Page 41 of Bred by the Alien Prince

I complied and went to work scraping the jewel against the stone repeatedly to no avail, with Cormac issuing demand after demand for me to get it right. I could tell he wanted to do it himself, but I was adamant about him not touching the jewel. Also, I didn’t need him throwing what he did for me up in my face again.

Then it happened—the first shot of yellowish light, then another and another.

“It’s working!” I exclaimed as the embers ignited the bedding beneath my feet.

“Okay, now direct the sparks here and make sure we get as many lit as possible.”

I gave it one good scrape against the stone and gasped in pain when I felt something pierce my skin. I checked the damage; the jewel had taken a beating, and a small crack appeared in the center. I didn’t notice it when I switched it over, and the crack cut open the palm of my hand. Fuck, some of the liquid had come out, too, but not enough for the colorful sediment to leak.

“Okay!” I said, wanting to preserve what was left of the jewel’s splendor. “I think that’s all I got.” I inspected the jewel. I didn’t even think it was real by that point, but then again, maybe they had different classifications for jewels here than back home; all I knew was that Lorvian wanted me to have it, and I wanted to keep it. “I swear if I die here, I’ll be so pissed.”

“After one night here, you probably wouldn’t mind that outcome.”

“Hide,” I said, placing my hand over my mouth to block the smoke. The room filled up fast, and the fire caught on to several of the hanging drapes in the room.

Two of the green men had entered. I held in the urge to cough and took a chance and stepped for the door through the bellow of smoke. Cormac was right behind me, and it didn’t take long for a crowd to form and then disperse once the fire licked beyond the door.

The crowd was leaving out of one of the massive doors that led outside, and I turned to direct Cormac’s attention, but you guessed it, he was gone like the wind. “Of course.”

I slipped in with the crowd; everyone was focused on escaping with their lives, and I doubt they noticed me. They pushed and prodded and ran through the crowd whenever an opening appeared. The mighty arches that were the doors of this structure were like walking into the Kingdom of heaven if heaven had a purplish-hued horizon. Once I felt the wind in my face, I breathed deeply to take it all in; I didn’t care.

A force of nature yanked me away, and I found myself slammed against a wall. I gathered my barring and gazed up at the towering woman. The shell-like elf ears and pale skin gave her away; she was a Valisian woman, without a doubt. I had no time to speak a word, a threat, anything before it was lights out.

CHAPTER 16

Hours Later

Lorvian

I’m used to straightforward battles; if someone wanted to fight me, I appreciated being told face-to-face in simple terms. At least I knew what the hell I was getting. I could counter a jab to the jaw and a kick to the ribs. But this? These mind games, secrets, and lies were always the worst type of shit to deal with. Every nerve was on edge, and my senses became extra sensitive to everything, which irritated me. I was tired of holding back.

I heard screams in the distance coming from the black smoke billowing into the darkening purple sky. Could it be my little Wolcan, my Caspian? Squirming himself out of another tight situation?

If it was, I think I would mate him right then and there the moment I saw him, whether I knew what the hell I was doing or not!

“Hey, big guy!” I heard a small whisper from nearby, but it was not his voice’s soft, husky sound.

Someone stood in the near-dark alley, beckoning me to join them. I stomped over, sick to death of these shadow games, and removed the thick cloth hood from their head to reveal a human male. His blue eyes widened like saucers when I grabbed him by his hair and pulled him forward. He had a chip installed, just like Caspian. He belonged to someone.

“Please, listen to me!” He said the word please as though it killed him inside to speak it. “I was told to give you something by a …woman like you. Her name is Elvira, and it’s about Caspian!”

I let him go and stood back to get a good look at him and to calm myself; damn, that boy made me soft as hell! “Be quick about it,human.”

He handed me a small tablet that would fit into a navigation system. I had a feeling Caspian’s kidnapping would lead to some game, they wanted to see me crawl and beg, but I would tear their damned livers from their assholes and piss down their throats!

“If you can’t wait to look on that device, I think I overheard them say something about a planet called Dargoshe.”

Hmm, Dargoshe, that planet is almost uninhabitable because of its hot temperatures. However, the heat was only close to the surface of the planet. The skies were very lovely. One needed an aerial ship to live there. The planet was a nice place to hide from the law as it was easy to jam signals due to the magnetic activity of the heated surface.

I snatched the human the moment I felt him trying to leave, and he struggled in my arms as he sputtered and babbled about how he had done his part.

“Feion, how many of you does he own?” I asked, wanting some information. “Don’t even think of lying, or I’ll rip that chip right out of your head.”

“Look!” He still struggled to release himself from my grip. “This…Elvira… told me that this Feion was responsible for my… previous predicament. There was me and another, though I don’t know if he escaped the fire. Caspian was there too.” I let him go once he spoke his name.

He coughed and took a deep breath. “If you care about him, then it will make you happy to know that he wasn’t harmed while there or sold to anyone. He talked about you. That you were gonna save him, but he isn’t the type to sit around for that, so we escaped together.” He pointed toward the smoke. “We did that, we started the fire.” He winced once he snapped his head, and he coughed hard. The implant must have been newly inserted, and it was clearly a rushed job with little care given to this human’s well-being.

“If you two escaped together, then why are you—?”

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