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Chapter Eight

Zark

The female smelled of more than just serenity and freedom. Her scent was sweet and intoxicating and made me think of things other than my abandoned posts.

By the way she looked around in the dark at my podhouse and surroundings, I could tell she was confused. Someone had forgotten to warn her that I lived further from the other villages.

I unraveled the ropes from her wrists and she dropped her arms down by her side. I reached behind her and pushed the door open, but she didn’t make any moves to turn around or walk inside.

“Do you know much English?” she asked, innocently.

I felt a grin twitching at my lips as she waited for my answer. I wrapped my hands around her waist and slowly backed her inside the home. I didn’t miss he small gasp that escaped her mouth the moment I made contact with her. We were so close, I could hear her heart racing.

I set her down in the center of the room right under the light. I almost couldn’t look away from her exquisite body through the revealing thin piece of silk that clung to all of her curves.

“This is my home. You will stay here. Eat here. Sleep here. Bathe here. You will not leave here unless you’re with me.”

She turned her small mouth down into a frown. “I wasn’t aware that I would be imprisoned.”

Her voice was smooth and melodic.

“Prisoners wear collars,” I told her, locking the door behind us.

She said nothing, but she did turn about to look around. She never moved from the spot I placed her in.

“You have lots of collars hanging over there,” she whispered, staring at my inventory near the closet.

“Because I drag convicts into prison.”

She swallowed visibly and continued looking around. Her attention feel on the pot of soup I left on the stove and the bag of bread sitting on the table. If the room hadn’t been so quiet, I might have missed the low rumble in her belly. She was hungry.

“Would you like something to eat?”

She nodded. “I guess so.”

I washed my hands in the basin and then went to turn off the heat.

“At the auction, you told the king you weren’t yet fit for a mate. When you’re done breeding me, what will you do with me?” she asked.

My mouth watered at the mention of breeding. I turned around and watched as she shifted around uncomfortably on the small rug. I noted the way her chest rose and fell and at the way her cherry-tinted nipples pushed against the silk. I licked my lips, trying to imagine the taste of her. That sweet, intoxicating scent drifted under my nose again. I inhaled deeply.

“After you’re done with me, after breeding, what happens?” she repeated.

“I never said I would breed you.” I scooped some soup into a bowl and set it down on the place mat on the table.

“Then why did you bring me here?”

“Because I don’t want any other warrior to have you,” I told her.

“Oh…” Her lips parted the same time her eyes widened. “You should know that I’ve never been with any man like this.”

“I’m not a man.”

“But you still carry human genes,” she replied.

“Is that something you remember?” I asked.

“Yes, they told us in training that your ancestors were humans who came to Zuna hundreds of years ago and mated with the alien species here. You’re a tribrid.”