on his pants from last night, though they seemed looser, hanging off his hips like one gentle tug could send them falling to the floor.

  Oh, she was tempted.

  His teal skin gleamed under the kitchen lights and Peyton’s hand reached out to touch before she could wonder if it was a good idea. Why the hell wouldn’t it be? Ella was gone to parts unknown. They had the place to themselves. And Earth wasn’t under imminent threat of destruction. There’d never been a better time.

  Peyton slid her arms around Dryce’s waist and laid her cheek against his back, the muscle warm under his shirt. “Good morning.”

  His hand covered hers and he leaned back enough to acknowledge her touch. “We are a bit past morning.”

  She took a deep breath and inhaled Dryce, all masculine and clean and hers. Her grip tightened and she couldn’t get close enough. She wanted to crawl inside of him and never leave. Or the other way around. It just needed to happen. Now. “I don’t care about the time,” she said, leaving a trail of kisses over one of his shoulders until she found those dark patches of skin that he called clan markings. She couldn’t help herself and nipped at his skin. Dryce startled under her touch, but didn’t pull away. She might have whimpered if he did.