Guardian by Kaitlyn O'Connor (digital book reader .TXT) 📕

to the fireescape and down it, around the building and back in the frontdoor.

Ok so that was seriously fuckingweird.

He got out of his car and headedinside in a hurry to catch the door before it closed. He’d made itinside and to the foot of the stairs when he heard sounds of ascuffle above him and a squeak from a feminine throat.

Jesus! That little idiotlibrarian/detective wannabe had just got caught if he wasn’tmistaken.

He rushed up the stairs as fast as hecould, but he was so winded by the time he’d made it up the firstflight, he had to stop and catch his breath.

He wasn’t gonna be any good to her ifhe passed out, now was he?

When he made it to the second floor,there was no sign of either of them, but they hadn’t come down andthat meant they must be in her apartment or his.

He was guessing his. She was nosingaround, again, and got caught.

He moved to that door as quickly andas quietly as he could and put his eye to the peephole to look intothe apartment.

The little idiot was tied to achair.

He was still trying to decide what todo about it—whether he had time to summon backup or if he was goingto have to go it alone—when he saw … aliens?

“What the f?”

Shock rolled through him then. Hismind cut loose trying to make sense out of something that justdidn’t, tabulating so fast that it just shut down, like anoverheated computer.

It was instincts—honed from years onthe force—that made him bust through the door. There was no time todo anything but act!

And he wasn’t about to call in analien sighting!

Or just turn tail and run.

Fortunately, it was a flimsy doorlock. He didn’t need a battering ram. One blow from his nearly twohundred fifty pounds and the jam splintered and the door flewopen.

He didn’t actually know what happenednext. He had his gun out, bellowed don’t move, and light explodedand then the lights went out.

* * * *

Ignoring Marilyn’s exclamation and thebody on the floor, Jarrod left the room. When he came back he had arope or cord in his hands and he knelt on the floor and hogtied thepoor cop.

He hadn’t answered her question buthope arose that the guy must be ok or Jarrod wouldn’t have felt theneed to tie him up.

He came back to her when he’d finishedand leaned down to look her dead in the eyes. “I need you be quite,baby. These people could be in real trouble if you aren’t. Can Icount on you?”

Marilyn blinked at him, realizing hewas saying he was going to gag her if she didn’t keep her mouthshut. She nodded jerkily.

He caught her face between both handsand kissed her lightly on the mouth. “It’s ok, baby. I’m not goingto hurt you.”

She would’ve felt a lot more relievedif he’d untied her.

Instead, he left her and crossed theroom and picked up … something. She couldn’t actually tell what itwas, but then he moved to the largest alien and … well, attached itto his skull.

When he stepped back, the alien didn’tlook like an alien anymore. He looked human—like a very averageroughly middle aged human male.

His children whimpered and the motherspoke to them soothingly and then got up and followed Jarrod to hisworktable where the process was repeated.

When he finished there was an averageAmerican family standing in his living room.

Marilyn swallowed with an effort,struggling to assimilate what she’d seen and understand.

One thing leapt out at her.

“Are you …? Are youwearing one of those?” she whispered.

Jarrod whipped a sharp look at her,seemed to hesitate. Then, almost as if he was resigned, he touchedhis head.

The façade looked the same for amatter of seconds and then Marilyn realized he had horns … andwings, giant, feather covered angel-like wings. She sucked in asharp breath and met his gaze.

His face, the one she’d fallen in lovewith, was just the same.

She felt like crying—withrelief.

He started to touch the thing on hishead again and then hesitated. “I am Draken. This is how I lookwhen I assume my alter form.”

Before her very eyes, he transformedhimself completely—totally—and became … well he looked like adragon except he had tufts of feathers around his chest and hiswings were feathered. Or at least covered in something that lookedmore like feathers than anything else she could thinkof.

He touched the image transformer onhis head and became the Jarrod she knew again.

He didn’t try to approach her afterthat. “I will be back in just a little bit to let yougo.”

“Back?” shegasped.

But he either didn’t hear her or justdidn’t mean to devote the time to explain. He herded the family outthe door and went with them.

Dismay filled Marilyn at beingabandoned with the unconscious man.

She did her best to convince herselfthat he hadn’t hurt them and he wouldn’t. If he’d meant to, or justconsidered them disposable, he wouldn’t have wasted the time to tiethem up. He would’ve killed them outright.

Dillard didn’t so much asstir.

Marilyn stared at him, hard. Finally,she decided she could see his chest moving.

Relieved about that anyway, althoughshe was vastly disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to help her,she tested her bindings but found that, even though she seemed tohave regained all motor functions, she couldn’t loosen the bindingsat all.

Settling to rest after straining sohard, her mind immediately began turning over the information ithad gathered, trying to fit pieces together when none of them wereat all familiar. A yawn caught her unaware.

She decided to just close her eyes andsee if that would help her recall the things she’d seen so that shecould try to make sense of them.

The closet wasn’t a closet. Well, itwas, because she had one just like it.

Except it didn’t emit blue light andtransport aliens through space like Jarrod’s did.

So he had something like a transporterin his closet—like in that old TV sci-fi show?

It had to be something like that—eventhough humans didn’t have anything like that but only imagined thatsort of invention. They couldn’t have anything like a mail chutehooked up in there.

Unless …. No. She dismissed theflicker of an idea that it was some sort of government run thing.They wouldn’t set