Page 63 of Sohut's Protection

Obviously, he still believed she’d cut the vine on him.

Ignoring her, he continued searching in his satchel.

“Only a few things didn’t fall out,” he muttered. “The phekking tracker is still here but all my sluu dough is gone.” He turned his accusatory eyes on her. “I shouldn’t have fed you any.”

Cleo flattened her lips and averted her gaze from his.

The food he’d fed her had been delicious. She too felt loss at the thought of them being lost.

As the blue alien moved, his tail swung lazily behind him and it too was filled with the urchin-like burs.

They looked like they hurt. But he didn’t seem nearly as angry at her as he should be. Well, he had been angry at first but not nearly enough and she didn’t know how to process that.

As he moved over and grabbed his blade from his satchel, he made it a point to look at her sharply as he took up the weapon.

“Like the handiwork of your evil scheme?” he asked before moving to a space near the entrance of the cave.

Cleo huffed out a breath. “For the last time, I didn’t cut the vine. And you can understand me. How?”

“I installed your language while you were restrained.”

Cleo let that information sink in.

He could understand her all that time?

Frowning, she tried to remember if she’d said anything that she didn’t want him to know.

It was only then that she noticed he was crouching slightly. He was too big for her small living space and that made her realize that he seemed to fill the entire small cavity.

“Why did you come back?” She spoke to his back.

He’d been far away and he was injured. Instead of finding help for himself, he’d returned.

“And leave you here? So the Gori can send some other idiot to find you? They’d torture you.”

He must have seen the blood drain from her face because his gaze softened a little.

“So, you came back so they wouldn’t torture me?”

“Yes,” he said, “I came back so they wouldn’t torture you. I’m much too kind to allow that to happen.”

She should feel relief at those words. Instead, there was a sort of dread as if there was something she was missing.

“So you came back because you want to…save me?”

The alien’s eyes met hers again and something passed behind them—something that reminded her of the few moments before when he was pressing against her with his body.

“Oh, Cluu,” he used the name he’d given her and she was surprised he’d remembered it. “Do I have to spell it out for you?” His face became serious. “I came back because I have plans for you myself.”

15

Fucking.

Grout.

After dropping that line that she was currently tiptoeing around, trying not to detonate, the grout in the cave began to stoically ignore her.

It was as if she wasn’t even there.

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