Chapter One

The woman wrapped in his arms was a stranger, just another human he'd sniffed out at a local bar; together they'd ridden in silence to this small motel. The room key was scuffed, with a numbered tag attached, and as he inserted it into the flimsy lock, his hand shook.

She leaned into him, laughing huskily. "Give it to me."

"Got it," he mumbled under his breath as she made an unsuccessful play for the key clutched within his hand. She was tipsier than he was; after all, he'd spent too many nights prowling for women and drinking not to hold his liquor well. More than that, the woman could barely see. She wore eyeglasses with lenses thicker than the ice coating on his car windshield, and she'd stumbled several times on unseen slick patches in the parking lot. She was so loose in her steps, actually, that he'd had to steady her, an excellent excuse for pushing up behind her much smaller and extremely feminine body. A maneuver he planned to repeat again once inside the privacy of their room.

Together they burst through the door, fumbling and grabbing at each other's bodies wordlessly. She was just a wisp of a thing, so small that it was easy to drive her up against the papered wall and pin her there. She wrapped both her surprisingly strong legs about his waist in a V shape, locking him within the warmth of her muscular thighs.

Damn those tight jeans of hers, he cursed, struggling to unzip them as he kept her suspended between his body and the motel room wall.

To the right of her, his gaze landed on a framed photograph of a cowboy out on some lonesome stretch of road, just another slice of this Wild West life. In his own strange way, the universe had plunked him here in Jackson, Wyoming, as one of the very last of the true cowboys—a nomad, a wanderer without a real home anymore. That he wasn't American, much less human … hell, that hardly mattered in these parts.

With his mouth he took her, not bothering with gentleness. From the first moment he'd spotted this one across the bar he'd been unable to control his lust for her. And now that they were alone, he was a true goner. His basest urges, the wildest ones that compelled him to mate with human women, came gasping their way to the fore, as he palmed first one breast, then the other through her cashmere turtleneck.

She thrust her tongue inside his mouth, tasting of bourbon and salty peanuts. So sweet. So perfect. He deepened their kiss, flicking his tongue against hers, warring for domination in a battle he was doomed to lose. She had him completely already—more than any of the other human women he'd brought to this same dingy, drafty motel so many times before.

Breaking apart from her kiss, he slid both hands beneath her bottom, cupping her and pushing her back against the wall even harder. She weighed so little, it was easy to wedge her there; her thighs tightened their locking hold about his hips as she settled into the ride. Her hands closed about his lower back, grasping hard, pulling his shirt free from his jeans until her sweaty palms met his even sweatier skin.

"What's your name?" he whispered against her cheek, licking her face with the tip of his tongue. She smelled of fresh snow and some perfume he couldn't name. She tasted of his future, his past, everything he'd ever wanted in a human mate.

"Hope," she answered, unwrapping one leg, but he stopped her, catching it.

"Don't!" he cried, louder than he intended, and she lolled her head against the wall, staring at him. Though not really—her eyes didn't seem to fully focus on him, and she'd already ditched the glasses.

"Okay," she said, much more softly, "I won't," and hitched the leg back about him in another locking embrace.

He gasped, pressing his forehead against hers as he drew in a steadying breath. "I want to do wicked things with you, Hope," he admitted in a thick voice. His heart hammered so rapidly he was certain she could feel it.

She surprised him by laughing, a soft, husky sound that caused his groin to tighten like a hard fist. "Good," she said after that laughter faded. "Because I want to do wicked things with you, too. Really wicked things."

It was the only invitation he needed, and he rushed ahead, releasing her momentarily. He separated her from her jeans easily, shoving them low about her hips, then peeled down her silk panties until all that remained between their two hungry bodies was his own damned jeans. He wrangled to free himself from the pants while keeping a firm grasp on her, but struggled unsuccessfully.

"Here." She stilled his trembling hand beneath her own, planting a salty kiss against his lips. Then in one fluid gesture she'd unfastened his pants for him. They sank about his knees until he stood bare and on display for her. "Wow, Commando," she teased, almost as if it were a pet name for him, not an observation about his absent underwear.

It was how all his people dressed, but naturally he didn't volunteer that fact. Or that he was a different species than she, for that matter. No, she didn't need to know about his sordid genetic history, his hybrid DNA or any of that. Talk about a cold shower on their edgy, driving lust. She just needed to get how bad he wanted her, nothing else.

He slid his arms about her, swinging her away from the wall, and with just two steps they collapsed into a heap on the bed, she spread flat beneath his much larger body.

