Page 16 of Victoria's Discovery

While Victoria was busy pretending she wasn’t feeling decidedly flustered, Thegan slowly slid his hand out of her hair as he straightened. With a final grin, he tapped her on the nose then turned away, moving to line up with Thorn on the far wall.

Shaking off her disconcertment, she eyed them, trying to figure out what they were planning.

They exchanged a nod then, without any warning, charged forward. Victoria stumbled backward in alarm as Thegan ran past, less than a foot in front of her, her curls flying across her face in his wake. They rammed their shoulders into the opposite wall with a resounding bang so loud it hurt her ears. Slapping her hands over them, she darted a worried look at the cage when it rocked slightly.

When she saw them start back, she assumed to try again, she backed up farther until she was completely out of the trample zone then watched, hopeful, as they slammed into it again and again.

And again.

Worry they were going to hurt themselves slowly began to crowd out the hope that they’d break through.

After at least a dozen tries, they stopped, both rubbing their shoulders and wincing.

Moving toward them, she hissed at the dark purple bruises beginning to bloom all along their arms from shoulder to elbow. “Are y’all okay?” she asked, looking back and forth between them.

She couldn’t understand Thegan’s answer, of course, but imagined if they’d broken anything, they’d look more than just frustrated.

Nodding, relieved, Victoria darted to the wall, her heart hammering in her chest, hope making her feel breathless. But, a thorough inspection of the glass instantly turned her hope into dismay. There wasn’t so much as a hairline crack.

“Damn it,” she breathed, letting her head fall forward to thud against the glass. “Fuck, damn it, shit!”

All of a sudden, she was angry. And scared.

It wasn’t the reactionary panic from earlier. This was the kind of fear that came from understanding she had no control over the situation in which she found herself. Any manner of terrible things might happen to her and everyone else locked up in there, and there wasn’t anything she or anyone else could do about it.

She wanted out. The realization that she was well and truly trapped tightened the skin between her shoulder blades, sent prickles down her arms, and made her chest feel like it was being squeezed, constricting her lungs.

Questions flooded her mind, each one only worsening the fear.

What was going to happen to them? What awaited them at the end of this trip? What kind of horrors would they have to endureduringthe trip? How long would the trip be? Would they be awake from now on? Were their abductors going to feed them? They wouldn’t let them starve to death, right? Not after going to the trouble of taking them, to begin with.

But, not letting them starve to death and feeding them enough to be healthy were two very different things. Maybe that was their plan. Feed them just enough to keep them alive but little enough to make them weak and helpless.Morehelpless.

Life wasn’t fair. Everybody knew that. But this was a level of unfairness of which she’d previously been unaware.

She hadn’t been terribly upset to find out she’d been abducted, once the panic receded enough for her to think past it. That was definitely due in large part to her love ofStar Trekand sci-fi romance novels, not to mention the awe of seeing aliens for the first time.

Still, Victoria wasn’t an idiot. People who abducted other people obviously weren’t good guys, but they hadn’t hurt her—that she knew of, anyway—and, until they gassed her and put giants in her cage, there’d been nothing to suggest theyplannedto hurt her.

She’d been really hoping this would turn out to be an unplanned, involuntary, occasionally terrifying, but mostly okay and maybe even exciting adventure. But that was obviously just her being overly optimistic, per usual.

When her nose gave a warning tingle and she felt the sting of tears, she clenched her teeth and sniffed hard. She didn’t want to cry. Crying didn’t fix anything. She just felt… helpless and really, really fucking scared.

“Focus on something small,” she whispered thickly.

Just then, a big, warm hand settled on her shoulder. She ignored it at first, not wanting to cry in front of the aliens and make them think she was even more pitiful than they already did.

But whoever it was, wasn’t having that.

Victoria sighed when he gently, but insistently, tugged on her shoulder until she was facing him. Surprisingly, it was Thorn staring down at her in concern. She’d expected Thegan.

Letting her head fall back against the glass, she looked up at him silently. A frown immediately furrowed his brow. Lifting a hand to her face, he used his knuckle to collect the one traitorous tear that hadn’t stayed where it damn well belonged.

Meeting her gaze again, his face softened, revealing the handsome alien hiding under his usual scowl.

He stared down at her quietly for a moment then opened his arms.

Victoria glanced from each of his arms then back up to his face, not understanding what he was trying to communicate.

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