The security tablet beeped, and one of the green lights switched to a flashing red.
"Lamia?" Porcha asked.
"I gotta go," I said, my voice breathless as I got out of the bath and quickly toweled off. I tapped the button on the tablet, rejecting a check-in from the security company. "Someone just broke in through the kitchen window."
"Lock yourself in the closet," Porcha said. "Call the cops."
"It has to be him, you read the contract," I whispered as I got dressed quickly. I grabbed the devices and brought them with me into the bedroom, kneeling to grab the safety safe I kept under the bed. My thumbprint opened it. Inside was my gun with the new silencer attached and ready to go.
I didn't want to alert the neighbors.
"What if it isn't?" Porcha whispered back.
"Then it's a good thing this state has stand your ground laws," I whispered as I loaded the gun, pulling back on the chamber to arm it and flipping off the safety. "Don't call the cops."
"You know I can't do that," Porcha said. "Plus, if you miss, you're going to put a bullet through your wall and into a neighbor's house."
"I know what I'm doing with a gun, and Porcha, if you call the cops on my mate, you're only going to cockblock me," I hissed back. "You can't call them."
"Fine, but I'm coming over in thirty minutes, and if you don't answer the door, then I'm calling the Norratar peace keepers instead of the cops," she said, her voice firm.
"No, we need a code word if I'm naked and don't want to open the door," I said.
"Go away means call the Norratar, go get me take out means I'm happy, don't harsh my vibe," Porcha said.
"Deal," I said, then hung up.
I didn't go downstairs to look at the break-in.
The contract said that he needed to hunt me, and he had made it clear at the bar that if I made it too easy for him, he would have a hard time getting it up. Thank goodness that problem would go away after he mate locked to me, but for now I needed to fight back, and I needed to make it hurt. The whole shooting him thing made me nervous, but the spider-alien representative reassured me that I wouldn't be able to kill him with a human-made projectile weapon; all I would do was slow him down and excite him.
I set my phone to play music and put it back in the bathroom, then put the tablet on silent mode, and then went to hide in the closet, leaving the slatted door cracked enough that I couldsee the door to my bedroom. I wasn't so cocky that I thought I posed any form of challenge to a full-grown predatory male whose species got off on stalking and fighting their mates to submission, but I knew how to keep calm enough to aim, and I'd been to the shooting range frequently and recently enough that I was confident I could unload a mag into him. Plus, that bulletproof sheet I had installed in the bathroom was thick enough to stop the caliber I had in my gun, and it was in a direct line from the closet to the bedroom door.
I could shoot him from this spot only and be certain I wasn't going to risk anyone else.
I knew enough about guns not to be careless with them.
I had various knives and other surprises around my house as part of putting up a good fight to get my mate hard plan. I propped up the tablet on a small shelf in the closet where I could see it, but the glow of the screen wouldn't be visible from the door, then held my gun at the ready, pointing at the door.
I took a long, slow breath, steadying myself.
Any moment, he was about to come through that door.... any moment...
Another red light flashed on the tablet.
I glanced over, and adrenaline slashed through me as I read the label: master bedroom window.
A blue hand closed over my gun, tearing it from my grip.
I let out an involuntary shriek, my nerves on a hair trigger, as my eyes took in the sight of him as he unloaded the mag from my gun. He was exactly as his picture depicted him, six foot something, turquoise skin, hair gorgeous greens and blue like Hoces del Río Duratón in Spain. His horns were small and close to his skull, one of them broken and filed to a flat top. His eyes burned red like a demon. The carved muscles of his shirtless chest gleamed in their hairless glory in my soft bedroom light, but his lower body was covered by loose-fitting harem-eskpurple pants that had several additional folds around his hips. His ears were larger than a human's, with several more folds than I was used to, a soft point to the tip that would have made them look elven if it wasn't for the wide thickness of them that made them look more orcish.
He smirked at me as he unloaded the round from the chamber onto the floor, then tossed my gun out the open bedroom window.
I grabbed the axe off the hook inside my closet and hefted it at him.
He turned his upper body so slightly, just enough that the axe whipped by his face and thudded into my bedroom wall with a satisfying thunk.
His trousers tented as he grinned at me.
