Slade

  It humiliated her slightly knowing she needed the help. She didn’t struggle as the large man guided her to step out of the tub. His arm kept her on her feet and she needed it. She clutched the towel around the front of her but there was no helping her back being totally bare. Trisha knew her face must be flaming pink. Brass suddenly gripped her towel and pulled it from her grasp.

  Trisha’s mouth hung open. Her focus flew to the man holding her towel. He kept his gaze locked with hers. He released her arm and then opened the towel to wrap it around her body securely before he reached for her again. He just scooped her up into his strong arms and gently placed her on the counter. Brass turned, grabbed another towel, and without a word went to work on her dripping hair.

  “Thank you.”

  Brass nodded. “You’ve been very strong. For someone so little, you have my full respect, Dr. Norbit. You have been very tough but now it is time for you to allow someone to take care of you.”

  “Please call me Trisha.”

  He flashed a smile. “I’m going to pick you up again now that your hair won’t soak your bed and put you on it. I see you have pajamas but I’ve suffered enough injures to warn you from past experiences that you are better off without anything on while you heal. Up you go.”

  He dropped the towel from her hair into the sink and lifted her up into his arms. Brass gently carried her out of the bathroom and to her bed where someone had already lowered the blankets. Brass eased her down onto the mattress and removed his arms from around her. He held out his hand and closed his eyes.

  “I’ll take the wet towel into the bathroom to hang while you cover up.”

  Trisha handed the towel over and pulled up the blankets to her chest. She watched Brass return to her bathroom where he stayed for a few minutes cleaning it. Then he walked out, flipped off the light behind him, and gave her a nod before he disappeared out of her room. He immediately returned, pushing a food cart that had three shelves with multiple covered dishes. Trisha gawked at the sight.

  “That can’t all be for me.”

  He shrugged. “Justice didn’t know what you wanted to eat so he ordered six dishes to be prepared. The Council has its own personal chef. Justice placed a phone call for food to be prepared when he knew you would be arriving. There are also desserts. Again, Justice didn’t know what you would eat so he had them send a little of a lot.”

  Brass removed a large tray. He placed it over Trisha’s lap and smiled. “I’ll open up the dishes to show you what you have to choose from.”

  “You will help me eat all this, right?”

  Brass chuckled. “I was hoping you would ask. I’m starving.”

  Trisha’s stomach rumbled loudly. Her face blushed warmly when Brass chuckled again. He’d obviously heard it. He started removing the covers while he listed the food that had been prepared. He didn’t touch the desserts.

  “I’ll take the prime rib and the tri-tip dinners. Is that all right?”

  He grinned. “That’s fine. I’m grateful you didn’t want the ribs. I saw those and my mouth began to water. You are hungry, aren’t you?”

  “I’m starving.”

  Brass set both dishes on the tray. He left the room and returned minutes later with a few sodas. Trisha took a cherry-flavored one. She kept three kinds in her fridge. Brass hesitated.

  “I’ll go into the living room and eat. Call out if you need anything.” He lifted the pork-rib dish.

  “You can sit there.” She pointed to the chair next to her bed. The nightstand was cleared on that side so he’d have a table to eat on. “I was going to turn on the TV. I’m sorry there isn’t one in the living room. I planned to buy a few things for the house but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. You could stay in here to watch TV and I’ll even give you the remote if you promise no history stuff or sports.”

  He laughed. “You pick the channel.” Brass sat down and put his plate on the table. He opened up one of the sodas. “Thanks. What are you planning on changing? It’s a nice house.”

  “I hate this bed and I want to turn the spare bedroom into an office.” She motioned toward the corner where she had a desk set up. “I don’t want my office in my bedroom. I need to relax in here and every time I glance at it, all I think about is work.”

  Brass turned his gaze to her. “What’s wrong with the bed? I enjoy a big four-poster and that one looks solid.”

