Page 38 of Shielded Heart 1
Samantha was unfamiliar with his species, but she didn’t need to know what he was to understand how dangerous he was. He looked like he could tear her apart with his pinky fingers.
The orange alien lifted a hand, gesturing to the chair across from him. “Sit.”
Trembling, she walked to the table and stiffly lowered herself onto the chair. “Who are you?”
Goat sat on the couch, leaned forward, and rested his elbows on his thighs. “Youare going to answerourquestions, terran. Not the other way around.”
“Who is the sedhi you were with two days ago?” Orange asked.
Samantha’s blood chilled.
Were they after Alkorin? Her mind raced; she couldn’t lie and say she didn’t know who they were talking about because Goat had seen her with Alk, had been taking pictures of them.
“He’s a friend,” she said.
Orange shifted a hand to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose in a veryfrustrated-parentfashion. “Do you just not understand the situation? Your kind are new here, but I assume your people wouldn’t have been invited to Arthos if you were dumb. Give me a name. Give me an address. We’re here for tangible information, not for you to mull over the nature of your relationship.”
Samantha placed her hands in her lap and clutched them together. “I-I don’t know much about him. I only just met him. His…his name is Kolthar. That’s all I know.”
“Contact information,” said Goat.
“I don’t have any.”
Orange pressed two of his hands atop the table and pushed himself up, leaning toward her; the table groaned beneath his weight. He bared his teeth and growled.
Samantha flinched back and threw her hands up, palms out. “I swear! We only just met! I don’t know anything about him other than his name.”
“You two seemed pretty damned close for having just met,” Goat said.
The orange alien’s fingers wrapped around the edges of the table, and the metal buckled in his grasp. “You’d better start giving us information, terran.”
Tears welled in Samantha’s eyes as terror clawed at her insides. She couldn’t give them anything. Wouldn’t give them anything. No matter what Alkorin might have done to thesepeople, she refused to betray him. Not when he’d done so much for her.
“I don’t know anything,” she said shakily. “We only just met. H-He was fascinated with me being a human and flirted with me. We spent the day together and I haven’t seen him since. That’s all!”
Orange leaned closer to her. “How do you keep in touch with him?”
“I don’t! I don’t know how. He didn’t give me anything. Hecame to me.”
“When are you meeting him again?” Goat asked.
“I-I don’t know. Itoldyou. He just came to me.”
The aliens exchanged a glance with one another.
“For your sake”—Orange reached across the table with surprising speed and grabbed her hair, dragging her out of the seat until her face was centimeters from his—“you’d better be telling us the truth. Our boss wouldn’t appreciate you lying about this.”
Sam cried out, her hands flying up to clutch at his fist as pain shot through her scalp.
Worthless. Weak.
The tears spilled from her eyes. “Please! Please, don’t!”
“We’ll be around.” Orange shoved her away.
She stumbled backward, tripped over the leg of her chair, and fell to the floor. She remained there, shaking, and watched through the curtain of her hair as they left her apartment. The door closing behind them was like the gunshot signaling the start of a race, startling her into motion. Shoving herself to her feet, she darted across the room, hit the lock button on the door’s control panel, and engaged the heavy deadbolt that slid into the floor.
She didn’t know who they were, howthey got in—how easily they could get in again—but she would do what she could to prevent their reentry.
