Page 22 of Hooded

“He’s been like this since you took the female,” one of the guards on the platform above shouts down.

“You’ve already been mating with him?” the metal clad one says, almost disappointed.

“No, I certainly have not!” I fire out.

His eyes glitter with unpleasantness.

“I’ve only ever seen Gryn on vids, and once they’re like this, there’s no stopping them,” he says, placing his palm on a red square on the outside of the cell.

The bright light comes on from above and the noises within the cell cease instantly.

“Maybe mating will calm him down, little female. You’d better be prepared to offer him your cunt as soon as you can.” He leans closer. “Because protocol red-thirty means he mates with you, willing or no. Or you both die.”

The forcefield deactivates, and Klynn is on the floor, frozen in the act of attempting to rip at the metal. The guard shoves me forward as the light goes off, and the huge Gryn snarls like he is about to take on an army.

Behind me, the forcefield comes back on, and I have no option but to step forward or I’ll be fried.

Klynn lifts his head. His eyes are pits of darkness, his entire face twisted with rage. He huffs out two hot breaths, his massive claws digging deeper into the floor.

“You will mate the female, or you will die,” the guard above calls out. “You have one nova-hour.”

Some of the rage within Klynn subsides, and he stands upright, wings shaking.

I press my back up against the wall, close to the forcefield. He doesn’t move his eyes from me. It’s only because of the movement in his feathers I know he’s not frozen again.

“Little fury?” he says, taking a step towards me.

I shift as far as I can along the wall until the forcefield fizzes in my ear.

“I will not do anything you don’t want to do,” Klynn says quietly.

I’m not entirely sure I can speak, my throat is so constricted.

“They want me to breed with you. And if you don’t, they’ll either kill us or breed with me themselves.”

KLYNN

Being without her was the worst torture I’ve ever experienced. And I’ve been at the hands, and stinging tentacles, of the Galactic Council’s finest.

But having Fern taken from me, having to watch as they stole her away…it is not something I ever want to see again.

Except our captors want something else. They want a mating. And other than imagining how delicious it would be to take her entirely, I can see the idea of us mating has obviously never occurred to my little Fern.

Her eyes are huge and terrified. What’s worse, there’s no water in them. Instead she is pressed hard against the cell wall, looking like she would prefer to be cooked by the forcefield than get any closer to me.

And this was the female I held in my arms not so long ago, who touched my feathers like she belonged there. My vrexing heart does its thing again and I growl under my breath.

If Fern had wings, she would have flared them.

“Fern.” I don’t know what to say.

I’ve spent the last nova-years fighting, killing, eating, and doing it all again. I don’t know what to say to this little female who is frightened into immobility.

Who believes she has no choice but to mate with me or die.

Or mate with another.

“I can guarantee you will never mate with another, not while I draw breath,” I snarl out. “You are mine, littleeregri. Mine to claim, mine to mate, mine to protect.”

---