Page 13 of Hooded

“If we’d been successful, I was promised my freedom,” I add, probably unnecessarily, but I want to see just how far I can push it.

“Your freedom?” She struggles to get the words out.

“All gladiators at the dome are indentured, but some of us were there by order of the Galactic Council. I was one of them,” I growl. “But assisting the Tatatunga Council to free their city of Bogarok would have granted me a pardon.”

“I didn’t know,” Fern says, and a drip of water runs from her eye down her pale cheek.

My heart twists in my chest, pain spiking through me as if I’ve been run through with a blade.

“What are you doing?” I step closer to her forcefield, glaring at it, at her, as yet another drip follows the first.

“I’m apologizing,” she says, terror running over her beautiful face.

“No, with the water. What is it? Why does it make me hurt inside?” I growl.

She lifts one of her hands and swipes it over her cheek as another drip runs down the other side.

I can’t stop growling. I want to put my hands on her. I want to wrap my arms and wings around her, only I can’t because of the vrexing forcefield.

“I don’t understand,” she sniffles.

“The water from your eyes. Stop doing it,” I demand, clutching at my chest because the pain is drilling deeper.

“You don’t want me to cry?” Fern says.

“Cry? I don’t know what it is but…stop,” I growl.

“I…I can’t,” she responds, more water falling, and this time it drops onto the floor. “It’s not something I can turn off. I’m not a tap.”

I pace away, turn, and pace back.

The water is still there. The pain is still there. And I still can’t touch her.

“Please.” I force the word through my fangs. “Please don’t cry.”

FERN

I hiccup back the tears and dash the remains from my cheeks as the massive Gryn, all feathers and muscles, stands before me with his palms flat, exhorting me to stop crying.

It worked. I mean, I could do with a good blow of my nose as I continue to sniffle, but the tears are no longer falling.

“I will stop if you don’t eat me. I made a mistake, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make it right,” I say, attempting to wipe the snot away on my sleeve.

Klynn ceases pacing. His hands open and close at his sides and his head is bowed. He’s clearly so angry about the whole thing he’s struggling to get a grip on his emotions.

Klynn the Destroyer.

I am so, so fucked. And I can’t hide behind a forcefield forever. I’m going to have to reveal myself sometime.

“I won’t eat you,” he grinds out, still not looking at me. “This time.”

Something in the way he says it makes my body twitch. And it’s not because I’m scared of his claws…or fangs.

“I’ve set a course for the nearest space station. I can drop you off there.”

“Set me free?” Klynn growls.

He slowly lifts his head. His dark, dark eyes, deep pools with no white, only a pinprick of light showing from the forcefield brightening them, study me.

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