The bedsprings jostled and bounced as he settled atop her, both their feet dangling off the end. She was small, almost too small to lie beneath his bulky frame, so he struggled to be gentle. But it was tough to go slow, and when she gave a nod of silent assent, he knew not to hold anything back. With a satin-smooth gesture, he sheathed himself inside her warmth and wetness. She gasped, her gray eyes watering, then said nothing more. She held on to his shoulders as if her life depended on it, and he got a pretty good idea that she wasn't in the habit of this kind of thing.

The jostling of the bed became a rocking, forceful gyration as the two of them thrust and ground their way deeper and deeper. She rolled with him, landing awkwardly atop him, their hips still locked together. He was deep inside of her still. So deep, and he ached to go deeper. With a careful gesture she moved into a straddling position, her gaze never leaving his, though he wondered how much she really saw, her eyes seemed so dazed and unfocused.

"Hope." He moaned, arching his back beneath her movement. She had hold of him in the most intimate way, so slick and grasping, unrelenting. "Oh, someone … help me."

"Am I not doing enough?" She slowed her pace momentarily, but he forced her hips back into high gear.

"Just … like … that. No stopping." His body needed her pummeling friction, demanded the heat and intensity of the raw pace she'd set.

She bent low, trailing sloppy kisses across his jaw. "Your name, Commando." She panted in his ear as he drove into her again and again. "Tell … me your name."

For a moment he couldn't speak; he was that blind with need for the human. Her petite body fit perfectly astride his, as if they'd been sculpted as one. Control. Domination. They were his usual sexual trademarks. But this woman? Gods, he would give her his very soul for her to just keep riding him, and oh-this-very hard.

"Name, cowboy?" she prompted again, much more breathless now. By the glassy-eyed expression on her face, she was close to orgasm, and he wasn't about to point out that she was the one riding a bucking bronco at the moment.

"Scott." He gasped, his body teasing so very close to the edge. So close, so close. Gods! Gods, too … much! Gods, she's the one! Gods!

Call me S'Skautsa, sweet love. Call me husband, mate .…

"Call me Scott," he nearly shouted.

Then his eyes flew wide open and he was suddenly quite awake.

"Gods!" Scott shouted, sitting up in bed too fast: so fast, in fact, that it caused a lightning-bright flash of pain behind his eyes as he moved out of his dream state.

Where the hell am I? He squinted in the semi-darkness, disoriented until he recognized his hospital room. And remembered the medshki that had landed him here. With a thick, heavy feeling in his heart, he jerked the sheet back over his legs, aware that he had one seriously raging hard-on.

Guilt and fear closed in on him. He'd been dreaming about Hope Harper—again—and experiencing such vivid reveries he'd have sworn he'd lived them before. Only he hadn't; no way would he have forgotten a one-night stand like that. Slipping a hand between his legs he stroked himself brazenly, needing the release he never seemed to reach in his sleep. Hope had taken him to the very brink, and then .…

He'd landed here, awake and more than slightly aware that the woman of his dreams was a virtual stranger. Then why doesn't she feel like one? She feels like someone I've loved all my life.

His pain meds had to be the true source of the dreams—at least, that was what he told himself, because the alternative was much more disturbing. For almost a week Scott had been in a drugged-up, pain-riddled daze after having both of his legs shot out from underneath him during a massive battle against their enemies at Warren Air Force Base. He was lucky as hell that he hadn't been killed on that base, and if not for Hope, he probably would have been.

The FBI linguist had dragged him to safety beneath a truck chassis during the firefight to end all firefights, then followed him back here to the hidden safety of his king's mountain fortress. Of course, Hope was pretty damned convinced that if not for her, he never would have been shot in the first place, but he knew better. Only at her side had he found the will to make it out alive at all. It had been her belief in him that had fired his resolve to survive, not just after he was wounded, but beforehand, too, during his days of captivity at the base.

Sinking heavily into his hospital pillows again, Scott wondered why the human hadn't returned to visit him. It had been hours since she'd been to his room last, maybe even days. He couldn't be sure, not with the gauzy haze of the medication obscuring details, and the drumming, endless pain in his legs. The medics promised he'd recover completely, but in the bleakness of his hospital room he'd begun to have his doubts. He was a soldier and a leader, not some desk jockey, paper-pusher type like their security adviser Lieutenant Daniels. But even that tight ass flew the occasional sortie; Dillon couldn't hope for that much without full command over his body. Hell, he'd always been a doer, not an observer, and would rather die than live any other kind of life.

Hitting the call button, he intended to grill the medics for the full truth. They owed him that much, for damned sure.

"Yes, Lieutenant?" The shift nurse poked her head inside the doorway of his room.

