Sleep came in fitful bouts for the first few hours. Ethan squished up against her back like a nylon caterpillar, and she continually edged away until her nose pressed against the tent surface, leaving her cold and lonely. Not only was he a s.p.a.ce invader, but Ethan snored too, the loud, staccato kind that sounded like a gunshot nearly every time she managed to drift into sleep.

Still, dreams pressed closer, and so did images of the. woods around them; of her running through them in a white gossamer gown, bright as fairy wings. And of a man too, following her, chasing after her. When she spun to face him, he glowed like her gown-bright, magical, tall as a mountain. She whispered his name, something foreign and strange; then he reached to touch her cheek, his fingers burning her face.

She woke in a cold sweat, shivering and fevered all at once. Lifting a hand to her face, she realized that it felt warm, as though from someone's touch. As if the forest man had truly chased her in her dreams, blessing her with kisses and that strange name of his.

Maybe it was the dream that beckoned her. Or maybe it was her curiosity about the night sky over Mirror Lake. Whatever called her, Kelsey dressed and drifted out of the tent, ignoring the mist that folded over the midnight darkness. Drawn down to the sh.o.r.e, she stared up at the clear sky overhead, a dazzling tapestry of lights. Moments like this made her wish she'd studied astronomy instead of geology. Beneath the full moon, the landscape gleamed, the snow-encrusted mountains jutting skyward like crystals.

Plopping onto the frozen earth, Kelsey huddled, her warm breath clouding in front of her face. Expectant. That was what she felt, blowing into her cupped hands to warm herself. Something about that dream had moved her, she realized, left her antic.i.p.ating the extraordinary.

Drawing her knees close to her chest, she watched the sky. The Leonids were visible right now, as they always were in mid-November. Maybe she'd catch a glimpse of a dusty-tailed meteor shower, she thought with a smile.

And that was when she heard the blast-a loud, explosive sound that she thought might have been a sonic boom, and yet she knew it had to be something much greater. After the initial thunderclap, what looked like jets shot over the mountains r.i.m.m.i.n.g the lake's other side. Strange jets, she thought, rising to her feet. Maybe stealth fighters? Black and ominous in shape, barely visible in the night sky, they blasted across the water like a pair of twin phantoms from h.e.l.l. Then they were gone, leaving a cacophonous trail in their wake, a litany of thunderclaps that still echoed off the silent landscape.

Did the fighter jets cause the explosion? she wondered, studying the mountains again. The park was a no-fly zone, but maybe the government was testing some new equipment out here in this remote area. They'd been known to do that, and it wouldn't surprise her. Still, the suddenness of it-and at nearly midnight-didn't quite add up. Besides, those jets had been moving faster than it was possible for anything she'd ever heard of to move.

That was when she saw it: a darting light just over the water, glowing like a boat's headlights. Squinting, she tried to make out the shape. It seemed to agitate, shooting first in one direction, then another, then back toward the sh.o.r.e where she stood.

And then the shape intensified, looming large as it made unexpected landfall, and she found herself face-to-face with a blazing wall of energy. No, she realized, not energy: a being of sorts. She gasped, staring up at him-and everything within her understood that this being was most definitely masculine. She thought of Ethan, asleep back in the tent, and hoped he'd heard something, that maybe he could help her. Save her. Stumbling backward, she tried to cry out, but was too terrified to form any words.

Still, she heard in her mind, like a distant whisper. Be still. In immediate response, her breathing came under control. She had to get to Ethan. But that thought fled her mind as the being moved closer, and she felt his energy burn low within her, like molten lava, something ancient and primal and foreign and innocent all at once. No face, no arms, no body. Only the lovely golden fire of him.

"Who are you?" She gasped. In response he retreated, the wall becoming more compact and intense. Less open. "I won't hurt you," she promised softly, terrified, but somehow desperate to keep him there all the same.

He released a quiet reverberating noise in reply, one that she wasn't sure how to interpret. "I-I don't..." She hesitated, aware that breathing had become nearly impossible. "I don't understand what you're saying." When his rumbling grew louder, more forceful, she began to back away, twisting her ankle on a rock behind her. Falling backward, she stared up at him.

He had her cornered. It might be where he wanted her. Towering large, he loomed closer, and she pressed her eyes shut.

The warm sensation in her abdomen intensified, spreading through her legs, her arms, all the way up into her chest. Tentatively, she opened one eye. Was this his way of communicating with her?

A stillness resounded in the center of her being, bringing peace with it. She knew then that he wouldn't hurt her- she was certain. He couldn't possibly hurt her.

