Asher Read online

  There was no time to consider his options. The humans had discovered the enemy flyer. A UFO they’d undoubtedly want to conceal from civilians. He’d seen enough documentaries to know the leaders of this world preferred to keep its people in the dark about such things.

  But it wouldn’t be long before they discovered him too, discovered that he wasn’t a bug-eyed alien with an extra-large head, but something almost identical to their own kind when in his primary form. The only difference being that he was a man who voluntarily—and often involuntarily—shifted into dragon form.

  There’d be more than fighter jets, he was sure, just as there’d be Earthling soldiers and scientists coming to search the area for clues.

  A low-pitched drone noise overhead drew his eyes back to the sky. Bigger planes moved through the sky, ejecting objects beneath them. When parachutes opened and drifted lazily to the ground, he wasn’t fooled for one minute. Paratroopers. Seemed the bigwigs on Earth really were more than aware of their arrival.

  The soldiers would soon be swarming around what was left of his craft’s crash site. And he was way too close for comfort! He jumped high, landing on a boulder to scope out his surroundings.

  A bullet whistled past. Shit. He crouched, his nostrils flaring. It was all too apparent there weren’t just the paratroopers to worry about. In his current form he had more than his alien enemy to evade.

  Another bullet hit a rock beside him before yet another struck him in the chest. For a moment he felt only numbness. Then he had to resist bellowing as red-hot burn zigzagged through his body like acid eating him from the inside out.

  But he could deal with pain. What worried him most was the blood gushing from his wound. Not even a dragon could survive blood loss.

  His wings lifted involuntarily and he forced them back to his sides. Flight would be suicide. He’d have to stay grounded and change to his primary form the moment he was out of the humans range.

  He turned and ran, heading north-west. Not because it was away from much of Earth’s population. Something compelled him to go that way, an instinct he couldn’t ignore. He’d learned long ago to trust his instincts if he wanted to survive.

  Chapter Two

  What the hell?

  Marissa Kincaid froze at the subsonic boom rattling the house. Her muscles as quickly unlocked and she dropped the sudsy bowl back into the sink to peer out the kitchen window.

  Her eyes widened. What the hell?

  She raced out onto her veranda. Pushing her bright red hair out of her vision, she blinked up at the cloudless, late afternoon sky. Her eyes were surely playing tricks on her. A flash of something huge streaked into the distance, with half a dozen fighter jets giving chase.

  The frightened squeal of her old gray mare brought her back to earth. Winnie galloped around the round yard, hooves flashing as she kicked and bucked, ears flat to her head.

  Marissa headed toward the horse. “Settle down, Winnie,” she crooned, though her throat was drier than sawdust. “Whatever we saw is long gone now.”

  Bad enough she’d seen what looked like a UFO. In her three years of living in this house, she’d never once seen or heard fighter jets in the area.

  She climbed the lower railing of the round yard, frowning even as she stroked Winnie’s nose. “Easy now.” But the whites of the mare’s eyes showed, her pink nostrils flaring. “Nothing to be spooked about anymore. This isn’t like you at all.”

  Winnie was a twenty-three year old plodder enjoying retirement.

  Not that she blamed the mare for working herself into a sweat. Whatever had shot across the sky had been scary and mind-boggling. Things like this didn’t happen in the backwater community of Chelderwood, inland Australia. In fact, nothing much at all happened out here except heat and even more relentless heat. She only hoped she’d sleep tonight!

  Satisfied Winnie had calmed, she headed back to her small, two bedroom fibro home. The veranda creaked underfoot and the screen door slammed shut behind her as she swiped her brow that was already damp with sweat.

  At least the gum tree at the back of the house screened off the worst of the summer’s relentless heat. A pity that same tree also dropped its leaves. It was a constant struggle cleaning out the blocked gutters so that when rare rainwater fell, it flowed freely into her single water tank.

