Page 28 of Tortured

I reach our room and push her inside. “Don’t come out until I get back. I need to make this meeting. I won’t be long. Stay safe, my kora.”

I duck out the door and hear it shut behind me and I hope that she does what I ask because my whole galaxy is behind that door. I need her to be safe.

Vreck. I just need her.

16

LACEY

Isit still in the room for at least ten minutes and then I give up. I can’t just sit here.

I open the door and glance both ways in the hall then sneak out, hearing the light whoosh behind me. I tread lightly down the hall. I want to find those cages again. I can’t stand the thought of those women in them. I don’t care what species of alien they are. The whole thing is barbaric. No species should buy another one. No person should own another. We did away with it a long time ago and the fact that these supposedly advanced civilizations that think that we’re so far below them do it is disgusting to me.

I know if I told Koehn what I intended to do he’d have a fit and probably tie me up. Which actually makes my belly throb with pulsing desire.

But I slip silently down the halls and eventually I see a small group of aliens coming from a direction that leads me to believe the auction is that way.

As I’m sneaking over there, I see another alien and cringe back. He’s a strange one that looks like an octopus with a sea lion face. I duck behind a door and then dart out another one into another hall, hoping that he doesn’t follow me.

But as I come careening out of the door, I see him slipping along the hall, his tentacles leaving a slimy trail. My belly turns over and my head reels.

I duck back inside and out another door only to see him dart in front of me again.

Over and over again, we do this and each time we do, we take a new room and move further and further away from the room with the auction. Fear begins to gnaw at me. I feel cornered and I don’t know what to do. I can’t scream, can’t seem to ditch this guy and I realize that I’m really in trouble.

But I try again and this time the hallway is deserted and I take off at a dead run in my heels until I come around a dead end and turn around only to see the bubbling alien standing in front of me, his dark eyes, all six of them filled with lust as they slide down my body in a gooey trail just like the puddles he’s leaving on the floor.

My stomach churns as he moves closer and I move backwards, keeping space between us until I hit a wall and he darts forward, one slimy tentacle slipping along my cheekbone.

I close my eyes and beg every god I know to help Koehn find me. Before this guy manages to do what I can tell he wants to and I kill him or myself.

17

KOEHN

When I arrive back in our room, she isn’t there. The room is bright from artificial light but the warmth that she seems to carry with her is absent.

Where is she? I told her not to go anywhere. She still had the golden band of the Kranak device wrapped around her throat and her wrists. So she can’t speak.

My heart sinks as I picture her helpless, her warm eyes terrified and begging for help.

Where the granth is she?

I reach out inside my mind, searching and straining to feel her. A tiny flicker of light in the dark pulses out pain and fear that chills me to the bone. As I concentrate it grows, gradually strengthening until I can practically hear her voice screaming in my head. Mates have a bond that stretches into the mind and soul. Even if they don’t want it.

“Koehn! Help me!”

My head whips around and I growl viciously. Someone is about to die.

I bolt out the door, control slipping as I feel her fear taking over in my head.

I stop and close my eyes, all my senses straining to find her. I take a deep, cleansing breath and faintly catch a light, sweet scent that I know is her. Darting to the left, I plunge down the dim corridor. At each turn, I pause, straining yet again to feel that tenuous contact and scent her even as my instincts tell me to keep running to her.

She is closer. The fear and pain rear up stronger than ever. Her scent fills my nose taunting me with how close she feels. But there’s another scent that’s there too and I know it well.

I turn another corner and there she is, trapped against a wall by a Rasnick whose filthy, slimy tentacles are all over her body.

“Mine!” I roar and charge forward. “Get your granthing tentacles off her, you piece of vreck!”

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