Nothing at all. Fury’s touch would haunt her for the rest of her life. She wished they’d had a real chance of being together. She’d have taken the risk of getting her heart broken again for him but…
“Damn,” Ellie muttered aloud. “Wish all you want that things were different but it just isn’t meant to be.”
* * * * *
“Fury?”
He was a little startled at hearing his name being softly spoken, unaware that anyone had sneaked up on him, and it attested to how obsessed he’d become watching Ellie inside the dorm. He turned his head just enough to stare at Slade.
“What?”
“Your obsession with the human is starting to frighten me. Do I need to report this to Justice?”
“No.” Fury’s gaze returned to the women’s dorm, to Ellie sitting on a couch with some of the women. She smiled at something said and he longed to know what had caused her amusement. “I’m just checking on her.”
“You need to let it go. We were told why she worked for Mercile. I understand your need to seek vengeance but she’s not our enemy.”
Fury held his tongue. It was better if his friend believed that was the reason he lurked behind a tree across the street watching the woman who fascinated him and refused to leave his thoughts. He could think of nothing but her. The sounds of her moans, the sweet taste of her desire and the memory of her tight, heavenly body as he took her replayed inside his mind.
His dick hardened painfully from the memory of possessing her. He’d blown it, drawn blood, and he had no idea how to fix it. He’d been ordered to stay away from her, to have no interaction at all, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t watch her from a distance. She was unaware and therefore, couldn’t feel threatened by his presence.
“Did you hear me?” Slade stepped closer.
“Yes.” His focus remained on Ellie. Her hand lifted to brush back her blonde hair from her cheek and he wished he could feel her fingertips graze his face instead. “I heard.”
“Are you a danger to her? Be honest with me. We’re friends.”
That drew his gaze away from her. “I’m not going to hurt her.”
They stared at each other for a long moment and then Slade sighed, glancing at the women’s dorm and breaking eye contact. “Our women seem to like her.”
I like her too, Fury refrained from admitting. I’m obsessed and can’t stop thinking about her. She’s all I dream about when I manage to fall asleep.
“You’ll stay away from her, won’t you?” Slade glanced at him for confirmation.
“Yes,” Fury agreed, hoping intent was the same as telling the truth.
“I’ll leave you to it then.” Slade spun on his heel and retreated into the darkness.
Fury’s gaze returned to Ellie. He knew he needed to stop tormenting himself by spying on her every evening after his shift but he just couldn’t seem to do it. He’d even crept closer to the building, trying to find flaws in the security system that would allow him to climb to the third floor where she slept, just to glimpse where she lived. He wanted to know everything about her.
His eyes closed and he took deep breaths. He’d give anything to hold her, to inhale her feminine scent and touch her. A soft growl tore from his parted lips, his dick ached more, and he knew it would be another rough night of tossing and turning. There was no forgetting Ellie.
Chapter Six
Ellie laughed. “Come on, Monarch. You can totally do this.”
Monarch, a blonde-haired woman just under six feet tall, examined the vacuum with disgust. “It’s too loud and I’m afraid it’s going to suck up my toes.”
Ellie lifted her hand to cover her mouth, trying to hide her amusement. “We all think that. Trust me. I promise you, though, if you point it away from you, that won’t happen. You’ve mastered the washing machine and your cooking skills with a microwave are wonderful. You can handle this beast.”
Monarch sighed. “Fine, but it hurts my ears.”
Destiny, a black-haired woman, cheered her on. Monarch flipped on the vacuum and pushed it around the living room carpet without causing injury. Ellie grinned. Whatever the cause, for the past three weeks the women had accepted her. They’d allowed her to talk to them, laugh with them, and teach them household education.
“Ellie?”
Ellie spun to face Breeze with a grin. The tall New Species had really been helpful to Ellie with the other women. Breeze had been appointed leader inside the women’s dorm. She and some of the other women were going to classes during the day to obtain the basic education they’d been denied. They’d just arrived back at the dorm.
“What’s up?”
Breeze looked grim. “We need to speak privately.”
“Oh.” Ellie suffered a moment of confusion. “Of course.”
She knew something had to be wrong. Breeze led her toward the bathroom, which stumped her more. Rusty and Kit waited by the door. Breeze shoved it open and Ellie followed her inside. Sunshine checked stalls to make sure they weren’t in use.
“All clear,” Sunshine announced. “We are alone.”
Ellie glanced over her shoulder as the door closed to find Rusty and Kit blocked the exit. Ellie shifted her attention to Breeze. “What is going on?”
Breeze sighed. “You can’t leave the dorm without one of us with you. I want you to sleep inside my room or one of us will stay inside yours. You are to never be without one of us near you.”
“Um…why?” Ellie arched her eyebrows as she glanced at each woman.
Breeze held her attention with a frown. “Fury is outside again. We didn’t want to frighten you but we’ve seen him examining the building on many occasions. Last night he came closer and we suspect he is testing the security to find a way inside.”
Shock rolled through Ellie. “Why would he do that?”