  “It’s too big. I feel as though I’m five years old every time I climb into it and I do have to climb.” She glanced at the floor. “See that stepstool?” She shrugged.

  Brass darted a look down and started to chuckle. He tried to stop but he looked too amused to hide it. “You are short, in the bed’s defense. You’re a few inches shorter than average for a woman.”

  “Yeah, I know.” She cut her prime rib and took a bite. She moaned. “So good.”

  Brass choked on his soda. Trisha turned her head to find him staring at her and he thumped his chest.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Fine.” He nodded. “I take it from that sound you made that you’re enjoying it and the Council chef is worth the money they pay him?”

  “He’s worth every penny.” She cut into the tri-tip and took a bite. She moaned again as she smiled. “Perfect. Delicious. Almost melts inside my mouth.”

  Brass stared at her.

  “Do you want to try some? They gave me large portions.”

  “No thank you. It’s all yours. I love the ribs. I might hit up that roast-beef plate though after I eat this if you don’t want it. We tend to eat a lot.”

  “Help yourself. I’ll never finish all this.”

  They ate. Trisha found an action movie they both agreed on. Brass managed to eat three dishes and found room for dessert. He gave her two pain pills. Sometime during the movie she drifted off to sleep.

  * * * * *

  “Trisha?”

  She woke feeling fuzzy. She stared up at Brass, seeing his face about a foot over hers in the dim but not totally dark room. She blinked up at him, letting memory return. He was staying inside her house to guard her. He smiled at her.

  “Those drugs really hit you hard. I’ve been trying to wake you for a few minutes. I just got word on Slade.”

  Those words shoved all lingering sleep away and she tried to sit up. Brass suddenly shoved her down. His hands gently gripped her shoulders and he grinned. “Watch your blankets, Trisha. You almost flashed your breasts.” His hands released her.

  Crap. She’d forgotten she wasn’t wearing clothes. She gripped the blankets to keep them in place. “Sorry. Is he all right?”

  “He is fine. They are bringing him in right now to Homeland. He ran into one of our teams about twenty minutes ago. He has been shot but it’s just a flesh wound. They are taking him to a hospital to have him checked over but he should be returned to Homeland within a few hours.”

  Tears welled but she blinked them back over hearing the news that Slade was safe and alive with only a flesh wound. He’d been shot. All that registered. She’d seen firsthand how tough New Species could be and how quickly they healed. She wasn’t too worried that the injury would be life threatening if they expected him at Homeland soon.

  “Thank you.”

  “Go back to sleep. I hated to wake you but Justice said you wanted to know when he knew. I’m sure Slade will come here as soon as he returns to personally check on you. Just rest. You need it.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled at him. “Can you tell Justice I appreciate everything?”

  “Sure.” Brass backed away to return to the living room.

  Trisha studied the bedroom. Brass had closed her drapes but weak light peeked between them. She glanced at the clock, surprised to realize it was five minutes past six in the morning. She rolled over and the drugs lured her back to sleep.

  Slade is safe.

  * * * * *

  Slade didn’t want to sit on the chair or even be at the meeting. He needed to go to Trisha. He wouldn’t truly feel ca
lm until he could look into her eyes, inhale her scent and hold her in his arms. He planned to do a lot more than that once he touched her but he refused to allow those thoughts to flow since every male clustered inside Justice’s office would smell his arousal.

  “I’m very grateful you are safe.” Justice sat on the corner of his desk, his gaze roaming the fifteen officers crammed into the room either sitting or standing, and sighed loudly. “We have answers. The assholes responsible for this attack who were arrested have spoken to the police. I just ended a conference call with the lead detective on the case.”

  “They hate us,” Tiger stated. “That’s why they did it. It’s why we’ve been attacked in the past and for the same reason they will do it again.”

  Fury growled from his position near the closed door where he leaned against the wall. “Every time we believe the threat lessens, something happens.”

  “Calm,” Justice demanded, meeting each gaze in turn. “It’s because we hired the doctor and word got out.”

