He growled.

She backed away a few feet. “Fine. Don’t. It’s just that when you show fangs and have that angry look, you tend to give people the impression, well, me at least, that you’re pissed at them.” She took a breath. “And the growling…” She shrugged. “Kind of implies you’re mad.”

“I’m furious,” he snarled.

“What did I do?” She took another step back.

“Nothing. It’s not directed at you. You were fired for protecting me. You were tossed out there into your world and because of us, you have been targeted as though you were one of us.”

“Well,” she relaxed, secretly thrilled she hadn’t ticked him off. “I worked at Homeland and knew I wouldn’t make friends with dim-witted people when I took the job. If I agreed with those jackasses I wouldn’t have been here at all and they know I’m pro New Species. It’s just a fact of life that they are jerks. Everyone has hate groups.”

“No one hates you because of where you come from.”

She smiled. “I’m originally from California before my family moved to Ohio. Half the country is sure every freak and weirdo in America lives or is born here in Southern Cali.”

Fury blinked. “How pro New Species are you?”

She wondered if he questioned whether she secretly didn’t like his people. “If you’re asking if I’m prejudiced, I’m not. When I heard the rumors about Mercile Industries and their kind of testing and the subjects they used, I was outraged. I instantly agreed to help bust them. It horrified me that I might somehow be a part of anything to do with a company that cruel.” She paused. “New Species are people to me, period, just like everyone else. You have the right to do anything humans do. Is that what you mean? I hate to even make the distinction.”

He pushed away from the door and took a step toward Ellie. He paused. “Have you heard the latest outcry against us? They are afraid we’ll start wanting to date humans. What do you think about that?”

“Did you not hear me when I stated that I think you’re just people? You have as much right to date or be with whoever you want to be with as I do.”

He nodded. “Would you be with one of my males? Slade is quite taken with you.”

Slade? Ellie blinked, remembering the guy who’d saved her ass at the gate. It came as a surprise that he might be attracted to her. “I don’t know him.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“You met him this morning.”

“Well, I know who he is but I don’t know him personally. I don’t know if I’d like to spend time with him or not.”

“But if you did like him, would you date him? Even knowing what he is?”

She watched Fury intently enough to spot his anger. She couldn’t figure the man out. “Sure. I guess. I don’t see why not. I haven’t really thought about it.”

“Our species aren’t totally compatible.” Fury took another step closer.

Ellie took a step in the opposite direction. He advanced while she backed away. She felt stalked. His anger radiated off him, making her certain that coming to his home had been a mistake. Is he still angry about what happened at the testing facility? Does he still want to punish me for it? She’d forgiven him and he’d done worse. She hadn’t terrified him, cut off his air, or kidnapped him from a park to tie him to a bed.

“Why are you backing me into the wall?” She glanced over her shoulder. She only had a few more feet of space and then she had nowhere else to go. She jerked her head around and stared up at Fury. “Could you please stop? You’re starting to scare me.”

“Would you be afraid of me if I were Darren Artino or a man like him? Human?”

She frowned. “If someone were angry and coming at me, yes, I would be afraid. Will you stop it?”

“I noticed you didn’t deny our species aren’t compatible.” He advanced.

Ellie took another step back and bumped the wall. She’d run out of space to put between them. “What do you want me to say? I don’t even know what to tell you. I know you’re mostly human DNA and I don’t understand your point. We’re both people.”

“I spent my entire life inside a testing facility.” His hands flattened over the wall on both sides of Ellie’s shoulders. He pinned her there between his chest and arms, not touching her.

“I assumed.” She couldn’t look away from his handsome face, hovering so close to hers. She inhaled that wonderful masculine scent of his and held still to avoid brushing against his body.

“We were constantly experimented on, changed, and tested,” he growled. “We are still learning new things about our bodies, what has been done to us, and we aren’t human enough to ever fool ourselves into believing we could be. There are too many animal traits present. You can see some of the changes by looking at us but they also are inside our bodies, in our DNA. I’m worried that if you knew how much of me isn’t human it would terrify you.” He paused. “It would scare most humans if they realized what we hid in the hopes of fitting in with them. We want to live together in peace, we hope for acceptance, and to just be left alone by the hate groups.”

Ellie peered up at him curiously. “What kind of animal traits do you hide?” It sure wasn’t growling. He does that often or maybe it’s just at me.

He hesitated. “I’m just not completely human. I won’t go into details. We are very different from your people though. We don’t even have parents and if we ever had them, we will never get to meet them. Those records weren’t recovered, leading us to believe they were destroyed. Our childhoods were completely different. So much so that we have very little common ground.”