Page 32 of Sohut's Protection

As the alien exhaled slowly, a rumble echoed through the air, loud enough to catch her ear.

… and it’d come from him.

She didn’t know what that sound meant, but she’d been wrong about forgetting he wasn’t human.

That sound was anything but human.

Suddenly she felt like making a run for it.

Forget the water. She’d die of thirst.

The alien inhaled and groaned again, but this time, it sounded like a groan of annoyance and frustration.

Fuck.

Had he scented her?

Despite the cover of leaves she was hiding under, she’d daubed a fresh layer of mud over every inch of her skin. It was in her hair, caking it so much it felt like she was carrying a heavy hat on her head, and on every visible inch of her body.

She’d put extra under her arms as well.

The only place there was no mud was over her naked private parts because, well, her alien captors hadn’t got the memo that bulk panties were cheap—so she had none.

Surely, he couldn’t sniff her when she was covered from head to toe with that metallic dirt caked to her skin.

…Unless he was smelling the one place there was no mud.

The gold ball that formed in her throat forced its way down.

He couldn’t be.

Sheesh. She didn’t have soap to wash with, but she kept down there relatively clean.

If he could smell her most private of spaces…

She could feel her cheeks grow warm at the thought even as she bit hard into her lip.

As her insides cracked into several pieces by the weight of this new anxiety, the blue male stood and moved to the water.

She watched him move closer and it took everything within her not to retreat. If she moved now, he’d definitely hear her in her haste.

The alien moved close enough to where she was for her to see his face and Cleo had to blink several times, her mouth falling open as she stared at him.

He was even more good-looking than she’d realized.

He was definitely not a hunter. Which hunter looked like that?

It would also explain why he hadn’t chased after her after she’d bolted.

She’d run so fast, she hadn’t even stopped when her lungs had threatened to collapse.

But she hadn’t been chased.

The alien hadn’t come after her.

Still studying him, she noted the dissimilarities she could see.

Down his septum ran a series of raised bumps, the same of which ran from his bottom lip down his chin like a midline down his face.

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