  Of course when she and her fiancée, Luke, had bought the rundown property three years ago they’d had big plans, which included installing more tanks. They’d even talked of extending the house to make more bedrooms for their future children.

  She pressed a hand to her flat stomach, ignoring her blurred vision and an all too familiar ache in her chest. “Why’d you go and die on me Luke?” she croaked, giving into emotions she rarely indulged. How often had she wished for him back? Yearned for the man she’d fallen in love with at the tender age of eighteen, the same man who’d, three months later, taken her away from her controlling and manipulative father.

  Luke would have been fascinated by the UFO and possibly more so by the fighter jets giving chase. He would have discussed the incident with her for hours, a hundred different conspiracy theories puzzled over while imagining what it meant for the human race.

  She curled her hands over the rim of the kitchen sink. She was a fool to yearn for Luke almost a year since he’d passed away. Life went on long after loved ones died. Never mind that her heart had died right along with her fiancée. Never mind that a handful of days ago she’d turned twenty-two but felt so much older.

  But then she should be used to people dying on her. Her mother had taken her own life when Marissa was barely sixteen. Her hands tightened on the sink. At least Luke hadn’t deliberately died; he’d wanted to live and to stay with her.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, before releasing her grip to finish washing her bowl and place it beside her spoon and saucepan she’d used to heat up her can of asparagus soup. She’d skipped breakfast to have a half-decent lunch. Her money was drying up as fast as the land and she ate frugally and spent even less on food.

  She sighed. Soon she’d have no choice but to sell a few more cows from her dwindling cattle herd. She couldn’t continue hoping for summer rains that never seemed to come. But lately hope was all that kept her going.

  Pivoting away from the sink, she reflexively twisted the engagement ring on her finger. If she kept on losing weight the damn thing would fall off. The jewelry was her one solid memory, her one comfort when her solitary existence felt like a curse instead of a relief.

  She didn’t want to be around other people, didn’t want to see those couples who might remind her of the wonderful life she should have had with Luke. She frowned. Didn’t want to let her father think he’d won.

  She’d go without a lot—had been without a lot—so as not to lose her farm. Losing the small eighty-five acre property meant losing her independence, and all her brief, but happy memories.

  No. She wouldn’t slink back to her father and the life he expected of her. She wouldn’t lower herself by accepting all the wealth and privilege imaginable in exchange for him owning her soul.

  Being a Kincaid didn’t make her a puppet to be controlled in every aspect of her life. She might be broke and working herself to the bone, but at least she was free. At least she got to make her own decisions.

  Winnie’s high-pitched neigh dragged Marissa from her introspection. With a frown she walked back onto the veranda, watching as the mare galloped around her yard, kicking up even more fuss. Marissa checked the bright azure sky, relieved this once to see nothing but a couple of fluffy clouds.

  She then searched the parched green-brown of her property, with its withered eucalyptus trees and ragged fence line before her stare reflexively scanned the national park that neighbored her property. It was dazzling green in contrast, untouched by livestock and nurtured by rains that rarely pattered on her thirsty soil.

  She expelled a weary breath, her stare returning to her barren land. It would be a good idea to check the catt
le in the far-off paddock that adjoined Winnie’s. She’d make sure the Brahmans hadn’t been spooked by all the commotion.

  She turned to head back inside and grab the jeep keys. Opening the screen door, she froze. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, a rash of goose bumps flaring up her arms. She pivoted slowly, clapping a hand over her strangled scream.

  An enormous black winged creature staggered toward her before sprawling onto its side not even ten yards from Winnie’s round yard. Blood streamed from its chest, a huge wing outstretching as though reaching out to her. Her mind screamed run but she couldn’t move. Not even with the scent of sulfur permeating the air.

  She swallowed disbelief, caught in a web of shock as the creature groaned even as its muscles contracted. Its skin shivered and moved, its bones grating and grinding as they seemingly stretched and then sickeningly snapped. Her eyes widened. Holy shit! It was altering and changing into something else.

