Reed: Scifi Alien Invasion Romance (Hell Squad Book 4) (2 page)

Noah Kim was the comp and tech genius who ran the base’s tech team. He kept the lights on and all the electronics running.

“Bring it in!” Excitement rang in Elle’s voice. “It’s some sort of energy source. We found one before, but it wasn’t operational. Natalya wants it.”

Just the mention of her name made everything in Reed come to brilliant life. Dr. Natalya Vasin. Genius energy scientist. Beautiful woman. Alien torture survivor.

“Got it, Elle.” Reed slipped the energy cube into a small bag on his belt. “Tell her I’ll drop it off to her at the comp lab.”

Reed imagined Natalya at her desk, wearing one of those fitted skirts and prim white shirts she seemed to favor. They always made him want to mess her up a little.
Cool it, MacKinnon. She’s still recovering.

Cruz appeared. “Survivors are loaded. Let’s get back to base for a cold beer and a warm woman.”

Shaw snorted from near the Hawk. “Easy for you, you have a woman waiting for you. Some of us have to work to find ours.”

Claudia sniffed. “And you have to work extra hard to make up for your lack of personality and lack of stamina.”

Shaw raised a brow. “Ha, look who’s talking, Miss Snarky Sharp Edges. No one could get close enough to you without suffering cuts.”

Claudia gave him an icy smile and shot him the finger before she bounded into the Hawk.

Reed climbed in, casting one last glance around the ruined suburb surrounding them. The storm was getting closer, the smell of impending rain in the air. He breathed deep and savored it. He was grateful to be at the base, but he hated being hemmed in. He breathed again. He missed the ocean, and the mountains—real ones, not what passed for mountains here in very flat Australia. The underground tunnels of the base and the recycled air kept them safe and comfortable, but sometimes he felt the walls closing in on him.

And he didn’t have a warm woman to snuggle up to. As the Hawk took off, he grabbed a handhold on the roof. Marcus had Elle. Cruz had the lovely and dangerous Santha. Even silent, scary Gabe had managed to hook up with the base’s smart, sexy doctor. Claudia was a frequent attendee at the base’s regular Friday night gatherings, but if she had a special somebody, she was keeping it quiet. Shaw was the opposite, quite happily working his way through the single ladies at base.

Reed stifled a sigh. Since the attack, most people happily embraced casual sex. It was a way to celebrate life, stay sane, and feel close to someone. But while the offers had come in regularly and frequently, Reed had deflected them with a smile and a wink. He wasn’t exactly sure why. He loved women, in all their shapes and sizes. Before the attack, when he was on leave, he’d always found someone to cozy up to. Usually some athletic type who loved the outdoors, like he did. But he never let it get serious—not when he could be shipped out to God-knew-where at any minute. He’d liked his life free and unattached.

But now—he fingered the cube in his pocket—now he felt a hankering for something else.

And unfortunately the woman he wanted wasn’t ready for what he had to offer.

***

Natalya Vasin stared at her comp screen scrutinizing the data displayed there.
Hmm
… As she pondered the problem, she lifted the tiny photovoltaic cell from her desk. She’d pulled it apart, working on a solution to make it more efficient. Shaped like a leaf, the cell sat on disguised trees above the base, absorbing the sunlight, and powering the secret human haven below.

Since she’d been at Blue Mountain Base, she’d extended the daily hot water availability from two hours in the morning to all through the daylight hours. But she really wanted to get hot water twenty-four hours a day. It was her own private little goal. She
loved
her showers. Even more so after she’d been unable to have one for four long, horrifying months.

As her throat closed, she swallowed and forced the memories away.
You’re in Blue Mountain Base. You aren’t
there
anymore.

The tightness eased enough to let air into her chest.

She turned back to her comp screen, and shoved her glasses farther up on her nose. She still wasn’t used to the heavier black frames, but in an apocalypse you couldn’t be picky. She’d lost her lovely wire frames in the initial invasion as the alien bombs had fallen. Thankfully, she only needed to wear her glasses when her eyes were tired and strained from too much time in front of the comp screen. She jotted a few notations on her tablet and read them again. Yes, that would help, and maybe give them another two percent output. But she knew it wouldn’t be enough.

