Chapter One
Part I
Cross Step, Kansas 2078
Kate Savage glanced around her at the many people sitting at the outdoor café drinking their morning coffee. None of them seemed to care about the worm holes sitting a few hundred—unobstructed—feet away. To Kate’s keen senses, the hum of chaos sounded loud, despite the chatter of passersby and the flow of traffic around the granite island. She stared at the great gaping doorways that had delivered her to Cross Step, Kansas, nearly two decades ago.
Twenty feet tall and just as wide, the Voids were surrounded by a fiery blue aura that seethed with energy. If it weren’t for the fact that going through one of them might mean her certain death, she might have taken her chances and left Earth forever. It wasn’t as if she had much keeping her here anymore.
“I hate it down here around all these…people.” A woman’s whispered disdain from a few tables away caught her attention. “At least in uptown, most of the Voiders pass for human. It’s hard enough to deal with fangs, fire, and freakish psychics.”
Her friend tsked. “Don’t be such a bitch, Nadia. Not all of them are psychic, and only a few handle fire. Just because they came from other worlds doesn’t make them any less. Voiders have brought a lot to the community.”
“Like thievery, murder, and rape,” Nadia muttered.
Her friend shook her head. “Stop reading the tabloids. Voiders aren’t all bad. They make great healers, and most of them are big on environmental issues. I mean, look at the Ravagers.” Kate caught the husky undertones in the woman’s voice. “I heard that big compound they live in outside of town is gorgeous.” She sighed. “Like their hunky men.”
Her friend gasped. “Gorgeous? Try brawny, big, and bulky.”
“Sexy.”
“They’re animals, Cheryl.” Nadia looked around her, her gaze passing right over Kate as she leaned closer and lowered her voice. “They’re either fornicating or fighting.”
I wish. Kate sipped her coffee, glad she blended in with the local populace. Though taller and more muscular than the average woman, she could pass for a human with ease.
“I’m down with fornicating.” Cheryl groaned. “I swear, my divorce has turned me into a cliché—the horny divorcée. I’ve never seen a Ravager that didn’t make me think of getting naked with him between the sheets. All that animal sex appeal is so hot.”
Nadia frowned. “How can you even imagine screwing something with a muzzle?”
“I’m not talking about when they go all werewolf. Besides, I heard it straight from Gina that the sex is incredible. They’re bigeverywhere.Gina said she could barely walk when he was done putting it to her.”
“You’re so crass.” Nadia made a face and tittered. “What else did Gina say?”
Gossip-mongering humans. At least Cheryl had her facts straight. Ravagers were big, liked sex, and when shifted into theirguer, resembled what humans thought of as werewolves. Except unlike the fictional beasts, Kate’s kind were reasoning creatures who could talk as easily as kill while in shifted form, and they didn’t depend on a full moon. The women’s conversation continued, and Kate wanted to hear more, but shadows looming over her table caught her attention.
“Well, well. I’m surprised the Savages let you out all by yourself, Kate.”
She glanced up to see trouble in not one, but two large, rangy men. Holdovers from the Lawless clan, who’d recently integrated into the new Ravager order. “Do I know you?”
“No, but you’re going to soon enough,” the Ravager on the right said.
As one of the few female Ravagers on this world, Kate naturally attracted attention from her kind. Unfortunately, the two males staring down at her like dessert weren’t the Ravagers she wanted. She suppressed the urge to growl and snap at the intrusion into her private, much needed space. The assholes blocking her morning sun had every reason to watch their step around her.
“I’m not good company.”
“We’re not here for the company.” His gaze settled on her breasts.
She sneered. “Trying to show some backbone, eh, Lawless? Must be tough walking around with your tail between your legs.”
He sat down at her table, and a waft of his scent hit her hard. He stank like yesterday’s trash. His greasy hair, dirty fingernails and noxious breath suggested he’d eaten fresh meat recently. She didn’t even want to think about what he called breakfast.
“Run that smart mouth while you can,” he said with a toothy grin. “Because soon enough, my tail’s gonna be betweenyourlegs, you little bitch. I can smell how much you want it.”
Her stupid heat. It wasn’t going away. And it was all her mates’ fault. If they were here, she’d maul the pair of them. Unfortunately, they couldn’t seem to stand the sight of her. She glanced at the Voids again, wondering how bad the next world might be…
“Besides,” the Ravager on her left spoke up and sat on the other side of her. “We’re Savages now, or hadn’t you heard? Prime declared that the Lawless name no longer exists. Now we’re all just one big, happy fucking family.”
When the Ravagers had initially arrived on Earth over a hundred years ago, they’d formed two clans: the Savage clan and the Lawless clan. The Savages tried to adapt to their new life. They took humans as friends and lovers. A few of their kind even worked in town, side by side with the Norms—normal humans—and other Voiders, those who came through the Voids.