  The creature convulsed and appeared to lose consciousness. Its skin rippled and shrank, its jaw retracting along with its tail. Its body twisted and then shuddered, every single one of its cells altering in front of her eyes before it was suddenly nothing like the creature she’d seen.

  An unmoving, flesh-and-blood man now lay on the ground in his own blood, a man almost too big to be human.

  Of course he’s not human; no one on Earth can shift shape.

  “What the hell is going on?” she whispered.

  Even as she said it she knew he must belong to the alien craft she’d seen earlier.

  Either way, she’d never abandoned a person or animal in pain and she wasn’t about to start now. She ran to him even as doubts crowded in her head. He was an unknown entity, a man who could be dangerous, who could kill her the moment she’d tended to his wounds.

  She’d take the chance, she wasn’t about to let him bleed out because she was worried about her own skin. He could as easily be friend as foe. Alien or not, she wasn’t going to stand back and let him suffer.

  She sank to the ground and felt his wrist for a pulse. Shit. His skin was burning hot, and yet his pulse thudded with a strength that belied any fever.

  He groaned, and she released his arm as he came to and tried to push himself off the ground. A fresh round of blood gushed from his wound, and she winced at seeing all the red even as she ignored the rather too impressive part that made him male ... that made her mouth go dry and her lungs constrict.

  She focused on his chest wound. It appeared to be made by a bullet, which didn’t surprise her one bit. She didn’t trust those on Earth who’d been put in a position of power. No, she’d put more faith in the unknown than she would in her own corrupt people.

  Winnie nickered and she glanced at the mare that seemed calm now the creature was a man. Marissa was comforted by that fact. She trusted animals and their instincts, trusted they knew good from bad.

  He isn’t a man though, remember? He’s something else.

  He groaned again, and she dragged off her long-sleeved cotton shirt and pressed the material to his chest to stem the blood. His eyes fluttered fully open and her belly did a slow somersault. His stare was the deepest amber brown she’d ever seen, with flecks of yellow like autumn in a forest.

  But even under his pain she recognized his sharp intelligence, along with something far more intense.

  She resisted folding her arms across her chest, as much to cover her faded old bra as she did her breasts. She needn’t have worried, he was too busy staring at her bright red hair. She shivered, but not with fear. Desire pulsed through her veins too. She was inexplicably drawn to him, her instincts clamoring to help him.

  “Thank you,” he managed, his voice beautifully modulated and strangely accented. She could fall into his voice as easily as she could his eyes.

  She didn’t move for a moment, not until she heard someone’s not so distant shout. She frowned and the injured man looked up at her and said hoarsely, “Your people are looking for me.”

  Her frown deepened. So he was an alien. Somehow the news didn’t disturb her like it probably should. “What did you do?”

  “I escaped my enemy and crash landed on your world. But it seems your people don’t want me here.”

  She nodded. Somehow she believed him. In fact an intrinsic part of her recognized he was telling the truth, and that he was a man of honor. Lord only knew she’d lived long enough in a ‘privileged’ world where men and women were well versed in the art of lying. “C’mon, let’s get you into my shed and out of sight.”

  His eyes seemed to glow with an inner light, as though burning embers. “You’d protect me?”

  Chapter Three

  Marissa nodded, somehow aware this man was used to shielding others, not the other way around. He was built like a warrior, so she had no trouble believing he’d act the part. “I don’t believe in letting people hurt those who’ve done no wrong.”

  He inhaled deeply, before he pushed to his feet. The strain on his face was clear, blood loss making him weak enough to sway. She put an arm around him, her head fitting easily under his shoulder.

  She swallowed at the sheer size of him—all over—and focused instead on his warm skin and his dark, exotic scent she couldn’t quite define.

  “If I fall don’t try to right me. I would not like to hurt you.”

  “I’m stronger than I look.” She might only be just shy of five-four, but she’d learned to survive hardship, both in this unforgiving country and when she’d lived in luxury with her father.