Then her gaze shifted to the tiny piece of amber glass resting on the desk.

The tightness in her chest returned and she purposely slowed her breathing. The innocuous piece of glass was an alien substance. From a tank used to trap humans…and turn them into aliens.

Memories rushed at her. The sounds of the raptors, the scary sight of their strange organic technology, the scent of their lab, the horrible sounds of wailing. Her own screams. Her hand went to her neck and she felt it…the top of the ugly scar that ran down her chest.

They’d experimented on her. They’d cut and hacked into her body.

And Natalya was no longer the woman she’d been before.

Before the invasion, she’d been a renowned energy scientist, and a guest lecturer at Sydney University. She’d been hired by energy companies to consult for exorbitant amounts of money. She’d been confident, certain of herself, normal.

Then the aliens had broken her.

No
. She slammed her fist down on the desk, rattling the comp screen. She might be battered, but she wasn’t broken. She’d regained all the weight she’d lost in the raptor lab—Doc Emerson had been forcing high-calorie meal replacements into her for weeks. She was working. She was being useful.

And she was damn well going to be normal again. She was also going to do her bit to fight back against the raptors.

Her gaze fell on the amber glass once more.

Preliminary scans had shown it was an excellent semiconductor. They might be able to use it, integrate it into the base’s energy system and boost the supply.

Girding herself, Natalya made herself pick the glass up.

Up close, she saw tiny black striations running through it. They were irregular and looked almost like veins.

She picked up her hand-held analyzer and ran it over the glass. She studied the results, her eyes narrowing as she pondered the implications. Maybe, just maybe, they could splice thin layers of it into the photovoltaic cells. But she needed to run a lot of tests on it first. And needed to make sure this alien tech wasn’t…alive and able to do damage.

The comp lab door opened and she looked over her shoulder.

Reed
. She stilled, a slight tremble running though her.

He was still wearing the bottom half of his black carbon-fiber armor, but he’d removed the chest plates, leaving him in a tight, white T-shirt that stretched over wide shoulders and left muscled, tanned arms bare. His tousled brown hair was streaked with gold. He radiated life and vitality, and the scent of him made her think of the sea.

His face was bold, with strong lines, and he had eyes the color of polished gold. A lion’s eyes. That’s exactly what she thought of every time she saw Reed MacKinnon—a healthy lion on the prowl for a sunny spot to lie in. Or prey to hunt.

Oh, and she’d do anything to be that prey. She was pretty sure the sexy soldier would be shocked to know the secret, X-rated fantasies she’d had about him.

“Hey, Natalya.”

She managed a nod. “Reed.”

“How are you doing?” he asked in his lazy drawl.

“Fine.” She barely controlled the snap in her voice. He always asked her that, watching her with that patient gaze. She suspected all he saw when he looked at her was a damaged, fragile woman. He’d been the one to carry her out of that raptor lab when Hell Squad had gone in to rescue survivors. He’d been the one she’d clung to. He’d been the one to sit by her bed in the infirmary for days as she’d recovered. And he’d been the one who’d witnessed a few of her bad moments in the weeks that followed her rescue.

She wasn’t damaged, dammit.
She took a deep breath. “You’re back from the mission?”
Oh, brilliant, Natalya, of course he was back from the mission.

He tilted his head, watching her. “Yeah. Rescued some humans the raptors were dragging off.”

To another lab, probably. Natalya swallowed the lump in her throat. But, she reminded herself that Reed had blown up the alien’s secret Genesis Facility where they’d been turning humans into aliens.

“I found this.” He held up a black cube. It pulsed with a red light.

Oh
. She jumped up and snatched it from him. “It’s an energy source. I studied one that was damaged, but this…it looks like it’s in perfect working order.” She looked up and found Reed staring at her. “What?”

“Never seen you look so…covetous of anything before.”

She felt heat in her cheeks. “You haven’t seen me about to get in a hot shower.”

Something flashed in his eyes and Natalya did a mental groan. God, had that really come out of her mouth? She’d never been this silly around a man before. She turned her back on him, knowing her cheeks were flaming now.

