Page 68 of Rescued

“I’m sorry, baby,” he muttered, looking down at Lan’ara. “So fucking sorry.”

Then he turned and ran from the hut, trying to put enough distance between them that his pain wouldn’t hurt her. He saw clearly now what had been going on—Lan’ara was like a beautiful bright light—a fragile flame—and he had been smothering her with the darkness inside him.

Just recently he had been thinking of building a life with her…of Claiming her as his wife and his mate, which was what she seemed to want so desperately. But now Nate saw that it couldn’t be.

I’m like poison for her, he thought grimly. I can’t let myself get close to her again…not even a little.

He would have to leave Lan’ara strictly alone from now on.

As difficult as that would be, he could never touch her again.

THIRTY-FIVE

SONYA

The monster was coming for her—the troll out of the fairytale book. Somehow he had come to life and escaped the bounds of the book and now he was reaching for her, a hungry grin on his hideous face…

“No! No, please! Leave me alone!” Sonya screamed breathlessly. She was trying to run but she felt frozen in place—her feet were stuck to the floor and the troll was getting closer and closer.

Suddenly he changed—growing two more heads, both of them drooling with hungry greed. A huge metal object appeared in his hand—a cold, hard phallus that Sonya knew he wanted to put inside her.

“Shove it up inside yourself, girly!” the middle head demanded, leering at her. “Grox wants to see it stretch your little cunny! Just like we’ll stretch you when we breed you later!”

“No!” Sonya moaned. Between her legs she ached fiercely—it felt like someone had shoved a thick icicle inside her and she couldn’t get it out and the troll was coming for her…

“Sonya? Baby girl?” a deep voice said in her ear. Then large, warm hands were shaking her gently. “It’s a dream—a night terror,” the voice told her. “It’s not real. Whatever it is, it’s not real.”

Sonya jerked awake with a gasp. Above her in the darkness she could see eyes—pale blue eyes that glowed faintly in the dim room, lit only by the glowing lights of the city outside the window. At first she couldn’t think who might be in bed with her. Whoever he was, he was huge.

“Please…don’t hurt me!” she whispered, looking up at the eyes. “And don’t…don’t let him get me.”

“I told you, baby girl—it was just a bad dream,” the owner of the eyes murmured soothingly. “He’s not here—he’s not real.”

Suddenly everything flooded back to her—her wonderful date with Davrik and then the horrible time that had followed with the disgusting Trollox. Just thinking of what he had done to her made her skin burn all over again. Just as it had when he had shot the black ichor that passed for his seed all over her breasts and belly and face.

With the burning, came the thought that she had been trying so hard to suppress—the knowledge that soon she might belong to Grox forever.

“Yes, he is!” she said. “He is real—and he’s going to own me!”

Then she burst into tears, unable to hold back the horror any longer.

Most men get uncomfortable when a woman weeps but Davrik wasn’t one of them. He didn’t pat her shoulder awkwardly or beg her to stop crying. Instead, he sat up and gathered her into his lap. Cradling her close to his broad chest, he stroked her trembling back and murmured soothing nothings into her ear.

Finally, when Sonya’s sobs trailed off to sniffles, he tilted her chin up so that their eyes met.

“All right,” he said softly but firmly. “Tell me what happened.”

Sonya bit her lip.

“You…you mean in my dream?”

The big Kindred gave her a stern look.

“No, baby girl. What happened with your other client? With the Xeba-shla. What did he do to you?”

The tone of his voice brooked no dissent and Sonya didn’t dare to lie to him.

“It…it’s wasn’t a Xeba-shla—it was a Trollox. It was that awful Grox,” she admitted in a low, trembling voice.

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