Dark Side Of The Moon (BBW Paranormal Were-Bear Shifter Sci-Fi Romance) (6 page)

“We’re
burning up.”

As
he said the words, she felt sweat break out on her forehead. “Like on
re-entry?” Images of shuttle landings and the movie
Apollo 13
flooded
her mind. Taso gave her a blank look, before starting to run down the corridor,
dragging her behind him.

“Wait…”
She pulled back. He turned, glaring at her.

“What?
There is no wait?”

“Pleas,
Taso…we need to get to the other girls…the ones you took…”

He
shook his head. “I cannot do anything for them right now. It is you I need to
protect. Now come with me, or we’ll all die.”

She
tried to pull away, but he had her wrist in a vice grip. She twisted her arm,
then tried to kick him, but the corridor was too narrow, and he was faster than
she was. He dropped his shoulder, caught her legs and just like before, hefted
her over his shoulder. Then he turned, ducking under a doorway, and she watched
the metal grating under his feet as he ran.

“Max…Max…” Someone was shaking her
shoulder. She opened her eyes, looking up at Taso’s face. Blood ran down his
forehead, flowing freely. Behind him the yellow sky was filled with acrid black
smoke. Taso had her arm, pulling her upright. It hurt to breathe, but she
nodded.

“I’m
okay.” She reached to touch his face. He jerked away. They were in the lee of a
piece of metal, jagged burned metal edges sticking up into the air. Cables and
wires hung down, some spitting sparks, others leaking green and blue liquid.

“You
hit your head.” Did shifters get concussions? For some reason it was vastly reassuring
that the blood on his face was red.

“I
am fine. It is nothing.”

“It
looks like something.” She tried to touch him again, but he slapped her hand
away.

“We
do not have time for this. We need to find weapons, to get ready. We need…”

Something
whistled through the air, hitting the wreckage with a metallic Clang, then
shrieked away into the depths of the ship. Taso tackled her, knocking her to
the ground, knocking the wind out of her. Pain blossomed across her left side,
below her arm. She was pretty sure there were broken ribs, more than one.
Another metal Clang, and the dust in front of them puffed up.

“What
was that?”

“We
are being attacked.”

“By
aliens? Like you?”

“No,
not like me. By whatever lives on this planet.”

She
shook her head at that. “I take it they’re hostile?”

“Yes.
Very.”

They
scrambled into the interior of the wrecked portion of the ship. Sparks landed
on her arms and legs, burning her skin, but she was more interested in keeping
up with Taso than a few burns.

Whatever
part of the ship this was, she hoped it had weapons. At some point in her life
she’d fired a gun, once, and even though they scared her, she thought she’d be
able to shoot at something that was shooting back at her. Something hit the
side of the ship again, and it finally registered that she wasn’t hearing the
sound of gunfire, just the sound of whatever was hitting them.

“Are
they shooting at us?”

“Shooting?”
Taso turned, looking at her over his shoulder. “It’s not important how. We are
being attacked.”

“And
how are we supposed to fight back? Do you have any guns? Any kinds of weapons?”

They’d
come to a compartment and Taso stood up. “I have myself.” With surprising
gentleness, he touched her cheek. “And I have you.”

He
took a step away from her, eyes locked with hers. She had no idea what he was
talking about, or what he was doing. A question—many questions—came to her, but
before she could get the first out Taso threw back his head, his voice rising
in a deep growl.

The
veins and cords stood out in stark relief on his neck. His body suddenly and
inexplicably began to thicken, his chest and shoulders stretching his shirt,
the mesh pulling taut with a soft metallic hiss. For a minute, she expected the
shirt to split, but it somehow managed to stay together, molding to his new
shape. His thighs bulked up, thickening, the pants stretching with him. His
calves shortened, thickened, until he was squatting on thick heavy legs, massive
and powerful. And definitely furry. With something like horror, she realized
his bare feet were thick, covered with dense black fur, long sharp claws
digging into the sand beneath him.

She
watched in fascination, the horror deepening, as his face began to change, his
jaw jutting forward sharply, a row of ivory-colored fangs growing from his
gums. Then another row erupted, giving him a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth that
looked more like an alligator than a bear. Instinctively, she pulled her hands
back, even though he wasn’t making any move to bite her.

