Hammering pain slammed into my head and rattled up my body, sending me backward into the wall with a yelp.
A new clatter of laughter flew into the space as I brought my gaze back to level.
A whooshing sound turned my attention to the other side of the room. A door opened and a lanky, naked male was pushed through with similar goldenshackles. His scrawny figure stumbled in, falling on his face much like I had. Red holes slathered his body as his golden eyes looked up at me. “I-I’m so sorry about this,” he mumbled to me in a craggy rasp.
“About what?”
Then, the door shot open again, and a man wearing a protective suit that loosely covered every inch of his body stepped in.
In his hands was some sort of barrel attached to a larger tube that traveled out the door behind him. He aimed it at the Elizian’s back as he climbed to all fours.
Out of the barrel came a shimmering purple mist that engulfed him. And as soon as he inhaled the mist, his entire demeanor shifted. His muscles tensed. He rose to a standing position effortlessly, and his eyes locked on mine.
The suited man darted out the door, closing it behind him.
Then, it was just me and the male Elizian staring at each other from across the room with the audience above.
His spine straightened, coming to more than a foot and a half taller than me. Purple magic swirled beneath his skin in a display of beautifully curvedspirals. It traveled down his torso where I noticed him becoming hard.
That was when I realized what this was. Why the women were being dragged out of the cages. WhyIhad been dragged out of the cage.
They were going to breed me.
CHAPTER
THREE
Tears stung my eyes, but my body was unmoving and dysfunctional from Fletcher’s farming session earlier. The bones in my body shifted to odd places as muscles and skin slid over them.
The terror infecting my veins had me trembling all over as I fell back to one knee with a loud thud.
The man plodded closer, eyes roiling in lust for me.
“Don’t,” I whispered as I forced myself back to both feet.
I watched him stalk to me, skin covered in glowing patterns that hinted at the mist’s possession.
My eyes darted all over the cage, hopelessly looking for a way out. My quick intake told me my only way out was to somehow overpower him with my worn body. The closer he got, the more frantic I became. He reached out to grab me, and just before contact, a streak of darkness blocked my view of him. Strong hands clamped down on my waist, shielding me as my body and soul expanded and moved with a current of forceful wind.
The smell of leather and spices filled my nose before I snapped back together. Delirium wreaked havoc on my brain. Confusion set in as my eyes wildly searched for the male Elizian who had been sent to breed with me. But all I saw was the comfort of Aldris’s wooden, square house.
Aldris stepped into view, his dark skin smooth and familiar. His beard had grown, but his bald head remained the same. Tears filled my eyes as his brawny arms covered me in a woven blanket and dragged me into a hug. “Ripley,” he huffed with an exhale. “Thank goodness.”
“Al-Aldris?”
“You’re safe,” he crooned as he squeezed me harder.
“Aldris!” I cried, throwing my arms around his broad back, fingertips barely grazing each other over his muscular physique. “H-How’d I get here?” I mumbled into his shoulder.
Aldris released me, looked me in the eyes, and said very clearly, “Fletcher brought you.”
Bile roiled in my chest at the sound of his name. Flashes of him storming through the hall and slamming his fist down on the red button to demand my blood in the most agonizing way caused my knees to buckle. Then images of him touching me, holding me, his hands running along my bare skin as he drove himself into me—as he took advantage of me with false promises of love and loyalty—made my skin heat in all the wrong places. I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t cope with the heartbreak any longer. The deep love I used to have for him had been marred more each time he walked away with a bottle of my blood. And I hated that my body betrayed me still when I thought of the memories. To undo that love so deeply rooted in me was easy for my mind, but my body was still going through withdrawals.
Vomit rose up my throat as I doubled over, letting a stream out at my feet and over the hardwood floor. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Don’t say that name around me,” I warned, panting.
His deep, raspy voice rumbled, “Yeah. He told me it would be bad.” Aldris helped me straighten, rubbing my back in comforting circles.
“Sorry about your floor.”
