Nicolas: Love me Harder - Alien Paranormal Romance by Serena Simpson

told him he was welcome before going back to Niko’s side.
    Nicolas walked over to Aran and stopped. “My mate is in jeopardy.”
    “We will watch over her, Nicolas. She’s one of the Created now. We protect our own.”
    Nicolas nodded. “We think she’s part of an ongoing experiment. Janis can’t touch humans, which is ironic because she’s human. Their touch burns her. When we went back to collect her car, we found it burned. When we went to confront the manager at the store, both the customer service rep and the manager knew this about her.”
    “She’s not military. Why would they experiment on her?” Lorali asked. Her hands were sliding up and down her arms, as memories of the trials she’d gone through at the military’s hands washed over her.
    “My dad was a Marine. He died when I was young, but mom gave birth to me at a military hospital.” Janis said, having come down the stairs to catch the tail end of the conversation.
    Nicolas crossed the room to her side, placing his arm around her. He led her over to one of the many loveseats.
    “Can you tell me which one? Also, do you know who your mother’s doctor was?”
    “We were stationed in Virginia when I was young. My mother moved here after my dad’s death. She needed to get away. My house used to belong to my grandparents.” She ran her hand over her face, looking for stable ground. “The doctor’s name was Harold Young. I know because he continued on as my pediatrician. I hated him. There was something about him that always scared me.”
    Dante nodded and stepped out of the room.
    “I’m sorry to bring all of this to everyone’s doorstep,” Janis said, looking at Rena.
    The women laughed. “You’re coming late to the party, but don’t worry we’ll get you caught up,” Dee said with a wide smile.
    “We’ll look into the doctor. Until then, there is nothing we can do,” Nicolas said to Janis.
    “What? Nicolas, should we pretend today didn’t happen?” Janis asked while she tried to connect her past with the present.
    “No, we go on with our lives until something else happens or we learn more.” The others nodded or made sounds of agreement.
    “If you spend too much time dwelling on this, you will do something stupid or drive yourself crazy. No sense in being as crazy as the people who are trying to torment you.” Rena rubbed her stomach as she spoke to Janis.
    “Everyone seems to be taking this without too much stress.”
    “We’ve been through a lot and have come out the other side mostly intact. I’m still learning, but we handle things like a family here.” Lorali gave her a reassuring smile. “I bet when Dante reappears, he’ll let us know dinner is being catered by his restaurant tonight.”
    “Seafood. I love that male.” Aran growled at Rena. She laughed and stroked his arm.
    A cell phone went off, grabbing Janis’s attention.
    “Aran.” The room got quiet as he listened to the frantic voice on the other end of the line.
    “When did this happen? Do you need help? Clean it up and the come to Nicolas’s. Stay in touch.”
    Aran hung up his phone and then wrapped his arms around Rena as everyone waited for him to speak.
    “That was Ash. He was going over some of the surveillance tapes at our warehouses and thought he saw something strange. He went there to take a closer look. The tainted Created was there. He left pictures as well as threats written in blood on the wall. There were no bodies, but he made it clear he was coming after us and his little game of tag would be ending soon.”
    They were being targeted by someone who had the same DNA as they did, but something was different. It was a smell that told them he wasn’t the same. None of them knew what was wrong, but he was somehow tainted.
    “Good.” Sergey flexed his arms before picking Lorali up and placing her on his lap. “I’m ready to end this.”
    Rena stared at Dante as he walked back into the room.
    “Yes Rena, your seafood is on its