Page 44 of Sohut's Protection

Looking at the language uploader, he grit his teeth.

This third language better be it.

Een-gleesh.

As the language uploaded, his consciousness waned in and out and he was vaguely aware that he’d fallen to his knees as the brain fog overtook him.

“Fucking hell, dohnt tell mee you’re doing dhrugs ohr something.”

He understood most of that. Triumph made him smile a little.

“Please don’t tell me the alien that captured me is taking drugs. Like…” She trailed off and huffed out a breath. “I can’t believe I let a druggy psychopathic hunter capture me.”

What?

He wasn’t a—

He opened his mouth to answer her and then stopped.

She obviously didn’t know he could understand her yet.

Maybe he’d keep it that way for a bit.

Resting into a sitting position, he blinked at her as his vision cleared.

“Should have stayed hidden in my cave. Might have probably starved to death but at least I’d have died free,” she murmured, her voice so low he was glad he had her language upload so he could understand what she was saying.

And being able to understand her brought a whole new level to their current predicament.

She was an intelligent being—a being whose language he now understood as well as he understood his own.

She wasn’t something belonging behind a barrier in a zoo—or worse yet, as a prisoner in some mine.

Surely, the Goris knew this. Why had they sent him to capture a being that should have a life of freedom just as he and they deserved?

He couldn’t take her back to them. That was clear.

Not after what he’d had to endure as a chid. Not after the life he’d have to live in captivity.

“There must be a way to get out of this.” He heard her murmur again and the illumination from the light disk caught a glassy sheen in her pale eyes.

He didn’t realize he’d been moving closer to her till she winced, her wide eyes turning on him, as she tried to shuffle away.

Her reaction wounded him a little.

He wasn’t the monster she obviously thought he was.

Outstretching his arms, palms down, he tried to communicate to her that he wasn’t going to harm her.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

She was looking at him as if she expected him to continue…as if she was waiting for the word “yet” and that alone strengthened his resolve to prove her wrong.

He was nothing like the monsters that roamed this galaxy.

Nothing like them.

“We’re on the same side.”

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