"Tell me what you want," she insisted, inching backward on the ground, trying to put more physical distance between the two of them.

Then, before her very eyes, his form began to change, drawing inward as it shimmered into the slowly solidifying image of a man. When his transformation finished, before her huddled a beautiful, black-haired man, staring back at her with dark eyes, wide-set and soulful, accentuated by high cheekbones.

Each gaped at the other for what seemed endless moments, Kelsey fearing even to blink. Her stranger wore all black-some kind of uniform-with a thick bulletproof vest. He dressed like a soldier, and as he searched her face, he obviously made calculations. Could she be trusted? Should he reveal more of himself? As he studied her, though, the wariness in his expression vanished, replaced instead by the flicker of deep recognition. She shivered, and not just because she had the sense that this stranger knew her-but rather because she felt he'd always known her.

But then his labored breathing grew more extreme, his eyes rolling back briefly into his head. Something was wrong with the man: Blood seeped from a huge gash across his brow. Lifting a hand, he touched the wound, then stared down at sticky red blood on his fingertips.

"I don't believe it," he half whispered, shaking his head. He seemed stunned, confused, but also very aware of his predicament.

"You don't believe what?" she cried, her eyes growing wide with a mixture of confusion and fear. Her words seemed to weaken him, and he bent lower, scrabbling at the earth with his open hand.

"Kelsey." He gasped hoa.r.s.ely. "I won't... hurt you."

"No, see, how do you know my name?" she demanded, struggling to breathe as she rose to her feet. At least she could gain the physical advantage that way. "There's no way you can know my name."

The dark eyes opened, lifting to meet her own, and she saw kindness there. Unsurpa.s.sed strength. "You are Kelsey Wells," he answered, reaching a hand to his shoulder. That was when she saw the deep wound there-his left arm was nearly severed from his body, and dangled, useless, at his side.

"What happened to you?" she asked, stepping closer despite her self-protective instincts. "You're really hurt. Badly."

Her a.s.sessment seemed to steal some of his life force, and he almost collapsed, but caught his hand on the ground between them. "Too weak," he whispered. "Too weak. Can't hold form." Then suddenly the man vanished, replaced by the bright wall of energy. Only this time the glow seemed to have faded somewhat. Was he dying?

"Please," she said, drawing closer, wanting, oddly enough, to rea.s.sure the stranger. "Tell me who you are. What you are. I want to help."

Not safe. The words sounded within her mind. Glancing around them, she shivered.

"No, no," she insisted, lifting a hand to shield her eyes against his brightness. "You are safe with me."

Was he afraid of her? He didn't seem afraid, but as she opened her hands, he withdrew sharply. No! she heard him say, clear as a thunderclap within her mind. No, not touch!

"Okay," she agreed, taking a tentative step closer, until she stood almost at the. water's frigid edge. "Okay, I won't touch you."

Never touch.

Still, she did want to touch him, burned to do it, as irra-tional as that thought was. She ached for more of his heat, for more of the fire he had unleashed deep inside of her body, and it seemed that touching was the only way to have more of him.

As if reading her thoughts, he again warned, Never touch me. Still, he edged cautiously closer.

A strange wave of defiance overcame her. "Why not?" she asked, tilting her face toward his brightness, forcing her eyes open.

Because... could hurt you.

"No," she said, answering on instinct, shaking her head. "I don't believe you would ever hurt me." How can I know that? She wasn't sure, but the certainty settled as a firm, substantial peace inside of her heart.

In reply, he released a panting sound, a rattled gasp for breath, his energy visibly dimming in reaction.

Heart pounding, Kelsey took a step closer, ignoring his warnings. "Who's after you?" she asked, searching across the water. "Please. Maybe I can help."

Silence, gasps, desperate breathing. Then, Yes. That was the last thing she heard before she felt him enter her. Felt him, like a fanning breeze across her skin, un.o.btrusive, tender, apologetic.

Nothing in her twenty-eight years had come close to the sensations she instantly experienced. She sensed him move quickly within her, felt her chest tighten, her whole body tremble. Like burning fingers, he caressed all the way into her very core. "Amazing," she whispered, wondering how he maintained a distance of at least four feet yet seemed somehow to enter her body simultaneously. But then, he spoke within her mind, so why should this surprise her?

Touching her abdomen, she felt his fire build there, and she cried out in response, sliding to the ground. "Please," she moaned, lying back on the earth, feeling him everywhere. G.o.d, he'd set her on fire, teasing her toward an unseen edge. Like some erotic torturer, he kept setting her ablaze, but he begged for her silence.