"These drugs don't work worth shit." Fumbling with his handheld medication control, he jammed at it angrily. "This planned torture or something?"

"You've slept for hours already." The nurse walked toward his bedside, her military-issue boots tap-tapping on the tile floor. "You really should wake up and eat a little."

Dillon collapsed into the pillows, totally exhausted already. He didn't want to eat. He wanted to know why Hope hadn't returned to visit him.

"Females," he muttered, his eyes sliding shut. The sound of the bedside chair scraping the floor surprised him, and he glanced up to find his nurse plopping right into the thing. He hadn't seen her on shift before; maybe she was just new enough not to realize what a badass he could be. She laughed and it was warm, light. "I take it you're talking about someone other than me?"

"Hope Harper." He grunted. "The human … she came to visit me a few days ago."

"So she's the one denying you pain meds?" The nurse stared down at his chart, barely masking a smile as she noted something on the pages.

"What's your name, medic?" he demanded gruffly, scowling as he sized her up from top to bottom. She wore her uniform with a bit of attitude, not pressed and starched like it should be.

"Shelby Tyler, sir."

"Nurse Tyler, you do know who I am, right? Nobody erased your memory as to my role within this military?"

Again the blonde-haired woman laughed, shaking her head. "I know exactly who you are, Lieutenant. You're not only His Highness's top military adviser, but a hero to us all." She glanced pointedly at his legs and her voice grew much softer, somber. "Now more than ever, sir. You seemed like you could use a laugh about now. No disrespect intended."

He growled, but said nothing more, and Shelby leaned forward conspiratorially. "Listen, sir, I know you're in a lot of pain," she said. "And I know that human has you in a fit. So why don't you just talk about it? I'm good at listening."

"Good at listening." He cut his eyes sideways at her. "You a psychologist, too?"

She glanced away and didn't answer at first. "No, but I've been in love a few times myself."

Bolting upright in bed, he grimaced with pain. "I am not in love with Hope Harper! I barely know her—"

"Uh-huh." She tapped his chart with a pen, sounding wholly unconvinced.

"I only met her a week ago. Besides, she's a … a human." He spat the last with as much revulsion as he could muster, lest the savvy little medic suspect how delicious even the name of Hope's species tasted on his tongue. "That woman is just .…"

"Beautiful?" Shelby prompted brightly, sitting up straight as a rail. "Smart as a whip, brave .…"

"A stranger to me!" Scott bellowed with a harsh glare. "We now have a professional association, if you want to even call it that," he said. "Nothing more or less."

"Of course, Lieutenant Dillon." Shelby made another note on his chart. What in All's name did this conversation have to do with his medical report? "But then tell me one thing. What do you think all those dreams of yours mean?" she remarked in a perfect tone of innocence.

He twisted the bed sheet in his hands. "You don't know crap about what I'm dreaming. So stop trying to get inside here"—he tapped his forehead—"and analyze me to death. Don't need it; don't want it. In fact, only thing I want from you is my next dose of pain medication. We'll call it even with that."

She leaned forward, meeting his gaze seriously. "I've been your night nurse since they brought you in here, sir, and I know you've been having some serious—perhaps amazing—dreams about 'that woman.' So why don't you stop denying it and talk to me a little? That's what you need, not to get even more stoned out of that thick gourd of yours."

Well, damn it all to hell. Had he been mumbling in his sleep? Apparently. With a face flushed hot from shame and lust, he decided on evasive maneuvering. "You have a Southern accent. What on earth is a Refarian medic doing with an accent like yours?"

Her smile faded some. "I spent my first five years here in our Texas facility."

They exchanged a mournful, knowing look. "I see," was all he said. None of them liked to talk about the Texas incident.

"So, yeah, I guess I picked up a bit of an accent." She forced a smile. "Sure didn't mean to."

Shelby's bedside manner did distract him from his larger troubles, and her accent was—much as it pained him to admit—almost cute.

"Now, are you going to tell me about those dreams of yours or not, Lieutenant? 'Cause it's two in the morning, and it's going to be a long shift otherwise."

"Is that why you backed off my meds?"

"You needed to wake up a little, sir. That's all. Besides, you missed Hope Harper's last three visits."

He studied the ceiling tiles so she wouldn't see how the news that Hope had visited him while he slept—repeatedly—made his heart race. Unfortunately, he couldn't control the monitors beside his bed, and their previously semi-steady beeping accelerated like mad. He raked a hand through his disheveled hair, willing his heart to cease its rapid palpitations.

"Look, next time she comes … wake me up, all right?"

"Are you sure you don't prefer those dreams?" Shelby ventured silkily. "Because from the sound of it—"

"Wake me up," he commanded, assuming his voice of leadership.

