glare, she narrowed her eyes at the soldier beneath her.
She started, her mouth parting in shock. Although the frame was gaunter and his cheekbones sharper, the huge man she was sitting on was… Doug!
“Doug? What the fuck are you doing out here?” she hissed.
“Charlie?” he gasped. “We all thought you were dead… That thing took you…”
Rhyst snarled, drawing Doug’s attention directly to him. She watched as his face paled behind his helmet.
“Oh, what the fuck, Charlie? It’s here!”
She rolled her eyes at her friend. She didn’t think he—of all people—would be practically having a heart attack being face to face with a Tak’sin.
“First, I would lay off calling Rhyst an ‘it.’ Second, for fuck’s sake, Doug, what the hell happened?”
“Could ask you the same thing,” he growled. “You want to let me up?”
She pushed herself up off his chest, giving him the space to sit up. “We came here because we were alerted to a team from the colony coming through the mountains. The colony has never sent a team out here—and why are you here? You aren’t military.”
He rubbed his chest, giving Rhyst a wary look.
“Look, I don’t mind shooting the breeze, but you want to tell tall, furry, and deadly over there to take a hike for a few so we can talk alone. I ain’t saying shit in front of an alien, especially not about Earth Gov… You know what could happen to me if I did. What could happen to Mia.”
She frowned at him, her irritation rising. “Come off it. This is just between us. Rhyst has nothing to do with this. We’ve never been afraid to talk about the bullshit going on, and we both know something is going on.”
“You don’t have a clue, Charlie. You were isolated, safe in the lab. You’re clueless as to what is going on. It’s so much worse than you can imagine. But I’m not going to risk everything, not again. I won’t talk in front of him.”
“You do realize I’ll tell him anyway. I don’t keep any secrets from my mate.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, you mated it? Woman, if you were that hard up you should have said something. Ben has been after you for a while. He probably would have been a faithless prick, but he would have at least tried to make you happy. Fuck… Whatever. You do you, but if you want to talk with me, it’s happening alone.”
Rhyst fell silent, but the weight of the silence made the hair at the nape of her neck stand on end. She pinched her lips together as she regarded her friend, who stared back at her stubbornly. Charlie sighed and ran a hand through her hair.
“Rhyst, give us a minute, please. We need whatever he knows and he’s not going to feel comfortable with you hanging over my shoulder.”
“Cha’lii…” He growled in warning.
“I know. Just a few minutes. We knew that it could be a possibility that I might have the opportunity to talk to someone. We need to find out what is going on. In any case, Doug is an old friend. I’ll be safe here talking with him.”
Rhyst’s eyes narrowed on Doug, and her friend raised his open palms and hastened to reassure him. “I would never lift my hand against Charlie.”
Her mate grunted, turning away as his eyes scanned the small camp. She slid her hand along his side. “Why don’t you scout around the camp some more and make sure no one else is going to try to sneak up on us while we talk?”
An angry rumble left him, but eventually he nodded and moved away, slinking off into the darkness. The moment he was out of sight, Doug sighed.
“Charlie, what are you doing? This ain’t smart at all. When the doc finds out…”
“Who?”
“Dr. Santo. He really wants you something bad, been going on and on about the way that the alien carried you off being all meaningful. He’s been talking about it with Matthews, from what I understand. That prick has a real hard-on for finding these aliens and their secrets. Guess he was right. He’s going to be over the fucking moon when he finds out that you’re mated—and walking around without a helmet.”
Charlie snorted, her lip curling as she eyed the camp as they walked alongside it. “Yeah, like he’s going to find out.”
Doug gave her a strange look but didn’t say anything as they walked along the perimeter of the camp. It was comfortable, bringing back memories of hanging out