Mesmerized,
she watched as his forehead sloped back, ears growing smaller, moving upward on
his head as the very shape of his skull changed. The blood on his forehead disappeared
into a thatch of thick dark fur. There was a popping sound, and she blinked in
something like awe, as spines appeared, thrusting out of his skull between his
eyes, three of them, like horns. Even from here, she could see the light catch
on the deadly sharp edges.

His
hands had been clenched into fists, but now he spread his fingers, the nails
peeling back as thick claws jutted out and took their place. His fingers
shortened as the claws grew, contracting, the palms of his hands widening,
growing leathery and thick and black, turning into the heavy paws of a bear.
There was a tearing sound and thick spikes pushed out of the backs of his
hands, like the jagged spine on some reptile.

 She
met his eyes, and for a moment it was Taso, looking at her. Then she blinked,
and it was a bear, standing on its hind legs, front legs thrown wide. It opened
its jaws and roared. With a last look at her, he swiped the air between them,
his claws slicing through the air, whistling close enough to catch the fabric
of her shirt, leaving behind four parallel slices in her shirt.

It
had seemed to go on forever, this terrible changing, but it all happened in the
space of a handful of heartbeats. The bear—she supposed it had to be Taso in
there somewhere—dropped to the floor, shaking his head. He looked up at her,
growled low in his throat and walked toward her. There was another sharp ping
against the hull. He looked up into her eyes.

Veronica
wanted to scream, wanted to run as fast as her legs could carry her, but she
couldn’t move. She stood, frozen in place. She had never been so terrified in
her entire life. Finally, she found words.

“I
have no fucking clue what just happened, but I’ll follow you. Okay?”

With
another shake of his head, Taso padded to the opening of the wreckage. He
stopped, raised his head, and sniffed the air. She noticed that spines ran down
his spine, poking through holes in the mesh in his armor. She was almost afraid
of touching him, for fear his fur would be razor tipped, would cut her fingers.
Gently she reached out, but the parts of him that weren’t covered in armor or
spikes felt more or less like course, stiff fur.

Now
wasn’t the time to lose her strength, her fight.

She
stood, hand resting tentatively on his shoulder, looking out over the low sandy
dunes, trying to find their attackers. They should be visible, or their
weapons. She looked for the glint of sun on metal.

The air was hot,
the sand around them red-tinged with yellow and odd flashes of green. The
colors were jarring, the heat intense. Her head was pounding, and it hurt to
take a breath. But everything she’d ever learned at each dojo, each gym, every
word Gus and every other trainer had said to her, came flooding into her mind.
She closed her eyes, took one last deep—and painful—breath, and then opened her
eyes. Fuck the pain. If she was going to fight, then she was ready

 “There…on
the top of that dune.”

There
was a flash and something slammed into the hull beside her head. It bounced in
the dust, and she watched it roll to a stop. Reaching down, she picked it up.
It looked like a rock, felt like a rock, rough, pitted, black.

“Slingshots.
They’re using slingshots, not guns.” It made her want to laugh, but the laugh that
came out was on the dark side. “They’re using little kid’s toys.”

But
those toys could kill her if they hit her in the right place. As for Taso, she
was pretty sure those rocks would leave a nasty bruise, but bounce off his mesh
armor, or the thick fur that stuck out from the parts the clothes didn’t cover.
This fight wasn’t going to be fair unless she had some kind of advantage. But
all she had was Taso.

“Listen…you
draw them out. Get them to shoot at you. I’m going to circle around, get them
from behind, pin them between us. Then attack. Sound like a plan?”

Taso
shook his shaggy head. She wasn’t sure if that was a yes or a no, but she
wasn’t going to wait to find out. She slipped behind Taso as he stepped out
from the shadows of the wreckage. A fusillade of projectiles rained down, some
hitting him, one ricocheting off the spine on his back, bouncing to the ground.
She smiled; maybe this was going to work after all.

She
ran around the back of the ship. There was less of it than she felt comfortable
seeing.
A lot less.
For a minute she thought about looking for Satasha,
Emily…the French girl…but then she saw blood on the metal, and didn’t look any
further.

