Chapter Two

The Wyoming sun slipped low on the horizon, the mountains forming long winter shadows over the lake area where Kelsey Wells studied the results of the day's geological research. What is my next step? she asked herself, mentally reexamining the data for the umpteenth time. She walked the length of the trail, counting off each of her steps between the scrappy, snow-dusted pines. Somewhere, here in the sedimented layers beneath her feet, had to be the answer to her puzzle, and with it the final touches for her graduate thesis.

She had first come camping here as a teenager with her parents—a few years before her mother's death, and long before her father had dragged them off to live in D.C., the hub of his political consulting universe. Ever since those earliest days, she had felt drawn to the rough-hewn terrain of this particular part of Yellowstone. No matter what she did, or how many varied landscapes she studied as a geologist, images of the Tetons' perfect reflection in the bowl of Mirror Lake beckoned her. They filled her dreams, and haunted the subconscious threads of her waking life with a pervasive sense of melancholy that she could never quite understand.

Then roughly a year ago she'd come camping here with friends from the university. That was when she had noticed a strange pigmentation to the rocks on the lake's eastern shore; and when she'd followed the trail deeper into the woods, more questions had emerged. She'd grown up here in Yellowstone, studying the formations and tar pits and spewing geysers, and those childhood experiences had influenced her studies as a geologist. These days Kelsey spent a great deal of her life staring at the ground—was in fact more attuned to her natural environment than to the buildings in downtown Laramie or to cars or to clothing, or sometimes even to people. So when she found a potential anomaly such as the formations here at Mirror Lake, she couldn't let it go.

"Whoa, Kelsey," came Ethan's familiar voice from down by the lake's shore. "Found something here! Come look." Ethan was her closest friend in the geology department. Although a self-professed science geek like herself, he certainly didn't look the part, not with his wavy blond hair and pale gray eyes and lean snowboarder's physique. The Ethan package was definitely appealing. And she knew he liked her—wanted something more than friendship—but for some inexplicable reason, she couldn't seem to shake the feeling that someone else was waiting for her. Not that she'd found that somebody yet, but she could never give up the nagging hope.

She trotted several yards along the shore and met him partway.

"Look at this." He extended a shiny bit of silvered metal. "What do you make of this sample?"

She drew in a breath of cold mountain air. "That's strange," she agreed, seeing the way it glinted in the late afternoon sun.

"Looks like mica…only not." He scrunched his eyebrows together quizzically.

She finished his thought "But it's denser." Scraping it into her sample bag, she marked the substance unknown and added notations regarding the time and exact location. Ethan bent back over his filter tray, sifting anew.

"You ever hear back on those samples from last month?" he asked.

"Still waiting on the lab results."

Ethan glanced across the lake, shivering as he stared into the setting sun. "We better go soon," he said, pushing closer against her. "Getting cold out here, Kelsey, and it'll be dark before long. Don't you want to go make our campfire?" They'd planned to spend the night, two scientists on a mission, but as the day had worn on she'd noticed that he kept mentioning their tent-sharing with far more enthusiasm than a mere scientific expedition warranted.

"You go ahead," she said, studying the shadowed mountains across the lake. Something in their stark features felt unexpectedly eerie—familiar in a way that had nothing to do with her visits to this lakeside terrain over the past year. The mountains' rugged visage, rising upward toward the setting sun, whispered to her as though in a lost language that she'd once spoken fluently. She shivered, still staring, almost mesmerized.

Ethan waved a hand in front of her eyes; she hadn't even realized that her thoughts had drifted so far away. "Sorry," she said, laughing in embarrassment. "I was just thinking about…." She didn't want to share her unsettling sense of déjà vu with Ethan.

"A boyfriend?" he prompted, his gray eyes narrowing with undisguised possessiveness.

"No." She wanted to spare his feelings, yet she had to be honest. "But Ethan, you and I are only friends. You do know that?"

"Sure, Kelsey," he agreed, his shoulders slumping slightly as he turned up the trail that led into the trees and toward their camp. "Course."

But then, right as he was about to vanish around the bend, he turned back. "You know, Kelse," he said. "Maybe one day you'll get tired of waiting for a guy who doesn't exist and notice the one who's right here in front of you."

He made it sound so easy to stop yearning for a soul mate, she thought as she faced the lake, letting Ethan slip away. She'd had a soul mate once—or so she'd thought. A young intern in her father's political consulting firm. That had been the only time Kelsey had actually let herself become part of the whole D.C. scene. Until one night when she walked in on that so-called soul mate and another of her father's employees, the two of them naked and sweaty and wild in each other's arms.