"Got it, sir." She stood and pulled down his sheet, which he immediately jerked back over himself. After all, he was totally naked beneath the thin material, and he wasn't exactly prepared for his nurse to see him in the buff.

"I have to check your bandages," she reminded him, reaching yet again for the cover and giving it a staunch tug.

This time the cool fabric rose like a ship's sail, then popped back with a crisp salute, totally exposing him. But Shelby never looked at his groin—or any other part of his anatomy, for that matter—training all of her attention on gently unfastening the dressing on his right thigh.

As she bent over him, her brow knit in concentration, it occurred to him that she fit the profile. His profile. She was small, compact, and had fabulously large breasts. His taste for her type—in the human variety—had been nearly insatiable, as he'd chased them almost endlessly in the bars around Jackson and Teton Village. Even Jared had recently remarked on his need for human women, and Scott had absolutely no defense for his actions. It almost seemed like some sort of compulsion written into his hybrid DNA, as if the part of his genetic map that read "human" drove him like a randy missile to seek the females of humankind for mating.

Yet nothing in him was stirred by this blonde medic's proximity, her beauty, nor even his own sheer nakedness, and it wouldn't have been even if she were human. The inescapable fact was that his love of petite, fair-skinned blondes had now been directed toward one specific and very particular human woman: Hope Harper. And now with the sensual dreams of her kicking in like his sought-after pain meds, it didn't seem he had a chance in hell of curbing his attraction toward the woman.

He was lost to her already. Completely. He only prayed that time and his injured body wouldn't prove him a fool.

"I've been dreaming about her as my wife," he whispered into the half darkness, staring at the top of Shelby's bent head. "And other things … since I was a prisoner at Warren."

He wasn't sure why he suddenly felt like confessing, or why he yearned to tell this stranger his secrets, but relief fell over him like a soothing blanket of protection.

She nodded, continuing to inspect his wound. "Kinda strange, isn't that?"

"It's got me all tangled up inside."

Shelby reapplied the bandage, gently covered him with the sheet, and then collapsed into the chair beside him again. "Yeah, well, that Hope really is something else," she agreed with a bob of her head. "A real piece of work, that one."

He frowned, not sure what she meant. But he didn't have to ask, either, because she quickly continued, "I mean, it's like she doesn't even realize she's almost blind. She just pops down here every few hours, determined to see you, but doesn't even worry about herself. I'd be worried if I couldn't see where I was going around this place. Wouldn't you?"

An inexplicable melancholy came over him then; he'd thought talking to Shelby would ease his murky feelings of desire and longing for Hope. Now all he felt was that somehow Hope was going to get hurt here, in the midst of a war she had no real part in.

"She's a character, all right," he replied dully, trying to ignore the frisson of fear that chased over his spirit.

"And I can tell she cares about you too," Shelby said. "It's her feelings for you that keep pulling her back down to this place."

This caught his attention. "Why do you say that?"

"Well, last time she came she kept asking me questions about you—would you be able to walk for sure, were you in pain. I could just tell from talking to her that she really felt for you."

Something began niggling at him, and he didn't like it. "Tell me that you didn't mention my dreams."

Shelby grinned and didn't answer except to shrug.

"Nurse Tyler!" he roared. "Tell me you didn't say anything!"

"Oh, just that you kept calling out for her—I had to mention that one little thing."

"Leave. Now," he gritted, turning away from her. He wasn't sure if he wanted to have the woman publicly shot or if he wanted to kiss her out of gratitude. Because at least if Hope knew he cared for her, had been asking for her, then that meant she might keep coming back. And it might mean that she'd understand how he'd already grown to care for her, even after so short a period of time.

"I'll just check on you again in a bit, but don't worry, sir."

He cocked a curious eyebrow, daring to glance at her one more time. "About what?"

"It made Hope happy when I told her that. 'Cause she blushed like crazy when I said it."

She wasn't the only one; Scott's face burned hot over this entire discussion. "What exactly have I been doing in my sleep? Are you intuitive or something?"

"Nope, just loud."

He braced for the worst. "Loud … um, how?"

She patted him on the arm. "Apparently you're quite loud in bed, sir. That's what I meant. And apparently that's what you keep dreaming about whenever you call out Hope's name."

Scott shook his head, closing his eyes. "You're dismissed," he managed to say, although his voice wavered much more than he would have liked. Somehow this medic from Texas had known exactly what he was dreaming, and he doubted he'd been nearly as loud as she claimed. Intuitive or empathic or whatever she might be, he was transparent as a snowflake to the damned nurse.