Page 1 of Protected By the Convicts
Chapter One
HANNAH
Hannah tried to confine her crying to the shower where no one would hear her, but she suspected they knew. The looks Ky’Li, Vaughn, and Sersie gave her said enough. As for Ren, he hadn’t been home in days. Ren was avoiding her.
The bathroom door opened. Hannah turned her back to whoever it was. They’d all seen her naked. Hell, she’d slept with all of them. That was part of the problem.
“Are you okay, Hannah?” Ky’Li said.
Hannah’s hand shook as she shut the water and grabbed the towel hanging from the hook. A slight whimper escaped her. He’d called her Hannah, not sha’vi, his nickname for her, the one that meant ‘my one and only’ in his native tongue. She feared she’d lost Ky’Li’s respect. He had never wanted to share her, and yet she’d slept with Vaughn and later Sersie. Now she’d been with Ren too. . .
Except that hadn’t exactly been voluntary.
“I’m fine,” she said, waving him off without facing him.
Two days ago, when the damn fog had finally left her mind, Vaughn and Sersie had explained everything that had happened to her. Ky’Li had hovered nearby, listening but saying nothing. That was more than Ren who had left and never returned. That was when she understood how truly strained her situation was.
Living on the prison planet of Narkos afforded her few freedoms, except those granted to her by her owners, the males of her unit. She’d been fortunate, ending up with four men who treated her well, even loved her in their own way. They had finally started to meld as a unit when the accident at the port had left her drugged and addled.
Despite how hard she tried to remember all the details, her memory remained fragmented. A shipping container had broken open and spilled its contents at the port. Dark red powder had spilled everywhere. While she had been cleaning up the mess, she’d unknowingly inhaled a very potent drug. . . a drug that had caused this division in her unit.
A drug that had led to her having sex with Ren.
A drug that had made her run off naked through the jungle into a band of workers at the water treatment plant where she’d nearly been gang-raped.
Hannah’s hand shook as she wrapped the towel around her torso.
“You’re not fine,” Ky’Li said, taking the ends of the towel and tying a knot in front for her.
She stared into the mirror. Her dark red hair clung to her face as water dripped down her body. Her eyes had returned to a dark green against a field of skin no longer marred by the purple and yellow bruises she’d gained during the fight at the water filtration plant. She looked like herself once again, except she wasn’t. Not by a long shot.
“Why?” she asked, not sure what she was asking.
She and Ren had been in a sexual push and pull since she’d become the unit’s property. He’d touched her, rather intimately, days before she got high. She wanted Ren, and he wanted her, but they’d never slept together. Even though he could have taken her without consent, Ren had declared that she’d have to beg him to take her, something she’d swore she’d never do.
That’s precisely what she’d done, thanks to the drug.
As a result, Ky’Li had accused Ren of rape. Rape didn’t exist within a unit. Per Dresden’s rules, she was the unit’s property tousehowever they wanted. Bed her as often as they wished, even rent her out. She shuddered every time she thought of Dresden’s words, his callousness toward the prisoners here, especially the few women unlucky enough to be condemned to Narkos.
“You’re still shivering and not from the cold air either,” Ky’Li said. “The drug is not out of your system yet.”
Just hold me. Help me forget.That’s what she wanted to yell at Ky’Li, but didn’t dare. She couldn’t let him know how much she was falling apart. He’d worry more than he already did. And then he’d hunt Ren down and kill him.
She needed to protect Ren from Ky’Li, the soldier who’d committed himself to her. But she’d committed herself to all of them, including Ren.
“I can’t let go of the memories. The ones I don’t want,” she confessed as they left the bathroom. “I need to get past this, Ky. Ren didn’t know. This wasn’t his fault.” Was she saying that to convince Ky’Li or herself?
Both.
Every time she closed her eyes, images of Ren thrusting into her from behind assaulted her, as if she was doomed to relive that moment over and over again. The raw power of him had scared her, especially as her knees and palms had pushed into the mud, and how the cold night air had made her feel utterly exposed and not in a good way.
She hadn’t wanted to be taken like that, but it had been her doing, not Ren’s. It was like her rational side had been trapped behind a transparent barrier, watching as her body had taken over, teasing the engineer until he’d finally taken her. She’d cried out at him to stop, but she couldn’t remember if that had been in her head or if she’d actually spoken the words. Or if she had voiced the words aloud, if he’d heard her and ignored her pleas.
“He took you against your will.”
“It wasn’t like that,” she quickly defended Ren. Too many memories and emotions remained jumbled and she may never be able to discern what was real from conjured. What she did know was that Ky’Li would kill Ren if she didn’t stay in control of the situation.
“I teased him,” Hannah added, as she forced herself to face the other memory. She’d stripped, gotten down on all fours andbeggedRen to fuck her. “I asked him to. . . to. . .”
