“Please, don’t hurt me,” Ni-Kee says, and all thoughts flee my mind, replaced by a furious need to deal as much damage to the Roth and my traitorous brethren as possible.
I grunt, struggling against the bonds yet again, only succeeding in driving them deeper into my arms.
“Stand up, human female, so that I may look upon you.” The Roth’s curious and cruel voice makes my stomach clench. “They say that you are breedable. Is that correct?”
Ni-Kee sniffles, and I know she is making the eye-water again. Out of fear. I am going to crack his bones and shove them up his—
“Yes, I am very fertile. I have always wanted children, just like all human women.”
I stop struggling, astounded. Is this true? This cannot be true. I wish I could see her face, I wish I could tell her to stop talking. Doesn’t she know the Roth were hit first and hardest by the virus? That they are all but extinct and desperate in the face of their species’ mortality?
He’s here for the humans.
The knowledge sears through me, and I redouble my efforts.
The Roth have come to take our human females.
“That is very good.” He sighs. “You know, it is a pity you are mated to this scaled male. I could give you much more than this backwater swamp of a planet.”
“Oh?” Ni-Kee says, her voice heated and low.
I growl, unable to stop myself. That is my woman. She said she cared for me. Why would she use that voice for him? That is a voice for my ears alone.
“You know, humans do not mate. Not like, ah, many other species seem to.”
Footsteps sound, and I hear Ni-Kee suck in a breath.
What is he doing to her?
This is torture.
“Are you offering to come with me?” the Roth says, amused, and my stomach turns to fire, my heart igniting with the fury of a burning sun. “What a fickle bunch of cowards you humans are.”
“Let the warlord go,” she says softly, and I can hear the sultry smile on her lips. “Let him go, and you can have me. Easy as that.”
Too late, I realize what she’s doing.
And there is nothing I can do to stop the stubborn woman.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
NIKI
The Roth aren’t horrible looking. There’s no scales, no tentacles, no strange appendages that set so many alien species far apart from humanity. His skin is dark grey, mottled black spirals curling all over his bare chest, and his hair hangs long, all the way down his back. His full-black eyes are cold and merciless. I school my face into vapid expressionless, trying not to show anything but idiocy as I blink up at him. The Roth are huge, bigger than the Suevans even, with tough, leathery hide. It’s easier to slice through, though. I grin at the memory, then press my lips into a thin line.
My memories didn’t exaggerate the size difference.
The Suevans still hold my arms, as though they captured me and brought me here, before this motherfucker.
My elbows are drawn up high, like uncomfortable chicken wings, and my palms sweat against the energy knife tight in my hands, hidden behind my back.
I just need him to come closer.
“Let the warlord go?” the Roth repeats. “You just offered yourself to me. Your body and future children to me. Why do you care what happens to this scum?”
“Why do you?” I counter. “Aren’t you here for the women? What does he have to do with it?”
His eyes are wide with incredulity and full of contempt. “No wonder your planet was so easy to infiltrate. Your intellect is staggeringly underdeveloped. I do not want the Suevans to come after the Roth. No one can know I was here, fool.”
The Suevans pretending to hold my arms bristle next to me, and I pray that they’ll stick to my stupid plan, that they’ll fucking listen. The asshole just said he’s going to kill them all once he’s gotten his way.
Maybe I need to make it even clearer for them.
“You don’t feel bad about killing even these guys? They’ve helped you.” I want to check on Draz so badly, but there’s no way to communicate my intentions to him. His eyes are blindfolded, his mouth gagged, and he’s bound so tightly blood trickles bright in the silver moonlight from his wrists and biceps.
“You have a soft heart, do you not, female human? You worry about these Suevans lives? I wonder, will your body be as soft? Will you make soft, low noises when I’m inside you, planting my children?”
Draz makes a violent noise, and I barely keep from glancing at him. Planting? Why all the seed and plant imagery? Fucking aliens.
The Roth takes another step closer, and I work hard, so hard, not to telegraph my intention.
“If that’s what you want,” I tell the Roth, my heart racing so hard I’m dizzy. I need to calm down. I need to collect myself. I have to time this exactly right or we’re all fucked.
Some of us more literally than others.
His black eyes burn into me, and fear jolts me at the red sparking in them. But it must be a trick of the light, because it quickly fizzles. Weird.
“I like this idea,” the Roth says, his voice scraping over my already raw nerves.
He jerks his head at one of the Suevans holding me. “Take the warlord’s blindfold off so that he may see me with his woman.”
Oh, God. My heart cracks, and the remaining Suevan has the good sense to move behind me, holding my biceps up and helping maintain the illusion that I am helpless… and unarmed.
The Suevan moves to Draz slowly, and I lick my lips, my throat dry.
The blindfold falls away from Draz’s eyes, and his gaze fixes on me immediately. The Suevan steps behind him. My heart flops painfully in my chest at the hurt etched across his brutally handsome features. The fear.
I love you. I want to scream it at him.
I don’t dare move.
The Roth tsks at me, running a finger down my cheekbone and forcing my attention back to his dark grey face.
“You do not need to look at him,” he says. “He needs to look at us.”
The Roth moves even closer, so close that his chest brushes against mine, unspeakably and impossibly hot, so hot it nearly scorches through my tank.
I flinch.
Draz makes another strangled, tortured noise, his tail crashing behind him.
I blink up at him demurely.
He leans forward slowly, his fingers digging into my chin. His nostrils flare as he brushes his nose against my hair, inhaling deeply.
My skin crawls. Draz makes horrible growling noises, his tail thumping against the ground.
The Roth lowers his face to mine, and I keep my eyes open wide, letting some of my fear show.
“You will get used to it,” the Roth says, towering over me. “My heat, that is.”
“You won’t get used to this,” I say, and the Suevan behind me releases my arms, allowing me to plunge the energy knife into the Roth.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
DRAZ
I am incandescent with rage. I am going to rip into the Roth with my talons, with my teeth. I am going to make him regret every breath he’s ever drawn. I am going to watch as his blood bubbles from his mouth.