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Main U.S. Outpost

Marinah

King’s hand slid across my shoulder, drawing my attention. Comfort and strength shone in his striking blue eyes. He was dressed in military fatigues instead of his usual “tear you apart” Shadow Warrior gear. The fatigue shirt stretched at the seams, struggling to cover his broad chest and shoulders. I preferred his leather chest straps, for their practicality, of course, and because they showed off his muscles to their best advantage.

Today, we were both dressed in outpost military attire, covered from ankle to wrist. If we shifted to our Warrior forms, the material would shred. The male Warriors wouldn’t care if they were nude. I wasn’t as indifferent. I’d spent too many years thinking I was human to feel comfortable showing my naked bits to the people at the U.S. Outpost. If shifting became necessary, we’d deal with that problem when it arose.

The outpost had grown to three times its size since our last visit. After another outpost was destroyed, many of the people decided to band together and moved here. The place wasn’t pretty. It was actually a ragtag mess that somehow managed to appear organized. They had slapped together houses, huts, and cabins with whatever materials they could find. Some had even repurposed trailers and semitrucks as living quarters. The town was divided into designated spaces, much like campgrounds from before the apocalypse, giving each family a small area of their own.

At the center of the settlement was a cordoned-off square with trade stands. People gathered there, sorting through wares and bargaining with their own products. Paper money was good for nothing but wiping your bum in this new world. Towns like this, scattered across the outskirts of demolished cities, were the future of the U.S.

“Are you ready?” King asked, his warm breath brushing over my ear.

“No,” I admitted truthfully.

The pressure of his hand on my shoulder intensified for a second, a silent promise that he had my back no matter what I discovered inside.

We kept walking. Human eyes followed us, filled with uncertainty. It was still disheartening that so many of the new arrivals didn’t trust us. But with a mental shrug, I reminded myself it wasn’t the day to solve all our problems. I already had enough on my plate.

The woman I was about to meet had information about my grandmother. The same grandmother who gave birth to my mother, who in turn gave birth to me, a Nova Warrior, a super alien from another planet.

Even thinking those words to myself felt strange. For most of my life, I thought I was just a scared human woman with a limited number of days left on Earth. Now, I was trying to accept my role as leader of the Shadow Warriors. My Nova Warrior status had made me the leader by default, whether I wanted the title or not. And I didn’t want it.

I could only hope this woman had information that would help me figure out what the heck I was doing.

Our enemy, the U.S. Federation, wasn’t going away anytime soon, and neither were the hellhounds that had ravaged and annihilated so much of Earth and its people.

I straightened my shoulders and lifted my head. I could do this. King’s hand slid from my back, and I instantly missed the contact. With a firm mental shake, I took the lead and continued toward the front door of the small cabin we’d been directed to upon our arrival.

Landan, the local governor and one of our good friends, greeted us when I knocked. He’d taken over when Garret moved to our island to be with Axel, our doctor. I was impressed with how easily Landan handled his new role. He had spoken with the surrounding outposts and offered them the safety net of combining resources and people. It also gave the Shadow Warriors we had here less area to keep safe.

“Good to see you,” he said, and shook King’s hand while simply giving me a nod with no physical or eye contact.

King’s mating rage was getting better, and mine was all but gone except in Warrior form where it flared a little. I hadn’t tested Nova because I didn’t want anyone to die. Ms. Beast might grumble, but she no longer shot painful bursts of Kedorine 5, the hormone that produced our beasts, through me. We called it K-5 for short.

Landan stepped back to let us in, and my vision quickly adjusted as I scanned the four corners of the small cabin.

A young woman wearing a loose cotton dress stepped out of the bedroom and froze. So did I.

She wasn’t what I’d expected. She was tall, like me, and possibly as young as me, but the resemblance ended there. Auburn hair framed a freckled face with striking blue eyes that were similar to a Warrior’s. Was she a Shadow Warrior? My pulse quickened. Her jawline was sharp, and her cheekbones high. Incredibly beautiful was the only way to describe her.

She dipped her head, avoiding my eyes. That small gesture told me she had at least a passing knowledge of Shadow Warrior protocol. Given that her visit had to do with my grandmother, it made sense.

“I can handle eye contact if you so choose,” I said softly.

Her head snapped up, and our eyes met. What happened next was completely unexpected. Energy, unlike anything I’d ever encountered, flowed from her to me. It slid across my skin like liquid fire and wove into Ms. Beast’s energy in a kaleidoscope of swirling power. The sensation was overwhelming.

The woman took a step toward me, and I instinctively held out my hand to stop her. “What did you just do?” I demanded, somehow managing to keep my voice even. The fact that her surge of energy hadn’t triggered the K-5 was deeply unsettling.

Her eyes darted to King, but she stayed silent, lowering her gaze again. As soon as her focus had shifted to King, the energy had dissipated, leaving me able to breathe normally again.

Without thinking, I waved my hand. “Leave us.”

King’s Beast energy hit immediately, rolling over me in stabbing waves that were nothing like what the woman had done moments before. He was letting me know he wasn’t happy with my command. But despite his displeasure, he and Landan were gone within seconds, leaving me alone with her.

I focused all my attention on the woman. My irritation burned, and I could feel my eyes narrowing into small pinpoints of flashing anger. “I do not like repeating myself,” I said in precise English. “What is happening, or what happened a moment ago when you looked at me?”