  Shock stiffened Slade’s spine. “Why would they care about her specifically?”

  “She did a two-year residency in gynecology.” Justice ran his fingers through his loose hair. “Someone printed her résumé in the newspapers. Those assholes have gotten it into their brains that’s the reason we hired her.” He focused on Fury. “They believe she’s here to help you figure out why we can’t have children. I’ve issued a statement that it was her years as a trauma emergency doctor that was the deciding factor for choosing her above the other applicants. I’m afraid they don’t believe the truth. They are certain we are trying to find a way for you to impregnate your mate, Fury.”

  He snarled. “Ellie and I aren’t test subjects. We haven’t taken any measures to do such a thing. We want a baby but we both agree it’s not worth the painful agony of allowing doctors to destroy our lives with the taking of blood and their needles and scans.”

  “I know this.” Justice shifted on the desk. “If Mercile wasn’t able to discover what went wrong, I’m certain there’s no fix for the problem. They had specialists in fertility nearly torturing our females to death. We’re just flawed that way. I wouldn’t have hired Dr. Norbit for that purpose even if anyone were willing to volunteer to have tests run on them. I’d have hired someone else who solely dealt in that branch of medicine.”

  “They put a bounty on my head.” Slade spoke.

  “That’s how they got most of those assholes to agree to go after her.” Justice’s gaze met Slade’s. “You were the incentive for killing her and they offered money as well for the one who brought your body to the man who leads them. They know it’s only a matter of time before we die of old age and as long as we’re sterile, they are comforted that Species won’t thrive.” Anger deepened his voice. “The idea of us being with human women really pisses them off too.”

  “I hate humans.” Flame grumbled the words. “Males.” He flashed an apologetic glance Fury’s way. “The females are sweet. Your Ellie is a wonderful human. I wish her no ill will but those males anger me.”

  “It’s not all of them,” Fury corrected. “It’s just the ones who hate us.”

  “The point is,” Justice continued, “the idea of us having another human female at Homeland, a doctor, has stirred up their rage. I considered hiring someone to replace Dr. Norbit but I happen to believe she is a valuable addition to us. She’s a good doctor who can handle anything, as we’ve seen.” He met Fury’s gaze. “She saved your life. She holds no malice toward us. I trust her and that is worth the added annoyance of making us a bigger target because of her experience.” He pushed up from his desk. “Thankfully she never hooked up with one of our males. That would really send those lunatics over the edge.”

  Slade tensed and his mouth parted. Before he could speak, Brass did.

  “She may hook up with one of us. She’s a very attractive female.”

  “Any male who cared about her would avoid doing that,” Flame warned.

  “Too true,” Justice agreed.

  Flame spoke again. “We’re trying to open up another home for our people. We’re going to need her to travel often to help us set up the medical facility there and every time she leaves the gates it’s going to put a target on her back. Hell, we can’t even trust the humans who work here at Homeland. Someone gave away her traveling agenda and the precise route. We’ve got Brass and Wager guarding her around the clock. There’s no way the human hate groups wouldn’t make her a prime target. She’d be in as much danger as Justice is if she were with one of our men. It would only make them want to kill her twice as much as they already do. She’s keeping us alive if we need a doctor and then she’d be sleeping with one of us. They’d assume that she’d make fixing our fertility problems a priority since they’ll assume most females wish to have babies.”

  An icy-cold fear gripped Slade’s heart. Justice received death threats daily. He had to have a full security detail escort him everywhere. Being the leader of their people put him in a deadly position. He could mingle freely with only a few trusted humans and even then it was a risk.

  Trisha was the Homeland doctor who treated any human who needed her help. The traitor could just cut his hand and walk right up to her. She’d die before anyone could reach her even with guards. The males who belonged to those hate groups were insane. He had no doubt that one of them would take on a suicide mission to take out the enemy. That would be his Trisha. And they would die if they touched her.