A loud alarm suddenly started to blast out sharp warnings, startling all five women. Ellie knew it wasn’t the fire alarm, the pitch was too high. It was the lockdown signal. She moved fast, fleeing the bathroom. Kit and Rusty were ahead of her as she ran to the front door but no one stood there attempting to break in. The alarm continued to scream. Ellie turned and saw a dozen New Species women rush toward her.
“Lockdown,” Ellie yelled. “Go.”
Ellie moved and grabbed the emergency phone from the wall. It rang once before someone at the security building answered. “This is Ellie Brower from the women’s dorm. What is going on?” She made sure the door had automatically locked by giving it a tug.
“We have a breach,” the security guard yelled over the phone, their fear apparent. “One of those activists groups have broken through the main gate. We have forces headed your way but make sure your women are secure and the doors are closed.”
“Son of a bitch,” Ellie ground out. She slammed the phone down and spun around to discover some of the women were still there.
“It’s those crazy assholes who have been protesting outside the gates about—” She pressed her lips together, finding no polite way to finish that sentence. “Go lock yourselves inside your rooms please. The main gate has been breached but security is on the way. We’ll be absolutely safe inside.”
Breeze cursed. “It’s the humans who think we should be killed, isn’t it?”
Ellie couldn’t deny it so she didn’t try. “They’re stupid. They should go home and wait for their alien spaceships to come get their crazy asses because I don’t count them as human. They should go back to their own planet and leave ours alone.”
Sunshine snorted as she strolled away. “I’ll be in my room then.”
Breeze showed her anger by wrinkling her nose. “We will wait here with you.”
Ellie shook her head. “You know its protocol to go to your rooms. I’ll be fine. I need to stand here to man the door in case some of our women need to be let inside. Some are still out there on the way back from school. Those assholes busted through the main gate and they might have guns. I want you safe. My job is to stay her
e and it’s yours to go upstairs.”
Breeze hesitated.
“Please? I’m fine,” Ellie swore.
Breeze jerked her head toward the women who still stood there, indicating they should go. Ellie blew out the deep breath she’d held, relieved, while she watched them head for the stairs. They avoided the elevators that wouldn’t work with the alarms triggered. She faced the door to stare outside, spotting nothing out of the ordinary.
She hated activists who targeted the New Species Organization. Ever since the news outlets had broken the story about the research testing-facility survivors, some hate groups had popped up, claiming the victims were nothing but animals, ones they believed didn’t have rights and should be destroyed. Ellie clenched her teeth. The only animals who needed put down, in her opinion, were the ones who threatened the well-being of New Species.
Ellie tensed when she heard an engine race up the street. She saw one of the security cars drive around a corner too fast, another vehicle following it—a large pickup truck that appeared to have been converted into a want-to-be tank. On the side of the truck the word “Hunters” had been spray painted childishly in bright red. Ellie watched in horror as the truck rammed the much smaller security car, causing it to lose control and fishtail. The tires on the smaller vehicle hit the curb, came to an abrupt halt in front of the building, and the truck locked up behind it. Ellie gaped at the sight of guns when two jeans-clad men jumped from the back of the truck. Worse, she saw the back door of the security vehicle thrown open and two women sprinted toward Ellie.
The two security guards who exited the car pulled their weapons and gunfire erupted. The men from the truck dived behind it and returned fire, giving the women time to run to the dorm. Ellie’s hands shook badly as she gripped the door and prayed hard for the sisters, Blue and Sky, to reach her safely. Ellie threw her weight against the door she’d opened and pressed her body tight against the glass to get out of the way of the two large women who barreled through the open doorway.
“Go to your rooms,” Ellie ordered them. She slammed the door closed and jerked on it to make certain the automatic locks engaged. When the door didn’t budge, she released it and lunged for the phone on the wall.
It was dead. Shit. More gunfire outside drew Ellie’s attention. In horror, she witnessed one of the security guards being struck by a bullet. He flew backward, sprawled on top of the hood of the security car then his body slumped to the street. He didn’t get up or move. The second security guard kept firing but he was outnumbered. A cry of anguish came from Ellie when bullets tore through the remaining security guard. His body spun from the impacts, blood bloomed over his face and chest before he fell out of sight behind the car.
Ellie reeled, horrified. The intruders laughed and two of them high-fived each other. They turned to face the building and approached, coming right at her. Shit. Ellie grabbed the emergency bar and slammed it down. It had been added as an extra lock in case security cards were stolen or someone managed to torture the code from a guard. They would need both to bypass the lockdown security measures to gain entrance.
“She don’t look like no animal,” one of the men stated loudly, glaring at her.
Another man, the biggest of the four, pointed his gun directly at Ellie and yelled, “Open up.”
Ellie knew the glass would hold. The building had been designed to withstand an assault. She raised her middle finger while pressing down the com button with her other hand to give them the ability to hear her clearly.
“Screw you. It’s bulletproof.”
“You fucking animal,” one of them shouted. He pulled a handgun, aimed at Ellie’s face and fired.
She flinched but the glass didn’t break. It left a small mark but it didn’t even crack. “This is just a meeting building and you can’t gain entry,” she explained. “You might as well beat your chests, you stupid apes.”