  He nodded. “You are a remarkable woman.”

  She smiled, flattered despite herself. “And you are one giant of a man.”

  He shuffled toward the shed, one of his strides almost two of hers. “My people are built big to accommodate our inner dragon.”

  A dragon, of course. She’d seen the proof but her brain hadn’t been able to compute that kind of logic.

  “So you’re a shape shifter.” She didn’t try and stop the awe in her voice, not when her mind spun at the very idea. “Are you able to change into anything else?”

  He shook his head. “Dragon is my only secondary form. As it is for all Riddich people.”

  Not that one needed any other form when a dragon was at their disposal. Shit. How did one accept such a possibility when in her world it simply wasn’t possible? Except this man wasn’t from her world. In his world there were undoubtedly a thousand-and-one things that wouldn’t seem logical for someone on Earth.

  Another shout sounded, much closer this time. The sound came from just past the far fence line of her property where the rainforest ceded to her parched farmland. She guided the alien toward her dwindling stacks of hay. There were enough loosened bales on the floor to conceal him. “Lie down and pull this hay over yourself.”

  He did as she asked, and she helped to conceal him. “Don’t move,” she instructed softly.

  She grabbed the nearby rake and returned outside to rake over any suggestion of alien blood and the large footprints imprinted in the dust. Racing back inside her house, she dragged on a t-shirt and stepped back onto her verandah as a line of soldiers emerged from the trees and climbed carefully through her barbed-wire fence.

  She sucked in a steadying breath and smoothed her hair from her warm face. “Here goes nothing.”

  Waving to get their attention, she waited for their approach before asking in a breathless, excited voice, “If you’re looking for a big, black creature, I saw it here not even an hour ago.”

  The field officer in his distinct patterned camouflage uniform, did his best not to let his contempt shine through. “Are you certain that’s what you really saw, ma’am?”

  She hid a grimace. She’d dealt with bigger assholes, most notably her father. But she’d act the naïve, country bumpkin in distress if that was what he expected from her. She’d do anything to keep him from probing further. “Yes. It was huge.” She threw a hand toward her now placid mare. “Scared my horse near to death!”

  �
��Where’d it go?”

  “It rose into the air with great big wings and headed that way.” She pointed vaguely south. “I don’t remember much after that. I ... I think I might have passed out.”

  The officer frowned. “You’re sure?”

  No, I’m just some silly country woman who faints at the drop of the hat, asshole.

  He clearly didn’t realize country women had no choice but to be tough and face things head-on. But she reined in her impulse for sarcasm and instead put a fluttering hand to her mouth. “I’m honestly not certain anymore ... it just ... it seemed so real.” Her hand moved to her brow, playing it up for all she was worth. “I wasn’t imagining things, was I?”

  His cold smile was meant to reassure. “I can’t say for sure, ma’am. But I’d suggest you have a lie down and forget all about what you think you saw.”

  His veiled threat was far more believable than his pretense at caring, and she swallowed back a lump of fear and forced a simpering smile. “Well I sure am grateful for you and your people looking out for us country folk.”

  The officer nodded. “We protect our own.”

  He turned away then and spoke rapidly into his two-way radio, before he barked out orders to his men. Marissa resisted calling out good riddance before she walked back inside her house.

  Once the officer realized there was no sign of her dragon friend, they’d return. Her mouth dried as she entered her bedroom and pulled out a large box from under her bed.

  Taking a deep breath, she riffled through her fiancé’s clothes, looking for anything that might fit the huge man in her shed. She hadn’t touched Luke’s clothes since the night she’d folded them all away ... the night of his funeral.

  She swallowed past a lump of grief sitting low in her throat. She didn’t have time for that too familiar emotion. Another man’s life might well be at stake. She held up a pair of pants. They were too short in the legs and too narrow in the waist. Her fiancé might have been tall, but he hadn’t been that tall or muscular.