  “True.” Justice shook his head. “It’s a good thing none of our males are interested in her. I’d have to fire her and hire another doctor. She’d have to be as guarded as Ellie is. Ellie is only allowed to work with our females since they pose no threat to her.”

  Slade’s eyes closed and the pain inside his chest became sharper, a near-stabbing agony. Trisha loved her job, being a doctor was what she was, just as he was New Species. That couldn’t change and trying would be a fool’s errand.

  She’d grow to hate him if he made her chose him over the life she led. She’d resent him in time. He wasn’t even sure if she cared enough about him to even be tempted to lean in his direction if offered a choice.

  “We’re going to have to tighten security. Dr. Norbit will have around-the-clock protection until the threat lessens. We need to find the traitor who betrayed us. In time those assholes will realize nothing will help us have children and they will cease having the fear that we’ll reproduce and blow their dreams of watching us eventually die out.”

  Justice continued to speak but Slade stopped listening. Being with Trisha could get her killed. It would put her in too much danger. He got a tight rein on his emotions, afraid someone would smell his strong pain, and knew he’d grieve later, privately. He couldn’t put her in that much danger or ruin her life. She meant too much to him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sweat beaded Trisha’s forehead and she wondered if she would be violently ill. She nervously sat inside the reception area of Justice North’s office and fought the urge to throw up. She glanced at her watch. She’d arrived a little early and been informed that he was on the phone.

  She’d called the meeting but she’d had no choice, knowing she had to be responsible about the dire situation. It wasn’t just her own issues she had to deal with. It would be a huge deal and she had to do the right thing. That meant discussing it with Justice. It involved New Species and he had a right to know. She just hadn’t expected to feel sick to her stomach about it.

  The tall woman behind the secretary desk closely watched Trisha, appearing slightly concerned. “Do you want some coffee or water, Dr. Norbit? You are really pale.”

  “I’m fine.” Trisha forced a smile. “Nerves.”

  The woman nodded and focused on her computer screen. “It should only be a few more minutes. Justice is on a long-distance call with the newly acquired New Species Reservation. They are opening up soon and it’s been really hectic here. Isn’t that where you were heading when your vehicle was a
ttacked? I hope you are all better now?”

  “I’m fully recovered. Thank you for asking. And yes, that’s where we were traveling to when we were attacked.”

  Trisha had never gotten to go see the place. She only knew what she’d heard on the news. Brass had told her a bit about the project. Four hundred miles to the north in the woodsy area of Northern California, Justice had bought up thousands of acres of land—an old resort that had closed down years before and abandoned. The owner had sold it cheap to avoid paying taxes on the property. Justice planned to turn it into a home for some of the New Species who didn’t want to “get along with others”.

  A smile curved her lips at the memory of Brass saying those exact words to her. He’d explained that some of the New Species were less human-looking than the ones she saw at Homeland. They didn’t want to be integrated with humans, instead just wanted to live in peace within a safe place. They currently resided in an unspecified location far from human contact but with the hate groups, everyone feared for their safety if anyone ever discovered where they’d been placed by the government.

  Justice had bought the old resort to bring them closer to their own kind and to be able to protect them better. They’d decided to rename it New Species Reservation. She’d been assured that it was an appropriate title since it was anything but a vacation spot. It would be run the way Homeland had been set up, totally under New Species law and control. It would also have high-level security to protect the New Species who chose to live there.

  Brass had become a good friend to Trisha while he’d stayed at her house for the first two weeks after her ordeal. He’d made her laugh a lot and become important to her. She’d worried a little that he might be attracted to her but he’d never done anything out of line. When the threat assessment to her had been lowered, she had actually missed her constant companions who guarded her.

  Brass still checked on her and stopped by often with a few action movies and she supplied the popcorn. Sometimes he’d bring a few of his friends with him. Trisha had gotten to know some of the New Species that way. They treated her as though she were a little sister, as if she were one of them, and she’d been grateful for it. It had kept her from feeling self-pity.