The
crash had left a long, deep furrow in the soft sand. Pieces of the ship
littered the ground, some still smoking, most curled and twisted and burned
black. She grabbed a short, thick piece with a sharp end, just in case.

Crouching
down at the other end of the wreckage, she peeked around the torn metal. A
ridge of black stone ran between her and the dune where the aliens were. If she
kept low, she could get behind them, launch a stealth attack, maybe take out
one or two. Taso could attack from the front, and they’d be in the clear. She
ducked her head and ran behind the ridge.

It
struck her then, the unreality of this situation. She was slinking along
carrying a piece of metal from a space ship, planning an attack on an alien
species—on their planet—with another alien species as her back up. If that
wasn’t weird enough, the whole attack plan had come to her without any hesitation,
forming in her mind as a whole, complete, in detail. And she realized she had
no qualms about using this twisted piece of metal to kill one of the aliens.
That thought chilled her, rather than comforted her.

 The
ridge ended in a pile of big boulders. She leaned against one, trying to get
her heart rate and breathing under control. Her body felt good, ready,
adrenaline running but not on overdrive. As far as her mind, she was a little
less prepared. She still had the urge to laugh, to stand up and call bullshit
on the whole thing, tell Ashton Kutcher she was so over
Punked
.

But
the pain in her ribs was real, too real for some elaborate practical joke. And
she’d just watched a man turn into a bear. Or something that looked like a
bear. Except for the spikes that ran down his back, and stuck out along the
tops of his paws, the ones that looked like horns on his head. And the weird
extra teeth. That was beyond anything anyone could just make up.

She
closed her eyes, took another painful breath. From the number of pings on metal
and thunks on what she assumed was Taso’s thick hide, or spines on his back,
along with growls and snorts, she guessed there were at least a half dozen aliens
waiting behind the dune. Gritting her teeth, she jumped out, brandishing her
piece of metal. Something like a scream echoed around her and it took her a
split second to realize it was coming from her.

The
sand slowed her down, but she charged forward, metal shaft held high. It was
only a couple yards to the aliens and she covered the distance quickly. And
then she stopped.

One
thing…
alien
…turned, looking at her with more sets of eyes than she could
count. They reflected the yellow sun, burning brightly at her without blinking.
How many eyes she didn’t really know, didn’t really care. In one hand it held a
slingshot, looking remarkably like something a kid would buy at any store. In
the other hand—or hands, because the thing had at least six more—it held rocks.
It wasn’t a bunch of aliens; it was only one fucking alien. It was the same
color as the sand around it, and in panic she looked for others, but no, there
was only the one alien.

She
faltered for a second, but in that second a barrage of rocks pelted her. One
hit her hand, fingers springing open, and she dropped the metal weapon. Another
hit her shoulder. The pain was immediate and intense, her arm going numb. Then
she had the presence of mind to duck, and then dive behind a pile of sand,
spitting out with a mouthful of grainy stuff that tasted really bad.
So much
for the great warrior.

There
was a deep growl, and she pushed up to look over the dune. Taso crested the
dune, teeth bared, eyes blazing. He charged, sand flying as he barreled down
the dune. The alien shrieked, a high-pitched sound that sounded like it could
cut through steel. It dropped the slingshot and rocks and went after Taso with
all of its hands. She saw it was covered with scales, at least from the
shoulders over the head. The rest…it was hard to tell. It reflected the sun,
almost like it was metallic.
Maybe armor?
Although in this heat, the
thing would cook in metal armor.

It
landed on Taso’s back, tearing at his shirt, the alien small enough to ride
between Taso’s spikes. She saw claws now, tiny flailing pieces of some material
that was obviously razor sharp. Pieces of fabric and mesh came away from Taso,
and with those, she saw tufts of dark fur. At this rate, and with that many hands
times that many sharp-clawed fingers, Taso would be de-furred and skinned in
minutes.

She
scrambled through the sand, slipping, getting back to her feet. Taso spun
around, snapping at the alien, who kept just out of reach. His growls and roars
began taking on an edge of pain, and she could see blood staining the uniform
where the fur had been torn away.