I attract a deep breath, and I odor the unmistakeable scent of alien males throughout me. There’s something nearly intoxicating concerning the pheromones they’re emitting. They’re like little keys of want on the lookout for a lock to fit into, and with each breath I take, I change into more and more saturated with them. My mind is being addled, and there’s no hope for readability now. Between contact and scent, I’m extra captured than I used to be when Shan snatched me out of the bushes.

The journey is just not lengthy, or maybe it’s and I’ve no sense of time whereas huffing saurian pheromones like somebody discovering a brand new dependancy. I had questioned why Sullivan and Raine didn’t attempt tougher to flee. Now I perceive. These aliens generate sexual serotonin, if that’s even a factor. That’s what it looks like. It looks like each receptor in my thoughts is extensive open and begging for extra.

I’m picked up and put over Shan’s shoulder. I really feel his scaled shoulder urgent into my tender stomach, the blood dashing to my head as I’m carried what looks like down a deep and winding ramp. The air turns into stiller, and a bit of extra stale. Sound stops touring in the way in which it does outside and as an alternative begins to bump towards heavy issues. We’re underground. We’re getting progressively extra underground with each step.

I’m guessing that I’m being taken to Shan’s room. And I’m additionally guessing that Shan’s room is underground, together with all the opposite outlaw saurians. The place has the texture of a subterranean frat home. Laughter echoes by way of passages because the story of how they captured a human begins to unfold. I hear myself being described in crude phrases.

“Thick and juicy human deal with.”

“Fuckmeat,” one other growls.

“Human holes,” one other provides. They’re riffing on a rough theme, till I really feel myself swing round quick with Shan’s spinning movement.

“ENOUGH!” He roars the phrase and the burrow falls silent.

The impact of his one phrase is spectacular. He will not be an clearly excessive rating outlaw, however I’m beginning to surprise, for none dared problem him for me. Even Wrath himself didn’t attempt to style me. We’ve gathered from our surveillance that Wrath is equally highly effective, if no more so, as Alpha Thorn. Thorn has the would possibly of the legislation on his facet, however Wrath appears to have virtually all the things and everybody else. A schism runs deep in saurian society, and I’ve simply fallen into it.

Appears to me that the primary pastimes of those outlaws are preventing, carousing, and imbibing mind-altering substances. It’s really very very like lots of pirate locations. I might nearly really feel at residence, have been I not being held captive within the arms of a devastatingly good-looking and frighteningly silent saurian outlaw.

A heavy metallic door swings closed with the type of CLANG that creates instantaneous existential dread in profession criminals like me. I discover myself enclosed in a room that’s little greater than a cell. The blindfold is pulled from my eyes, and I lastly get to see what I’ve gotten myself into.

It’s an irregularly formed room on account of being carved from rock. I think about the situation of the partitions is set by the situation of different constructions within the outlaw warren, and possibly varied sorts of filth and rock and… I’m overthinking the room. The partitions are all naked, except for a mattress, an enormous, heavy metallic field, and a wardrobe.

Shan swings me down onto my ft and lets me take a look at what little there’s to have a look at. If there’s a secret approach out of this room, it’s both by way of that metallic field, the wardrobe, or underneath the mattress. There aren’t any different avenues of potential hidden escape. I at all times search for non-obvious methods out of a spot. I think about there have to be some down right here, in any other case each single saurian outlaw may very well be taken out in the event that they plugged the exits and simply ran a little bit of poisonous fuel by way of the place. It’s a darkish thought, however we reside in a darkish universe. Everybody has to have an escape plan. That goes double for outlaws.

The mattress is straightforward. It seems to be prefer it’s principally a single mattress for a saurian. You can match most likely 4 folks in it, high and tail, however only one huge horned creature. There’s one pillow on it, and a blanket that appears prefer it has the feel of metal wool. It’s principally one very small step up from a mattress of nails. Nothing on this room seems to be comfy. That tells me consolation isn’t very excessive on Shan’s priorities. And that basically doesn’t bode effectively for me.

He turns and locks the door, then reaches for a thick metal beam which he runs throughout the door and thru loops secured into the wall on both facet of the door. I watch him barricade us in from throughout the room the place I’ve scrambled for a semblance of freedom, my again towards the wall with a easy intuition for survival. I push my palms into my pants, on the lookout for one thing which may assist the state of affairs.

I discover one thing small and spherical within the first pocket. It’s not loads, nevertheless it would possibly assist. Pulling it out of my pocket, I make a transfer to sprint it on the ground. However earlier than I can throw my little smoke grenade, Shan is on me. He strikes like fucking lightning, his massive saurian hand wrapped round my human wrist, holding my arm up above my head as he pins me again towards the wall.

