Page 4 of Victoria's Discovery

Vi’kail clenched his jaw to keep from yelling obscenities at whomever took them, not wanting to scare the poor little flower again. Closing his eyes for a moment, he leashed his rage until the need to kill things receded… slightly.

Looking back at it with new understanding, he searched past the tangled locks. That fury turned to horror when he tried to judge its size and realized it didn't just look small because it was curled in on itself. Itwassmall. The oversized garments hid the true shape of its body, but its hands and feet were half the size of his.

“It’s a child,” he breathed horrified.

* * *

Well,that answers that! He doesn’t think I’m a child. He thinks I’m an animal.

Twisting her lips, she muttered, “Strange. You’re suddenly less cute than you were two minutes ago.”

She was relieved to find he was less murderous than he appeared, but assuming she was an animal and throwing treats at her was rude. She’d recognized thathewas a person, so what the hell was it about her that made her seem like an animal?

“Dick. As if animals wear clothes… Mmm,” she trailed off, pursing her lips as realization set in.

Okay, people dressed their animals all the time.

Glancing down at herself, she sighed when she realized she was huddling in the corner doing an unintentional but probably accurate impression of a scared Chihuahua. Unflattering as that image was, it let her understand his assumption.

Acknowledging that eased most of her irritation and made her feel like the rude one for thinking he was a dick.

Sweeping the rest of her hair off her face, she pushed to her feet then immediately stumbled and hissed in pain. She had to brace a hand on the wall to keep from collapsing back to the floor.

Her joints ached and her legs felt weak. It reminded her of the time she tried rock climbing, broke her leg, and had to spend weeks in traction. She’d felt that same achy weakness the first time she tried to walk again.

“What the hell kind of janky teleportation beam are these assholes using?”

Victoria froze, eyes going wide, as an image from a movie suddenly popped into her mind of a pig-lizard being reassembled inside out by the digital conveyor.

“Oh hell, please don’t tell me they scrambled my insides.”

Heart skipping a beat at that thought, she clutched her stomach and searched for any other pains that might mean they’d reassembled her incorrectly. She let out a sigh of relief when she didn’t find anything other than the weakness and throbbing in her joints.

Wincing, she rocked her weight from foot to foot. When she felt like she could stand on her own, she started toward the treat, intending to politely return it to him. Well, she was going to try anyway.

Her aim probably wasn’t anywhere as good as his, but it was the thought that counted. That, and the satisfaction she’d get from proving she was a person.

Victoria grimaced a little when she picked up the dark purple chunk he’d tossed. It looked like some kind of weird, smoked meat, but it was sticky and smelled like feet. Either this guy had seriously questionable eating habits or the treat he’d thrown her was a bit rotten.

“Okaay, veering back into dick territory now.”

After shaking off the pellets sticking to it, she glanced up at him only to find him standing stock still, his pale purple eyes bouncing from the outline of her breasts down to her bare legs.

Frowning, she followed his gaze, wondering what was so interesting. She was wearing her favorite long-sleeved, black t-shirt dress and flip flops.

Her breasts, big for her small frame, stretched the material and it was uncomfortably easy to see their shape, but the dress wasn’t see-through. So, what was he staring at?

Bending farther forward, she caught sight of her legs and her jaw dropped. There was at least a month’s worth of hair on her legs. After staring at them blankly for a second, she pulled on the neck of her dress and craned her head down to check her underarm. It, too, was hairy as hell.

“Holy fuck. How long ago was I taken?”

Tilting her head, she narrowed her eyes as a memory tickled the back of her mind.

The last thing she remembered was being outside, walking her roommate’s dog in the little patch of grass right behind their apartment, paranoid she was going to be caught. Lissa wasn’t supposed to have a pet, but her boyfriend got it for her as a birthday present. That, in her mind, was reason enough to keep it.

She’d asked Victoria to watch the little fur ball while she went out for drinks. Victoria agreed, reluctantly, but only because she was a sucker for the fluffy little pee monster. At least if she walked it, itprobablywouldn’t use her slippers as a restroom.

There’d been a blinding light. She remembered thinkinghelicopterandoh shit, they caught me,but that was all.

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