Danger here, he cautioned hoa.r.s.ely; then all the heat and intensity of his touch flamed cold. Done. He'd finished with her. As quickly as he'd begun something she might dream about until the end of her days, he had withdrawn himself from inside of her.

Staggering to her feet, she reached toward him, but he spun from her, diminishing to the smallest of radiant lights: From above she heard a quiet whirring sound, and as her gaze lifted, she glimpsed a large cloaked craft almost visible against the dark night sky. It came so stealthily, so imperceptibly, she would never have spotted the thing if not for the dull humming sound that accompanied it.

And then, just like that, he soared out of sight, swallowed into the belly of the craft. The ship lifted, leaving her on the sh.o.r.e, and she raised her arms, still trying to reach him. He'd been inside of her, touched a yearning place where no other man had ever been-yet he'd never once allowed her to touch him in return.

"Please, sir!" came a shout.

"Out of the way!" thundered another, a voice Jared recognized as one of the medics'. A group of them knotted around where he'd collapsed on the transport floor, carefully maintaining a safe perimeter apart from him. His energy ebbed low and cool-a fact that had to be obvious to every one of the soldiers on the cruiser.

Scott Dillon's worried face appeared in his line of sight. "Jared, what happened?" his best friend demanded, kneeling low beside him.

But he didn't even possess the strength to reply. Refarian words flew about the deck, panicked cries for their fallen leader, but he hardly heard them, the pain had become so overpowering.

Yet in his delirium he remembered the girl. A human girl, maybe a woman, though younger than he. How could she not have been frightened? She had no idea who or what he was, but had opened herself completely. Uncharacteristic for a human, he thought, but not uncharacteristic for her. He absolutely knew it to be an essential part of her nature-but how? His thoughts were too confused by his injuries. Focusing his energy inward, he fought to shift back into material form.

"No, Jared," Scott urged. "Stay like you are. You're too weak to shift."

"Sir, we'll work on you this way," one of the medics a.s.sured him, but Jared was no fool-he knew that his natu-ral form was all but impossible to treat. The sooner he could shift, the sooner they'd save him.

"Have to," he murmured weakly. "Have to change."

"If you change," Scott explained in a fierce voice, "it might kill you, Jared. Don't. Let them work on you first."

Even after so many battles and firelights, their leader's safety was sacred to these soldiers, and a hush fell over every last one of them. Finally, he sighed his a.s.sent, still thinking of the human on the earth below them. She'd offered to help, and he'd accepted-but in doing so, he'd seen things inside of her that even she had no idea were there. Things he doubted he'd forget anytime soon.

On the periphery of his mind, Jared sensed the vanishing darkness below-and sensed her there, innocent arms still outstretched. G.o.ds, he marveled, feeling consciousness ebb, the human wanted to touch me. More than life itself, it was what she'd wanted, and she'd hardly been afraid, even though she had many reasons to be. That kind of bravery was rare in any species.

And he'd wanted to touch her back; even injured and close to dying, he'd been more than aware of that fact. So alien, so incompatible with him in every possible way, but he'd wanted every touch that she offered him.

"Next time you do that," Scott swore, pacing the length of Jared's bedroom, "I'm out of here. Or I'll kill you myself, and take the Antousians' bounty as a bonus."

"Those weren't Antousians," Jared said, closing his eyes. The cool pillow against his cheek was a welcome relief both from the excruciating physical pain and from his best friend's tirade.

"Then who the h.e.l.l were they?"

"Our buddies from over at Warren."

Scott paused at the foot of Jared's bed, surprised. "Air force?"

Jared rubbed a weary hand across his burning eyes. "They caught me flying out of Mirror Lake."

"They don't know about that site," Scott argued. "Never have."

"Apparently"-Jared sighed, thinking of the hotshot pilots who had missile-locked him last night-"they do now."

Neither spoke for several moments as the serious implications of last night's events became clear. To say that Mirror Lake was crucial to their revolution would be a drastic understatement. The best of their technology had remained hidden there for at least two centuries. Protecting the mitres ranked above life itself for every last one of them fighting in this war.

At the foot of the bed Scott paced, hands behind his back, deep in thought. Finally, he said in a hushed voice, "And so they know."

Jared nodded, blistering pain shooting through his shoulder. Scott noticed him flinching as he sat up in bed. "You had no business going out on that mission, sir."

Jared hesitated, not wanting to offend his second in command. "There was no one else I'd have given the job to."

Scott's face flushed hot. "Oh, really now?"

