Feels soooo good.
My eyes cracked open, and I looked around the foreign laboratory—Freckle’s playroom. I should have thrashed against the invisible manacles that held me straight up, floating in the air like a doll on display, but the tension in my chest had disappeared. Instead, I enjoyed the peace. The calm. No more breaking glass. The only sounds interrupting my sojourn were deep growls from a… tiger?
Or maybe an escaped lion. From an alien zoo.
Here, kitty kitty.
I blinked and saw swirling stars. Was I floating in space again? Two bright suns eddied in an endless circle. Not suns. Eyes. Sunset eyes swirling inside a being. A person. No. A towering alien.
He looked nothing like Freckles or the other addicts in the lab. This guy looked like a beautiful monster. Black spikes covered his head and shoulders. The top half of his face, and most of his body, were covered in a dark material that could have been armor or skin. As he turned to study one of the racers, I noticed jagged barbs that lined his spine and the backs of his arms. I blinked, focusing on the hulking ET with the prettiest mango eyes I’d ever seen. They were set further apart than those of a human. His nose was nothing more than a blade, with two slits on either side. Three toothpick-sized spikes protruded above his nostrils, pointing toward his cheekbones.
Even his nose is dangerous. So sexy.
His shoulders were twice as broad as an ordinary man’s. Muscles piled on muscles. A golden mist floated around him, and even from here, it smelled delicious. His musky aura washed over me, consuming me, making the Oro inside me swarm in answer and tug at my brain. A reminder of its presence.
I’ll never be alone again.
Another alien bounded in, stepping in front of my guy—a little taller but not as wide.Twospiked aliens. The second one had different colored eyes, one purple and the other a darker, tangerine-red. He was…perfection. The most beautiful being I’d ever seen. Even though his features wereother, the size of his eyes, the sculpted jaw and high cheekbones, all screamed touched by the gods, type of gorgeous. Like a beautiful alien angel. Even with all that. I was not impressed.Boring.Something about him annoyed me. Maybe it was because he was blocking my view. I wanted to look at the other guy, and lay my greedy gaze uponmyalien with the sunset eyes.
A small part of me, a teeny-tiny part, understood the intensity of my reaction wasnotnormal. I should be terrified, screaming for someone to get me the hell out of here, but the Oro had changed me on a fundamental level. Made me horny as hell?Nope, I’ve always been this way.But not during an alien abduction! I should have focused more, figured out my response, but sheer joy engulfed me. Drunk from an Oro-overdose, I didn’t care about anything as long as I got another whiff of thispapacitoalien’s musk.
I watched him move. My body lit up, nipples pebbling with each powerful step. Completely naked, I wondered if he would notice my body’s reaction to him. I squeezed my legs together, heightening the pulse pounding in my core. Instead of plotting an escape plan, I focused on being able to move my arms and legs.To reach for him.I didn’t know what it was about this spiked alien, but whatever it was made my body heavy and expectant.
The two of them still hadn’t noticed me—which was unacceptable—and it almost sounded like they were arguing. Their language was drastically different from Freckle’s screeching; it sounded guttural and primal. Too bad I couldn’t understand a word.Carajo!
“Grawr roar rumble. Grrrrrr,” the annoying one said, a slight tilt of his mouth exposing three sharp canines on either side of his front teeth.
“Grumble grumble. Growwwwl.” Sunset eyes pointed at the other floating humans and crossed his beefy arms.
How dare he?Look at me! Not those other hoes.
When the grumpy one, my guy, made a slashing motion with his hand, I guessed maybe they were talkingcagadaabout the other racers, and now I was really put out. I wanted in on the tea. Wanted to know what they were saying. Everything about the one with the sunset eyes, who I immediately nicknamed Sunny, was intriguing. I wanted to bathe in his smell, shower in his aura, and lick him like apaleta.
I focused my attention inward and whispered to the Oro, my new bestie.Help me.It held the power of the universe. It could doanything. The key to my survival had always been tied to words—my ability to wiggle and deflect, lie and sprinkle in the truth with knife-like precision. Inherently, even in my Oro-soaked haze, I knew I needed knowledge if I were meant to survive.
Make me understand him. All of it. Every. Single. Word. Pretty please?
A wave of fire scorched the inside of my skull, and for what felt like an eternity, I was back in the abyss. I writhed in pain. The Oro coated my ears and throat, changing and elongating tissue to make room for this new language. I convulsed, but soon, I was remade.
Then I heard the deep rumble ofhisvoice.Magic.
CHAPTER 4
Aliens are theworst.
Especially these new ones. Weak,small, fleshy, and so strange with their floppy limbs. Pathetic, really. This planet will tear them apart. “Ridiculous.” Xefe, first leader of the Nozaroc warriors, looked to his second, Loxo, carefully studying his dual-colored eyes. “They will be defenseless in the ring. I thought the Aavvee scientists chose warriors from each planet. These beings are doomed to die.”
“Perhaps they have hidden talents. Don’t underestimate them. Give them a chance.” Loxo’s purple eye twinkled, indicating that all was calm. “I think they’refascinating.”
“You thinkallfemales are fascinating.” Xefe scoffed as he studied the rows of aliens in front of him. They came in so many colors. Some shades of flesh he’d never seen—and he’d met thousands of beings.
One of the Aavvee, the ruling race of this planet, strode toward them. Veras. He and his coworkers had shown a keen interest in this type of alien.
Xefe had countless questions. “You have assessed these aliens? Why would we obtain them? Do you not see how weak and bare they are?”
Veras’s feathers snapped up in greeting. He was one of the few scientists Xefe could tolerate, somehow different from others of his race. Veras kicked his chin up in agreement and responded in Xefe’s warrior tongue, and he was grateful. The high screeches of the Aavvee strained his ears. “They hail from a distant planet. Earth.”
“You expect them to compete?” Xefe ran his eyes along their bare skin.So vulnerable.“Have you lost your mind?”
