Page 14 of Breed

“Well, they might escape.”

“Obviously that would not please us.”

“Really? Why? You’ve got to be getting bored. A pirate captain being kept in a room is just a bored woman, isn’t it?”

Avel looks over my head. “She’s adorable.”

“She’s disobedient,” Shan growls.

“They’re all disobedient. That is how humans are. These ones especially. It is a ship full of ruthless, shameless criminals orbiting the planet, looking for trouble.”

They’re talking about me like I’m not here, which is interesting. You never know how your actions are perceived by your captors. Sounds to me like we’re a point of interest they haven’t had before. It also seems as though Avel is very attached to Raine. That’s bad news for me. Even worse than what Shan is about to do to me.

“I’m not ruthless,” I argue. “I’m just trying to get the captains back so we can leave and live…”

“Yes,” Shan interrupts. “Happily ever after.”

Shan

I am astounded by this human. Firstly, I have no idea how she managed to retrieve her suit. That was inside my safe, and my safe is probably the most lethal thing to attempt to break into in the entire underworld. She should be lying in charred pieces on the floor of my room right now. The fact that she is unscathed entirely is as befuddling as it is impressive.

She’s just so small and so soft and so round, and the way she speaks with those impudent pink lips that draw my gaze. I can’t stop looking at her. She is delicate. She is eminently breakable. I have an urge to absolutely destroy her, and a simultaneous desire to protect her. I do not enjoy this confusion.

Fortunately, Avel seems amused by the human. What was her name? Lettie.

It’s a cute little sound, for a cute little human.

No, I lecture myself internally. Do not think of her as cute. She is not adorable. She is a tool to be used. She is a prop in this thing. Do not soften. Do not become attached.

“I need to get back,” I tell Avel. “I do not want to be missed.”

“Of course,” Avel says. “We will rendezvous again.”

I pick the human up under my arm and carry her back down the passage. She squirms against me in her underclothes, and I feel the warmth of her body against mine with every wriggling motion. Humans are quite literally hot. My mind drifts to what it might feel like to be inside one, to have my cock bathed in the furnace of her need. The alpha and the enforcer both seem very carnally attached to their humans, so I have to imagine it feels good.

She says nothing, which is fortunate because I do not want to hear a word out of her at the moment. I need to think. Everything was going very well with Wrath until her appearance in the undergrowth. I curse my impulses and instincts, both of which joined forces to make me reflexively catch her. She is going to be trouble, and I am going to have to handle it.

When I finally return to my quarters, I can’t help but notice the fact that my room looks like a bomb went off in it. That’s largely because it did. The safe’s detonation mechanism activated when she opened the door. I still don’t know exactly how she did that. The door is hanging ajar, and there are scorch marks going all the way across the floor to the other side of the room, where the wall itself has been dented by the now shattered projectile.

“How did you do that?”

She looks a little proud of herself, and truth be told, I feel a little bit of pride in her. If she is to be my human, it is good that she is an intelligent one.

“I opened it, and then there was a small, tasteful explosion. Some kind of shell projectile, I guess.”

“It would have cut you in two and shredded the remains.”

“I didn’t stand in front of the safe. I’m not stupid.”

No. She’s not. But even intelligent creatures can be seriously harmed because their arrogance makes them think that they understand things they do not understand.

“You did not know how many traps were set inside the safe,” I say. “You got lucky today, that is all.”

She gives one of her little shrugs. “I have a history of getting lucky. At some point, it’s got to be more than that.”

I do not want to get into a discussion with her about her reckless behavior, and how it might or might not be differentiated from luck. Things are simple where I am concerned.

“Safe cracking aside, you’ve destroyed my property, you’ve disobeyed me, and you’ve made a scene in front of the enforcer. I have known you for less than an hour, Lettie. And you have rebelled against every single order I’ve given you.”

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