Page 12 of Breed

There’s a note of possession in Shan’s voice that almost makes me think maybe he does like me after all.

“Stay in touch,” Avel says. “And do mate her. It will be good for the both of you,”

They talk about me being ravaged and defiled in such a casual way. I don’t have independent existence in their minds. I’m something to take and to have. I’m a creature to be claimed.

We know this is how saurians consider humans, but it still feels strange to hear myself being talked about in that way. Strange and disturbing. I spent so many years learning to become human, and now it seems as though I am going back to being a thing.

I look down at my feet, and for the briefest of seconds, I see pink and orange shoes, and a river of red flowing toward me. I blink, and it’s all gone, back to dirt.

The brief lapse in concentration is all it takes for me to fail to realize that Shan is coming toward me. I don’t remember hearing him say goodbye to Avel. I don’t remember anything at all for that precious couple of seconds.

“GIRL!”

He shouts the word at me, and I freeze as I see him suddenly coming toward me, massive green and gold frame damn near naked from the waist up, rippling scaled muscles and spikes, and an expression of confused annoyance as he lays those dark eyes on me.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!” The word comes out of me in a panicked series of curses. I turn and I run, even though there’s no point. His legs are almost twice as long as mine. He overhauls me easily, grabbing me by the back of the suit, and swinging me up off the ground. The back of this thing is getting ragged from the number of times his claws have rent through the back of it, but I know it will hold strong enough that it won’t give way and give me another chance at escape.

Shan gives me a little shake.

“What are you doing, and how did you get that suit back?”

“I got it out of the safe.”

“How!?” He sounds astonished. “That’s not possible.”

“Of course it is. I did it.”

I don’t mean to sound rude or curt in my response, it’s just that it’s a very simple matter. If I have the suit, it’s because getting it was possible. I know that these saurians think very highly of themselves, but you’d think they’d be capable of basic leaps of logic like that.

He snarls, a sound that goes right through the core of me.

“I don’t want attitude, human.”

I shrug, which doesn’t help the situation at all. I don’t know what to say, so I’m left with physical gesture.

“I said, I don’t want attitude. When you speak to me, you call me sir, and you keep a respectful tone.”

I liked him better when he was stern and taciturn, and barely said anything to me. This new lecturing iteration of what seems to me to be a very military type saurian does not gel well with me. I might be a quiet, mousy pirate, but I am still a pirate. And pirates don’t hold with law and order and calling people sir.

“Do you understand?” He twists me around in his grip and gives me a hard, dark stare, his eyes narrowed in a way that does not bode well for me.

I say nothing. I don’t want to open my mouth. I know that no matter what I do, there’s going to be a problem.

“What’s going on out there, Shan?”

Shan grabs me again and drags me into the presence of the saurian he was speaking to before. I was right. It is Avel.

I see a massive purple creature with big wings closed behind his shoulders. My eyes widen as I recognize him. I have seen this saurian so many times before, both in footage and in the confines of my mind. He is much, much bigger than I realized. When you see a saurian on camera, they seem large, but between the two of them, I am absolutely dwarfed.

“You have Captain Raine. I’d like her back,” I say, my voice strained with the effort of trying to be polite.

The saurian stares at me. “How do you know that?”

“Because I saw you fucking her on the roof of that house made of bones.” I blurt the answer way too bluntly, then clap my hands over my mouth in pure horror at what I just said.

A burst of pain explodes across my ass. It feels like something just detonated against the seat of my pants, which is wild because I am still wearing my suit and I shouldn’t feel anything through it. Shan just spanked me so fucking hard I don’t think I would be able to take it if it weren’t for military grade impact protection.

“I told you to speak with respect!” Shan lectures me harshly. “This is Enforcer Avel. He is one of the highest ranking saurians in Grave City. You will speak only when spoken to, and when you do speak, you will speak with respect.”

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