"I couldn't risk your life," Jared continued, telling the truth. "I was the one."

Scott's tense voice softened. "And if you'd died out there last night?"

"You're more than capable of leading, Scott," Jared answered, feeling older than he had in a long time. The constant warfare and uncertainty of his life as leader of their rebellion had begun to take their toll on him-and on his weathered body. At thirty years old, he yearned for rest, for a peace he'd not been born into. By his tenth birthday he'd been a reluctant leader, and by his eighteenth, a fearsome warrior. Lately, though, all the years of fighting had begun to wear him down.

"Last night was"-Jared hesitated, thinking of how easily the air force jets had overtaken him-"a mistake. It won't happen again." He'd been growing careless lately, and even if Scott wouldn't say as much, he knew it was true.

Pulling a chair up beside the bed, Scott straddled it. "Tell me what went down out there."

Pressing his eyes shut, Jared willed the blinding headache to subside. Images of being shot down-his craft rolling and pitching beneath him, the black earth rising quickly- a.s.saulted him. He'd shifted then and there, before his physical form grew too traumatized, but not before a jagged piece of the craft's torn hull had slammed him hard in the face. Not before the same piece had managed to tear through his shoulder. And those wounds had repercussions on his most basic molecular level, no matter what form he a.s.sumed. The medics had healed him, but he would always bear the hidden scars, just as he did all the others.

"There was a woman," he answered, ignoring Scott's original question. "Kelsey Wells. Her name is Kelsey Wells. She lives in Laramie. She's a student there. I want more information."

Scott studied him as he might an Antousian wellabung: one part interest, one part amus.e.m.e.nt, many parts disgust. But he would never challenge his leader. "Okay," he answered simply.

"She's critical to us now," Jared continued, even though he knew it was only partially true. They needed her, yes, but Jared's personal interests ran deep as well. Far too human for you, far too unaware of this war, his inner voice cautioned, even as another part of himself-the lonely warrior-ached for what he had felt as they formed a connection last night. For all that he'd glimpsed inside the rare woman, her strength, her beauty, her tenaciousness.

Scott drew his chair closer beside the bed. "Why?"

"I had to do it," Jared confessed, staring at the pine ceiling overhead. "I had no other choice."

"I'm not getting this, Jared.""I bonded with her," he admitted softly, closing his eyes. "There on the sh.o.r.e last night.""You what?" his captain roared."I had no choice," Jared repeated, fighting the headache that swelled behind his eyes."No choice but to form a bond with an alien, sir?" Scott cried. "In a war zone?""I had dismantled the codes from the mitres," he explained, and Scott's eyes widened, bright as lasers, the seriousness of the situation fully coming clear. They'd been working on the codes for at least two years. "They nearly captured me," Jared continued. "It's never been so close. They had me, but I think they knew the woman was there. I know they'll be back, looking for me. They might even question her."

"So she has them now? The codes?" Scott asked in a cautious voice.

"All of them, yes." Jared felt terrible guilt well within him. What a thing he'd done to her, and he'd never even asked her permission.

"Then d.a.m.n straight we need to locate her," Scott thundered. "Because I'm getting that data back."

Jared reached out a hand, clasping Scott by the forearm. "No," he commanded. "You will not. It stays

inside the woman for now."Scott's dark eyes narrowed, gleaming with an almost supernatural energy. "Why?""Because it's safer that way," Jared explained, leaning back into the pillows, "and so is she.""She?" Scott sniffed the air in disdain. "You're worried for the human's safety?""She might have saved my life last night," he said. "And right now, she's the only one protecting the mitres. For that, I owe her everything. We all do."

Chapter Three.

Kelsey slid several geological samples across Dr. Carrington's desk. "They're from Mirror Lake," she explained. "I need to know if there's anything unusual about them."

Carrington's warm eyes fixed on her. Kelsey was his star student in the graduate geology program, and he almost always took her seriously, but today she glimpsed doubt in his weathered face. "Kelsey, I'm not saying I don't believe you-" he began, but she cut him off.

"I did see something there."

"Even if you did," he continued, "what makes you think you'll find sedimentary proof?"

She thought of trying to explain her hunch, as outlandish as it would seem-but decided against it. "Could we just send this most recent batch in for testing?" she tried again, her voice filled with undisguised frustration. "Then maybe you'll come out there with me."

He nodded. "What if you do find something, Kelsey?" he asked. "What then?"

Recalling the stranger by the lake-the way he'd affected her-she could only shake her head. "I'm not sure what I'll do," she said. "But I have to know who he was."