“You have never made contact with a female Shadow Warrior,” she said with a slight shrug, her voice distinct yet soft. “It is expected you would not understand.”

Her words startled me. “You’re a Shadow Warrior?”

I felt the energy of the male Warriors on the island as if there was an invisible tether linking them to me. Since my Nova had manifested, that connection had grown stronger. But I didn’t know this woman. What she’d done was different. Her energy was like a wave of calm firing through my veins, shooting to every nerve ending I had. It aligned with an internal part of me I hadn’t known existed.

She nodded, her red hair bobbing with the motion. “I am merely Shadow and do not alter form.”

Her eyes were on mine again, soft orbs that seemed to be assessing me. The energy wrapped around me in a soothing wave of power. It was incredible. And I hated every second because I didn’t know how to control or stop it.

“What is happening?” I asked through gritted teeth, trying to mentally shake off the buzz running along my skin, desperate to keep it from invading everything I was.

Her mouth softened, and a delicate smile formed on her lips, making her even more beautiful if that were possible. Then her voice came, slipping into my mind like a gentle melody, its sing-song rhythm hypnotic.

“Women of our species are uniquely gifted,” she said. “We hid much of our capabilities from the males. The energy you feel comes from that which makes us special and also separates us from their violent ways. It’s our Shadow essence. The male Warriors do not experience the blending of energy that feeds our feminine power. This is sacred knowledge and is not shared with them.”

Slowly, I adjusted to the strange hold this woman had on me, steadying myself by pulling tightly on my own power. What surprised me most was that Ms. Beast seemed to accept what was happening. When I internally checked on her, she was rolling around like a dog that had found a dead carcass to play in.

The mental image almost made me laugh. Animals of prey instinctively rolled in the scent of plant eaters to mask their own odor to enhance their hunter abilities. Why Ms. Beast was doing this, I had no clue.

What struck me most, though, was the fact that there was a part of being a Shadow Warrior that the “big boys” didn’t know about. It almost amused me. Anytime something strange happened in my Beast form, the men would side-eye me like I was losing my mind when I asked about it. There was a learning curve to being a Shadow Warrior, and I’d been behind it since the day I was born.

“Why not share?” I asked, focusing on how the vibrations of her voice shifted as she spoke or turned her gaze.

She glanced at the table in the corner, and the energy vanished. Direct eye contact must have been what enabled her to focus the energy.

“May we sit?” she asked tentatively.

The hesitance in her voice lit a spark of ire inside me, and it had nothing to do with Ms. Beast. It reminded me too much of who I used to be: Poor Marinah, the girl who stayed alive only because her father’s position protected her.

I stomped over to the nearest chair, pulled it out, turned it around, and straddled it. The woman’s eyebrows rose. I remained silent, waiting for her to take a seat. She’d asked for this, hadn’t she?

After a few seconds, she glided over to a chair, pulled it out, and sat daintily. Her delicate movements ruffled my already perplexed feathers. She had my height and used it gracefully. That was something I had never managed before my Shadow Warrior showed itself.

Still, Ms. Beast didn’t react, which was disheartening. I’d been working overtime on maintaining absolute control over her. When I needed the heavy guns, like now, she played adorable puppy without a damned care.

My Nova form was different, and I hadn’t gained an inch with her. It was always an if/when scenario. Nova wouldn’t come out on command, and when she decided to grace me with her presence, Ms. Beast vanished completely. I fought tooth and nail to keep Nova in line. When Nova left, Ms. Beast roared back to the forefront, and for the next hour, controlling her was utterly exhausting. So far, I’d managed not to hurt anyone during the transformations. Well, except Beck, and I did feel bad about his shredded forearm. Or at least I tried to.

“Your Beast is strong,” the woman whispered. Was that reverence in her voice? I couldn’t be sure. But what I was absolutely sure of was that I didn’t trust her. I had none of the Shadow essence she spoke of. And on top of that, I wasn’t about to let her know just how strong I actually was.

Our eyes met again, and a wave of energy floated through me. I refused to acknowledge how good it felt. Instead, I focused on the small trick I’d discovered and basked in it while masking my reaction. I did this with King. Not allowing my emotions to show while enjoying the energy had been a hard learning curve.

“Why don’t male Warriors have this knowledge?” I asked abruptly, eager to prove I was still in control.

Sadly, I didn’t think I was controlling anyone, including Ms. Beast. She was still wiggling around like an idiot, grinding the energy into her fur and acting beyond ridiculous. Thank God I was the only one who knew what she was doing. King had once told me our Beast was an internal part of us, much like our internal thoughts. I didn’t think he lied to me, but Ms. Beast was more than intermingled consciousness. She was her own being. I was beginning to understand that it could be different for a female Warrior.

The woman’s gaze had dropped to the table at my abrupt question. I realized I’d been dealing with too many men lately. With them, only short, uncomplicated sentences seemed to work, preferably with a grunt or two thrown in for good measure. I’d come to prefer it that way too.

When the human women on the island sought me out, it was a different story. They wanted me to solve every domestic problem imaginable, and they talked entirely too much. I had to change how I handled them because barking out commands either brought them to tears or, worse, made them angry. And let me tell you, you don’t want to eat food made by an angry cook. King and I had learned that the hard way.

But this woman was different. Now that I’d had a few minutes to assess her energy, I could feel the Shadow Warrior essence within her. It was different from the males, softer somehow, which made sense, but it was also more powerful in its overall capacity. That intrigued me.