She set the cube on her desk and ran a hand through her short hair. Another thing she could thank the aliens for. She’d loved the long dark hair she’d once sported, but the aliens had shorn it off. At least it had grown back enough, and with a decent cut, the short style didn’t look half bad.

Reed edged closer, his big body lightly brushing against hers. “So, you think the aliens use this cube as a power source? Like a battery?”

At that one tiny, accidental touch, she felt a spark of electricity skate through her. She tried to ignore his effect on her and focus on his words. “I don’t know anything for certain. I need to study it more, but I’m hoping it could be an energy source we can use or…”

“Or?”

Their eyes clashed. “Something we can use against them.”

His gaze sharpened. “Really?”

She shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know yet.” Her jaw tightened. “But if we can, then I’ll make it happen.”

Chapter Two

Reed let Natalya’s presence wash over him.

Her short, pixie-style hair accented her long, slender neck. All that creamy skin looked so soft. His hands flexed by his sides. Her brown eyes were large in her face, accented by her glasses, and her eyelashes were long and inky-black. God, he’d never noticed a woman’s eyelashes before.

And her body…he was grateful his armor was hiding his body’s response. Her plain white shirt was buttoned over her full breasts and tucked into a black skirt that skimmed over her recently-regained curves. Hell, those tight skirts and sensible shirts…not to mention the glasses, the whole package just made him want to lay her out and strip her naked.

He’d never had a secret librarian fetish before…but now he did.

He wasn’t sure why she affected him like this, but she had, from the moment in the Hawk during her rescue when she’d clung to him. She’d looked up at him with such trust in her eyes, and in that chocolate brown, he’d seen a fierce will to survive.

She was smart. Way smarter than a grunt like him. And he liked that, too.

But Reed also knew she’d been through a nightmare. She needed time to recover and finish finding her strength again. He knew loud noises still startled her, she hated going to the infirmary, and sometimes she had trouble sleeping.

His gaze fell on the angry red scar just visible over the top of her shirt. His jaw tightened. It made him want to head back out and find some raptors to take down.

He cleared his throat. “So, you’ll keep us posted on what you find out about this energy cube?”

She nodded. “Of course.”

“You’re wearing perfume,” he said.

She blinked and touched the side of her neck. “Yes. Emerson gave it to me.”

“I like it.” He smiled. “Although, I like how you smell without it as well.”

“I…smell without it?”

“Like cinnamon.”

Her lush mouth dropped open and she stared at him. He thought he saw a flicker of awareness move through her chocolate eyes. He felt a corresponding surge of desire.

Dammit, what part of taking it slowly didn’t he understand?
“Natalya, I thought—”

The comp lab door slammed open hard enough to rattle the hinges.

“Lord save me from stubborn women.” Noah Kim, head of the tech team, stomped inside and over to his desk.

With a genius-level IQ and hands that were magic with computers and electronics, Noah considered the lab his private domain. He sank into his chair and pushed his shoulder-length, black hair back. His Korean heritage was obvious in his lean, hawkish face. He reached back and snatched up two of the dice lined up on the shelf behind his desk. He guarded his little collection like they were treasure and now he rolled the dice between his fingers.

Natalya shot the man a small smile. “I take it you’ve been down in the detention area fixing the comp system again.”

Noah crossed his arms over his chest. For a geek, he kept in good shape. Reed had seen him in the gym a fair bit.

“That dragon down there suspects we’re all alien spies. God, and talk about workaholic, don’t even think about taking a break or she’ll ride you into the ground.”

Reed swallowed a smile. “I take it we’re talking about Captain Bladon?”

“Taskmaster Bladon, yeah.” Noah tapped on his computer screen.

“You aren’t going to mess with the ventilation in her quarters or something are you?” Natalya asked with just enough concern in her voice that Reed guessed it wouldn’t be the first time Noah had taken revenge on someone.

Noah snorted. “She’d know it was me and come and make my life hell. I do
not
want her coming my way again.” His gaze sharpened on the energy cube. “What do we have here?”

“An alien energy cube.” Natalya held it up. “An operational one.”

“Excellent,” Noah said. “We should run some analysis tests on it, then hook it up to a power meter and see what it can do.”