Page 26 of The Commander

Some of it looked like white shards of bone. Oh god. She couldn’t think about that.

Not now. She couldn’t stop or she’d fall apart into a million pieces of horror.

Getting away, finding a quick end in death had been her only goal since getting caught. Who knew what the ugly, rubber armed werewolf aliens would do to a woman?

She was done for. But she would decide how she ended. Not them. Never the alien overlords or that monster. No one could take away the right to decide her own destiny. She wouldn’t let them.

Her senses went weird at the first sound of the demon’s voice. It was like her eyes were joggled in her head, everything off kilter, sounds amplified. His growl had echoed over her skin, causing a weird shock to her system.

All she knew about this kind of alien were the stories Dad had picked up on the radio and what Brenda and Mighty Joe had told her about the blueys. Rotting wankers.

Muzzle heads hung outside the base.

A shiver traced its way down her spine, and not just from fear. His scent, a strange mix of spice and something musky, still clung to her, stirring thatwarmthdeep in her belly.

What was that? It didn’t matter. She couldn’t afford distractions. Not with her life on the line.

She had to get to that door at the back of the building, or better yet, find something she could use to impale herself. There was no choice but to escape whatever he had planned for her, one way or another.

She moved as fast as she could. Her limbs were clumsy, her feet felt thick, and her head throbbed, but she had to get out of here.

The hallway went as he said. She knew enough about the building ahead of time to know he wasn’t lying about that. Broken fluorescent lighting overhead added to the sense that everything looked the same. Mazelike. The old classrooms were missing their numbers.

She couldn’t tell if she’d gone far enough. Had she gotten to the part of the building where the exits to the old playgrounds were?

Two open doored rooms held nothing but single tables. Somewhat clean compared to the hall. Cells? No exits. Nothing to stab herself with.

Should she jump headfirst off a table?

She couldn’t afford to be knocked out. She couldn’t afford to survive. Not after smelling the monster. Not after he touched her and made her…feel.

Her nipples throbbed with every bounce of her chest, and her pussy had swollen up, freakishly slick between her thighs.

Why had she reacted to him that way? She had a nagging, terrible urge to run back to him, to sneak another sniff of his exotic scent. He must be one of those blueys. The silly little wordcontradicted Brenda’s hushed tones and Mighty Joe’s fearful whispers.

This was the monster they’d warned her about. The killer of his own kind. The one who strung up muzzle heads like macabre decorations. His touch lingered with an obscene intrusive heat. Her body craved this creature. How was it possible?

He was enormous, powerful, every inch of him radiating a predatory grace that both terrified and enticed her. He lacked human hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes, with fathomless black marbles for eyes. His mouth opened wider than was natural, full of too big, pointed teeth — a thing of nightmares. The hard flat angles of his face, sharp cheekbones, cut jaw, thick neck, broad shoulders, and his sheer size with the way he moved—everything screamed predator, wrong—and yet.God.It was as if a deep, sleeping part of her woke up and recognized him as male. And undeniably, overwhelmingly… desirable.

He’d drugged her, melted her mind with a weird venom in his skin or a slime coated salamander or the sneaky spore from a poison mushroom. A hallucinogen must have entered her skin with just a touch on the bared surface and seeped into her bloodstream.

That was why he cut her clothing off and wanted her naked.

Drugs could be the only reason for the baffling things invading her thoughts. Touch me. Stroke me. Feel me. Want me. Fuck me. None of those thoughts were hers.

Door. Door. What had he said? She opened one on her right. Saw nothing inside but darkness.

There had to be something. Keep going.

He was counting. She was running. Cara had to escape whatever it was he had planned.

CHAPTER 9 - CARA

She heard a noise behind her. Not loud. Not a noise that hits a person with a puff of air and a shock of vibration. A whispered danger inside her head, and all the more terrifying because of it.

The demon was done counting.

He was coming to get her, and she wasn’t ready.

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