Page 38 of Claimed by an Alien Warrior

Something about the way he’d asked that made her stomach twist into a knot. “Um, no. I’m good.”

Matt kept driving, bouncing along the dirt road through scrubby vegetation until it finally dipped behind a small rise. When Zoey looked back again, the interstate was out of sight.

“Why are we so far off the road?” she asked, dropping her gaze to search for Ren in the pickup’s bed. Knowing he was there, even if she couldn’t see him, calmed her a bit, but her heart pounded with unease.

“Relax.” Matt unbuckled his seatbelt and turned his body toward her. “Just want some privacy.”

Zoey released her seatbelt and placed her hand on the door handle. “Okay. I’ll stretch my legs while you…do your business.” When she tugged on it, the door didn’t open. With her other hand, she pulled the lock up, but the door still didn’t budge. “It’s stuck.”

“I know.”

She faced him again.

He grinned and slowly lifted the center armrest, sliding over the seat toward her. “It’s nothing personal, okay? I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity.”

“W-What opportunity?” Her breath was suddenly ragged, struggling through a constricted throat.

“A young woman, all by herself, out here?” He chuckled and settled his hand on her knee, slowly moving it up her thigh.

Zoey smacked it away. “Don’t touch me.”

“You know you want me, too. Why else would a woman be out here by herself? You hoping to fulfill some fantasy? I can help with that.” He sat back and dropped both hands to his pants, opening the fly and pulling out his junk. His dick was an angry red, already fully erect. He gave it a stroke before reaching for her again.

Zoey swung to bat his hand aside, but he was fast, grabbing hold of her wrist and tugging her closer. She slapped at him and lifted her leg to kick him, pressing her foot into his gut and pushing. He was nothing if not strong.

“I said don’t touch me!” she yelled.

Balling her fist, she punched him in the temple.

Matt winced and snapped back, shaking his head. Within seconds, he shook off the blow, glaring at her. “I was going to take it easy on you, but I guess you want it rough. Fine. I can play rough.”

He backhanded her.

The impact knocked her backward, disorienting her just long enough for him to shove her down onto the seat. He settled his weight atop her. She struggled as he attempted to grab her wrists.

“Hold still, damnit!” Matt snapped.

“Ren!” Zoey screamed.

Before the sound had fully left her mouth, the sliding panels on the back window exploded inward, knocked off their tracks by an immense force. Matt shouted in shock, but his voice was cut off when a huge arm snaked around his throat.

Zoey threw up her arms to shield herself from Matt’s flailing limbs as Ren pulled him backward. The man’s grunts and heavy, stilted breathing only grew in desperation as his shoulders caught on the window. Zoey scrambled aside, bracing her back against the door, and slammed her foot into Matt’s abdomen, chest, and groin.

Once Ren forced Matt’s shoulders through the opening in the back window, the struggle was over. The man’s legs swung as he was dragged into the bed of the pickup, forcing Zoey to duck for cover. The truck rocked wildly with a series of bangs and bumps. Matt’s cries were renewed, but they faded — as though with increasing distance — once the rocking ceased. Soon, the only sound in the cab was the crooning voice of Dean Martin.

She sat up and twisted to see Rendash on the ground outside the passenger door, hauling a still-struggling Matt toward the brush. Their forms vanished as they left the glow of the headlights. A shiver crept up Zoey’s spine; she told herself it was just the cold air coming in through the gap in the back window.

A short series of agonized, terrified screams rose over the music, and then fell silent.

Zoey pressed her trembling hands onto her thighs as minutes crept by.

Unable to wait any longer, she crawled over the seat and opened the driver-side door. She climbed out of the cab and steadied herself with a hand on the hood as she walked around to the front, the headlights making her shadow impossibly long. She barely registered the cold as she scanned the darkness.

“Ren?” she called.

Only the wailing of distant wind answered her. She folded her arms across her chest, tucking her hands beneath them, and strained to see anything outside the beams of the headlights.

The faint crunching of footsteps in the snow called her attention to the right. A large, shadowy figure came into view, cast in a soft-but-menacing glow at the farthest edge of the light. Zoey took a step backward.

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