Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 66904 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66904 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
“She’s well marked,” he says. “A good thing for a mouth like that. The humans haven’t proved easy to tame. Thorn’s got his hands full with the one he took, and I’ve met the enforcer’s girl. She’s a wild thing.”
“This one won’t be wild for long,” Shan promises. “She’s new, but she’ll learn not to talk back soon enough.”
I wish he’d let me down, or at the very least cover me up. This is completely humiliating. My face is burning bright red, and adrenaline is surging through me. I do not want to squirm, because I know that would be ineffectual and expose me all the more. But it is almost impossible to stay still when on display this way. I end up wriggling miserably, hoping that with every moment Shan will take mercy on me and cover me up.
He follows his comments up by slapping me on the rump with the flat of his hand. I let out a yelp of pain and kick my feet, knowing all the while that this puts me on display all the more. I am relieved when Shan flicks the soaking wet hem of the shirt down over my rear and covers me up. The fabric is still clinging to my hips, sticking to my cheeks. This is still far from a modest predicament, but it is better than it was.
“They’re so pretty,” one of the saurians flanking Wrath grunts. “Delicate and fleshy. She’s lucky she’s not mine. If she were mine, I’d have her wrapped around my cock again and again. She’d not have a minute to eat or sleep in between rounds of servicing me.”
The saurians nearby laugh in the way males laugh when another male says something sexually aggressive. Wrath does not laugh. Wrath does not say anything at all. Shan puts me down and I chance a little glance over my shoulder. I can feel the truth of the fact that this underworld alpha is perhaps the most dangerous creature I will encounter down here. And I just called him stupid.
“She’s got a mouth,” Wrath says. “You’d best find some way to occupy that, Shan.”
“Indeed,” Shan says, in his usual taciturn manner. I feel his arm snug me a little tighter, perhaps protective, but more possessive. I can’t see what is happening behind me, and I don’t really want to look around and see all these criminal saurians leering at me. That snug grip is comforting. It lets me know nobody else will be getting their scaled hands on me.
“I need to get her dry,” he says. “Human skin does not repel water the way ours does. She’s already starting to shiver.”
I am shaking a little, but not because I am cold. The initial shock of capture has worn off, and the warmth of the bath and the embrace of my saurian lover has made me soften just enough to be able to feel things again. I feel fear. I feel exposed. I feel everything I have never wanted to be.
Noticed.
Every eye in this place is on me. Every saurian outlaw is observing me with rough, painful, carnal intentions. They could, and perhaps even would, tear me apart if I was not under Shan’s protection. They respect him. Even Wrath, I think. Or maybe something else is happening. Maybe this is a test.
It is hard to think with all these feelings shutting down my brain. I need my wits about me, but my wits have fled. I am an object now. A thing possessed. I am nothing but something that belongs to Shan, and in the moment I am content to act that way.
He carries me out of the baths, and it is the first merciful thing he has done all day. I keep my eyes focused on the ground so I don’t have to look at anyone. This is what pure, unfettered shame feels like.
“Be careful with your words,” Shan says once we are once more safely ensconced in his room, away from prying eyes and spying ears. “Do not tempt Wrath.”
“Why? Because you’re worried he’ll hurt me? Or he’ll hurt you?”
Shan’s eyes narrow a little.
Shan hasn’t outright told me that he is undercover in Wrath’s organization, but that’s pretty obvious. I wonder if Wrath is already suspicious of him. I wonder if that’s why he let Shan keep me. I wonder if I will become the demonstration of Shan’s loyalty to Wrath. Every publicly fucked up thing he does to me is proof of his obedience to the outlaw. He exposed my ass to Wrath and the others. He made me a sort of sexual spectacle.
“I won’t warn you again.”
He doesn’t like to talk, and he definitely doesn’t like to explain himself. We’re strangers in every sense of the word, and the fact that we fucked doesn’t change that.