Odyssey Bourne Force by Debbie Renner

  ***

  Isaac Mason sat in his lounge pouring a double whisky on the rocks. He was almost never at home, but tonight he needed to get away. At times of stress, the occasional whiskey did wonders, albeit for a short time. He felt after meeting Kate this was one of those times.

  Mason, as he preferred to be called, always felt he had to prove himself because he was a black man.

  That was why he was a classic overachiever at everything he applied himself to. He saw a challenge in using his brain or his brawn, from astrophysics to his leaps and bounds up the martial arts hierarchy. He’d been a practicing black belt for twenty years, first asserting himself at the young age of seventeen.

  Inside though, he was shy and introverted and did not like criticizing or taunting others the way Tremaine was prone to do.

  He had mixed feelings about Kate and, like Pilcher, could not help but feel sorry for her, as he was sure she was covering up how she felt about what was happening to her.

  He was convinced, though he said nothing, that she was of alien origin, no matter what barrage of tests she was thrown into, which cast his mind back to the hit sci-fi movie Species, a beautiful girl preying on would be mates in the hope of repopulating her kind. Was Kate like this? Should he sleep with one eye open?