Page 48 of Captured By the Scaled Outlaw
Pushing himself up on his elbows, he flashes his teeth in a toothy grin. “How did you feel when we blew up the pass? When you learned that the Sandpit’s were reappearing? Not a single piece of paper was signed, yet we accomplished our goal.”
“What’s your point?” I ask, my face heating. I know what he is implying.
“Has filling out paperwork, taking samples, and fighting against a board of uncaring men ever made you feel that same way?” he asks, his head falling to one side.
No. Never. But I won’t let him know that.
“Why won’t you let this go? It’s clear that you hate me by how you treat and speak to me, so why does it sound like you’re trying to recruit me?” I spit, desperately trying to avoid his line of questioning.
Lowell forms a soft smile, his tail slapping the floor. “Who said I hated you?”
Chapter 18
I look at him in disbelief. “Youdid, Lowell.”
He gives a halfhearted smirk. “Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. I don’t mind your company, but your argumentative nature is annoying.” He taps his claw to his chin. “But I think I love it. I can’t tell.”
I force a frown, scrunching my face to hide a grin. “You’re the most intolerable person I’ve ever met. I don’t get you.”
Lowell winks. “Infuriating you makes my day better. And it’s entertaining to watch you squirm,” he chuckles, his tongues slipping past his lips.
I press my palms to my cheeks, tingling with anxiety. “Ifyoubelieve everything you’ve told me about my past, then why aren’t you mad? How are you so calm right now when discussing it?” My words come out breathless, voice wavering. “For Goddess’ sake, you let me kiss you!”
I’m startled by Lowell’s sudden burst of boisterous laughter. It’s difficult to tell if his face is flushed from fever or my words.
“Do you not remember how angry I was when we first met? I dragged you around by your hair and nearlyateyou,” he balks.
My teeth grind, clenching rhythmically to soothe myself. “I’ve only known you to be an aggressive terrorist and thought that was just the way you were. I didn’t think you expressed any other emotion,” I say.
“It is the way I am, but I rarely immediately greet my prisonerswith violence. I’m not an animal who can’t control himself,” he says, watching me fidget. His gaze lowers, voice dropping to a deep timbre as he wiggles his brows playfully. “Unless you want me to be.”
My heart leaps in my chest, the muscle beating wildly. I’m not fond of the power his light flirting and innuendo have over me — as if I’m a lovestruck teenager, easily flustered.
It’s pathetic. Unlike me.
I need to calm down.
“I need to ask you something, Lowell,” I begin, trying to slow my quickening pulse. It feels like the tent is caving in on itself on its way to crush me entirely.
“If I said no, it wouldn’t stop you, anyway,” he replies.
I chew my lower lip. “What changed? Why did you decide to spare me? I’m….” My brows draw together in worry. “I’m confused, given what you think of me. What you think I did.”
Lowell’s eyes soften, the deep-greys of his scales glistening in the low light. I can tell he is thinking deeply about my question, maybe even wondering why, himself.
After a few beats, he replies. “Believe me, I was going to kill you, but—” He covers his eyes with a hand, leaning his head back in a soft laugh. “Although starved and shackled, the first thing you did was talk back without a semblance of fear. You snapped at me as if our roles were reversed, squirming and kicking like you had even the slightest chance of winning. I was intrigued: Why was a government lackey acting so uncouth?
“Every Nilsanian I’ve kidnapped and killed before was nothing of the sort, surrendering and bargaining as if they had a hope in hell to make it out alive. It was pitiful,” He says.
I narrow my eyes.
Lowell sighs, dragging his palm down his snout. “I began having second thoughts when I saw how you looked at our man-made habitat.You were smiling like an idiot, your face all lit up and grinning from ear-to-ear.” A pause catches in his throat, words escaping him as he fumbles and stutters before finally finding the sentence, “It didn’t make sense to me. On paper, you were nothing special — boring, mostly compliant, and completely predictable. You were stalwart and collected in your dissertations, so I thought I had a good idea of who you were in my head. But in person… you are much different.”
I flush at the sincerity of his words and the breathy exhale as he saysdifferent.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he continues, “How could someone I planned to kill for so many years not be who I thought they were? When you didn’t react like the others I had abducted from Nilsan, I thought I had taken the wrong person. It was disorientating.”
I tilt my head inquisitively. “Were you trying to get me to concede?”
