Page 7 of Hooded

I’d have ripped them apart because I don’t need to be touched in any way except with a blade or claw.

“Please eat,” she says to me, her eyes strangely watery. “And please don’t make me use the immobilizer foam again.”

“And if I eat, you won’t use it?”

“Unless you try to escape,” she says, her gaze hardening. “I will use it to stop you from hurting yourself.”

“Or getting to you,” I growl, leaning closer to the viewing window and baring my teeth.

She doesn’t concede any ground, despite the fact I’m considerably larger than her. I lift my head and scent the air. The window itself is simply part of the wall which can become transparent at will, so her smell has to be on the food she has sent in for me.

Which means she obtained it herself, and there’s no automatic feeding function here, like other places I’ve been kept in.

This little fury has no option but to tend to me while I’m in here. She is as much a captive as I am, and she has to keep me alive.

“You won’t get to me,” she says. “I had these built to withstand space worms should any client want them captured. You’re in here for the duration.”

I can’t help admiring her confidence.

However, for the time being, I have an appearance to keep up. I give her a snarl which used to make my opponents in thedome quake, and I push back from the viewing window, stalking the few paces to the food she has provided.

I am ravenous. The Bogarok were inedible and there was nothing left in the rest of the undercroft to eat. Even the pikrats had vacated. My stomach twists, wanting the food and wanting me to temper my enjoyment or it will revolt.

“Is it okay?” the female asks. “I can get you something else if you don’t like it.”

She really means it. She wants to keep me happy.

Fun…it’s a new concept to me…but it absolutely seems like this could be…fun.

FERN

I’m not really sure what I was expecting from this mark, but certainly not a body to die for with abs which you could use to grate cheese.

Up until now, most of what I’ve picked up has been the galaxy’s low life. Usually with tentacles. Not entirely sure what it is about those with tentacles, but they seem to have pissed a lot of other species off.

So, this male is very different to anything I’ve had to deal with up until now. He’s most definitely more than seven feet tall, built like he’s wrapped in muscled barbed wire, with a face which could make any female go weak at the knees and a voice which rasps its way into parts of my body which should be off limits.

He also has a glower which could etch glass. As he turns to the food I put through for him, I get yet another eyeful of his impressive arse encased in skin-tight, filthy leather.

Stop ogling the merchandise, Fern!

Not all the galaxy’s villains have to resemble seafood, so capturing species like his is something I’m going to have to get used to.

As well as getting a grip on whatever it is which is making my stomach contract as I watch him spear a piece of meat on one of his claws.

“Is it okay? I can get you something else if you don’t like it,” I hear myself say.

I am really, really bad at this bounty hunter business.

The male sniffs at the meat and then puts out his tongue to taste it. I shouldn’t feel a shiver of interest running down my back as he does so.

It seems he doesn’t find it terrible, as he then takes a small bite and chews slowly. I have a million things to do in advance of our wormhole jump to the next nebula, but instead I’m watching a massive male eat.

“It’ll do,” he rasps. “Next time, bring more.”

He grabs the platter, stalks to the far corner, and encloses the food and himself within his wings. Wings which are much lighter underneath than they are on the back, ringing a faint alarm bell in the back of my brain.

It seems I’ve been dismissed as he ignores me but as far as I can see isn’t actually eating. I oscillate for too many seconds wondering if I should say something else until I feel like a fool because he’s ignoring me and presumably waiting for me to leave before he starts his meal.

---