I’m caught between rock and a scaled place, very a lot embarrassed at having been caught so rapidly and so simply. It makes me really feel amateurish. In case you’d requested me yesterday if I used to be good at my job, I might have mentioned sure. Now I’m not so certain. What sort of a rogue will get caught within the underbrush nearly instantly and might’t even get a distracting smoke grenade off? Each single one in all my actions appears so apparent and so telegraphed to him.

Shan hasn’t mentioned a phrase to me but. Not a single one. He’s inspecting me with a quiet, clever gaze. A lot of the saurians have lizard sort eyes with darkish slits set in shiny, colourful orbs. His eyes are darkish, two stable black holes. It’s a lot tougher to learn emotion in them — if he has any.

“Sorry,” I squeak. “I needed to attempt.”

“Let go.”

His tone could be very cool, very calm, very collected. He doesn’t appear upset that I attempted to tug some shit. He actually doesn’t appear stunned. He simply needs me to do as I’m instructed, and so I do. That’s not solely the simplest factor to do proper now, it’s the one factor to do proper now.

I drop the little spherical ball into his ready hand. He examines it briefly, earlier than placing it into his pocket. He doesn’t let my arm go, so I stay caught, arched again towards the wall, trying up at him relatively ashamed of myself. I’m not embarrassed at having tried to flee, however I’m fucking humiliated at having been caught.

“Sorry,” I whimper once more. I wish to shrink away from him, however that’s virtually unimaginable with the way in which he’s holding me. I’m pressured to face in place, and I’m made to look him within the eye as he inspects me with that cool, indifferent demeanor.

He says nothing. He provides the briefest of nods, then releases me. My instincts make me wish to scramble additional away, however what can be the purpose? This room is simply too small to evade him, and he’s clearly a lot quicker than I’m. The primary time he caught me, out within the forest, I didn’t see him coming and assumed I’d simply achieved one thing silly. Now I’m not so certain. Now I believe he would possibly be capable to transfer quicker than any creature ought to be capable to transfer. His reflexes appear impossibly fast. There’s part of me that desires to check them simply to search out out. There’s a much bigger a part of me that doesn’t wish to transfer a goddamn muscle lest he snaps on me. I can sense his predatory nature, and I do know that nothing this sturdy, this quick, and this quiet is secure.

“Please don’t harm me.”

Perhaps I’m safer than I believe, I attempt to rationalize. Shan appears self-contained and self-controlled, and never simply aggravated. The opposite outlaws wouldn’t shut up your complete approach again from the forest to their hideout. He didn’t reply to a single of the taunts of the opposite outlaws on the way in which again, and he solely roared within the halls outdoors when the smack discuss turned an excessive amount of to permit.

He walks throughout the room and removes the leather-based holster which carries his weaponry and such. He hangs it up on the again of the door. My eyes observe the motions of his arms. He wasn’t carrying a shirt, and each a part of him ripples as he strikes as a result of he’s completely ripped. This man is scales, muscle, and bone. My eyes run down his physique. A few of the saurians have tails. This one doesn’t. This one has a thick, meaty ass with glutes I do know are highly effective sufficient to hunt me down. He’s carrying darkish pants that cling to his physique in a frankly sinful approach. It’s the type of styling that scorching women in even hotter golf equipment put on, however for tough outlaw saurians.

Shan turns again round, his darkish gaze selecting me once more. I see his eyes slim only a fraction, and a bolt of anticipation and worry run by way of me. I nonetheless haven’t moved from the place he left me, and now he’s coming again. This time, he’s abandoning all of the weaponry I might have tried to seize and use on him if I’d had something resembling presence of thoughts. Although, now I consider it, I don’t assume I’d have a snowball’s likelihood in a volcano of utilizing his personal weaponry on him efficiently. He’s too fast. I have to search for another type of edge. I’m not giving up simply but, however I do know that I’m going to should be rattling good to get away from him.

My mind freezes as Shan will get shut sufficient to me that I really feel his vitality in some way penetrating mine. He’s muscular and he holds himself in that very particular approach that people who find themselves very, very harmful maintain themselves. Form of a lithe, highly effective gait that would erupt into violence at any second. Is he offended with me? How would I be capable to inform?

I really feel myself shrinking away from him as he stands in entrance of me, shut sufficient that I’ve to tilt my head again to lookup at him. He reaches out, curls his index finger, and tucks it underneath my chin, holding my resist his for his inspection. I’m wondering what his intense, darkish, mysterious eyes fathom in me. Does he discover me bizarre trying? Most likely. I’m most likely only a brief, spherical, fleshy blob to him. I’ve at all times been good at stealth and subterfuge as a result of I’m not one of many kinds of girls who stands out. I’m not statuesque and murderous like Raine, and I’m not a blonde ball of vitality like Sullivan. I’m simply Lettie. Or Lottie, typically, as a result of folks typically neglect my title. They neglect me fully infrequently, which I take advantage of to my benefit.

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