She knew she pushed them but as long as they stayed where they were, making threats, they couldn’t hurt someone caught outside. She hoped security would show up soon to arrest them before they realized she just wanted to distract them.
“I’m also not an animal. You should go look in the mirror if you want to see one.” Ellie gave all four of them a dirty look. “You’re a walking zoo, boys.”
The one with the shotgun cut loose with his weapon. Ellie winced and flinched from each loud blast. She released the button on the com but it barely muted the sound while the man kept firing. A few marks appeared but the glass held. She hated that she’d gotten an up close and personal test of bulletproof glass effectiveness. The jerk with the shotgun stopped firing.
Ellie remembered the wireless security camera and took a few steps back. The camera hung high on the wall and pointed down at the entryway. She kept her attention trained on it while frantically waving to get someone’s attention. She held up four fingers and then mimicked a gun with her fingers, moving her thumb to stimulate firing. She pointed to her watch to indicate it was happening now. She hoped someone at the security office who watched that camera had played charades before since those cameras weren’t wired for sound. She touched her arm where the guard patches were and sliced her finger over her neck to tell them two guards were dead, hoping they understood all that.
The men opened fire again at the windows, this time in unison, perhaps thinking multiple-weapon attack would break it. Ellie covered her ears to protect them from the loud noises. She backed farther from the windows and tried again to relay what intruders were doing for the camera.
The gunfire suddenly stopped. Ellie turned her head and watched the men form a huddle to talk. One of them broke away to run toward the vehicles. She wondered why he went to the security guards’ car and climbed into the driver’s seat. If he thought stealing one of the employee identification cards would help them get in, he would be disappointed.
Ellie had a bad feeling when grins split the men’s faces. They looked downright gleeful when they moved out of the way. The man behind the wheel of the security car started it and positioned the car on the street to point at the dorm. Her stomach churned, a sick feeling pitting there. She knew what he planned to do in that moment. The driver stomped on the gas. The car lurched forward, jumped the curb, and barreled up the sidewalk that led right to the double, glass doors.
“Shit!” Ellie screamed as she stumbled back.
The sound hurt her ears when the car crashed into the doors. She ended up flat on her ass on the floor. She watched smoke rise from the damaged front-end of the car as the engine died. The glass doors held but as her gaze lifted upward, to her dismay, she realized the impact had created a good five-inch gap of buckled doorframe at the top.
“Oh God.”Ellie muttered, stunned.
The windows hadn’t broken but the building holding them in place had. She continued to sit there until the three men pulled their buddy out of the trashed car. He looked dazed but the airbag had saved him from severe injury. The four men studied the damage to the top of the doorframe, grinned, and then started to push the smoking wreckage away from the dorm. They maneuvered the car off the sidewalk and onto the grass, clearing the way for another vehicle assault.
Ellie struggled to her feet and ran for the house intercom system. She knew those men were about to use the truck to push those doors completely down to gain entry. She hit the com button. Her heart threatened to explode from terror but she tried to keep her voice calm.
“Locking down emergency doors,” she stated clearly. “I repeat, locking down emergency doors. Get to safety now,” she ordered the women. “Go to the third floor. Everyone run, damn it. They are breaking into the building. I won’t hit the secondary emergency doors until the last minute but move it.”
She released the button and wrenched open the emergency panel box under the com system. On the second and third floors were steel doors for the stairwells, the elevator, and there were also steel shutters that would cover the windows. It was a last-ditch emergency resort in case the lower floor
was breached after lockdown. The interior doors that divided the levels were ten inches thick, weighed thousands of pounds, and the exterior shutters were bomb proof. They would also seal off the floors inside the elevator shaft.
Ellie twisted her body enough to view the damaged wall section over the front doors but could still reach the panel. One of the men climbed into the big pickup truck, verifying her worst fear. The men laughed while they talked, having a good time plotting how to kill her. She grimaced and hoped they’d bullshit for a bit longer while her women moved to a higher floor. She knew time was up when the driver’s door closed, the truck engine roared to life, and it drove right over the body of a dead security guard. The driver maneuvered the truck to line up with the doors. Damn.
“Ellie?” Breeze’s voice came from the com speaker. “We’re all accounted for on the third floor. Get up here now.”
Relief swept through Ellie. “Are you sure you are all there? Are you positive? Sky and Blue ran in last.”
“They are here,” Breeze assured her. “Get up here with us or I’m coming down there to get you.”
“Protect yourselves. I’m safe,” Ellie lied.
She wished she could go up there with Breeze but someone had to activate the emergency doors from the panel where she stood. Whoever had designed the building had made that a flaw, in her opinion, as she stood there knowing how vulnerable it left her. They should have installed trigger panels for the blast doors on all the floors.
She punched the three digit code into the emergency panel and twisted the key. A loud siren blasted through the house in fast bursts. She knew steel doors and shutters slammed down on the upper floors of the building. The women would have been safe on the second floor but she wanted them higher up and harder to reach, just in case those men found a way to breach an interior door. She hadn’t thought the dorm could be broken into but she’d been wrong. She wasn’t taking any chances by making anymore incorrect assumptions.