Kelsey had never looked back. Except to regret giving Jamie Watson the gift of her virginity. That was one gift she would have saved for someone exceptional if only she had known better; even so, she often pretended that it was still her gift to give.

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 lining, and this only made her feel colder—and lonelier. Not only was he a space invader, but Ethan snored too, the loud, staccato kind that sounded like a gunshot nearly every time she managed to drift off to 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, yet tall as a mountain. She whispered his name, a sound that felt 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 shore, 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 anticipating 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 rimming 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 hell. 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 to move. At least for anything she'd ever heard of.

That was when she saw it: a darting brightness just over the water, glowing like a boat's headlight. Squinting, she tried to make out the shape. It seemed to agitate, shooting first in one direction, then another, then back toward the shore 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 found herself unable 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. This might be where he wanted her. Towering large, he loomed closer, and she pressed her eyes shut against his fire. "Tell me what you want," she insisted, inching backward on the ground, trying to put more physical distance between the two of them.

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 he communicating with her?

A stillness resounded in the center of her being, bringing peace with it. Suddenly she knew then that he wouldn't hurt her—she was certain. He couldn't possibly hurt her, not him. Not ever.

Then, before her very eyes, his form began to change, drawing inward as it shimmered into the slowly solidifying shape of a man. When his transformation finished, before her huddled a beautiful, black-haired male, 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 was dressed like a soldier, and he was obviously making calculations as he searched her face: Could she be trusted? Should he reveal more of himself? As he studied her, though, the wariness in his expression vanished, replaced instead by a flicker of deep recognition. She shivered, and not just because she felt that this stranger knew her—but rather because she had the sense that he'd always known her.

But then his labored breathing grew more extreme, his eyes rolling back briefly into his head. 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 crouched unsteadily.

"Kelsey." He gasped hoarsely. "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. Unsurpassed 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, gashed nearly to the bone, dangled useless at his side.

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

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

"Please." Desperate to understand him, she drew closer to the man. "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 irrational 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 him was the only way.

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

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

Because…could hurt you.

"No," she answered on instinct. "I don't believe you would ever hurt me."

In reply, he released a panting sound, his energy visibly dimming in reaction.

Heart pounding, Kelsey took a step closer, ignoring his warnings. "Who's after you?" She searched across the waters. "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, unobtrusive, tender, apologetic.

Nothing in her twenty-eight years had come close to the sensations she experienced instantly. She sensed him moving within her, felt her chest tighten, her whole body trembling. 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 was speaking inside 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. God, he'd set her on fire, teasing her toward an unseen edge. Like some erotic torturer, he kept setting her ablaze, even as he demanded her silence.

Danger here, he cautioned hoarsely; then all the heat and intensity of his touch flamed cold. Done. As quickly as he'd begun doing 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 shore, 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 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 right now."

"Sir, we'll work on you this way," one of the medics assured him, but Jared was no fool—he knew that his natural form was all but impossible to treat. The sooner he could shift, the sooner they would be able to 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, Jared gave his assent, 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. Gods, 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 hell were they?"

"Our buddies from over at Warren."

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

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 call Mirror Lake crucial to their revolution was an understatement so drastic it would have sounded absurd. They had hid the best of their technology 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 stopped and faced Jared with a resolute expression. "And so they know," he said in a hushed voice. "We deal with it."

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 warrior's life had begun to take their toll lately—and on his weathered body. At thirty years old, Jared 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—assaulted him. He had 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 assumed. The medics had healed him, but he would always bear the hidden scars, just as he did all the others he'd accrued over the years of warfare.

"There was a woman," he answered, ignoring Scott's original question. "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 amusement, 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 when they formed their connection last night. Ached for more of what he'd glimpsed inside of her: 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 shore last night."

"You what?" his captain roared, practically knocking his chair over as he leaped leapt to his feet. "I'm praying I didn't hear that right the first time."

"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 bellowed. "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 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. The humans 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?" Scott asked in a cautious voice. "The codes?"

"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. Well, not in any way she could have understood, at least. There'd been a moment, one when he should have turned away, but she'd been so…open. So eager.

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

Jared shot out a hand, clasping Scott by the forearm with swift force. "No," he said in a still voice. "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 sank into the pillows. "And so is she."

"She?" Scott sniffed the air in disdain. "You're worried for the human's safety?"

"Yes because that human might have saved my life last night," Jared answered. "And right now, she's the only one protecting the mitres. For that, I owe her everything. We all do."