Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 101280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
TWENTY-FIVE
VIK’TOR
Natalie was pretty shaken up by her experience and I didn’t fucking blame her. She’d been so close to death she could look in its eyes and smell its cold breath and she had the wounds to prove it.
When I got her back to my ship, the first thing I did was sit her down in the living area and go get a wound-heal kit. I bathed her face—her eyes were still swollen from crying—and made sure the cut the pimp had made on her forehead was clean.
“I could probably do this myself, you know,” she said as I applied the healing wraps to her wounds.
“Yeah, well…” I murmured, pretending to concentrate.
The thing was, I didn’t want her doing it for herself because I wanted to take care of her. I wondered if it was the Bonding Instinct that some Braxian males have. But no—I must just be imagining it. Half-bloods like me aren’t able to bond. It’s one of the reasons we’re considered undesirable mates by all of the Twelve Peoples—not just the Naggians. So I’d better put that idea out of my head right fucking now.
Still, even knowing that I couldn’t bond with her, didn’t change the way I felt for Natalie. Didn’t change the way I wished she could be mine forever.
Fucking stop it, I told myself sternly. Just because you feel that way doesn’t mean she does. She’s just been traumatized—she doesn’t need you making things worse by telling her you want a permanent connection with her.
But the fact was, I did want it. I wanted her. She was different from any other female I’d ever been with before—unique and special and beautiful. I didn’t care that she wasn’t a La-ti-zal or that she’d been making her living for the past six months as a Blood Whore. To me, she was perfect.
But again, I couldn’t tell her any of that. So I just concentrated on cleaning her up and bandaging her wounds. I bandaged her wrists as well where the rope had abraded her flesh, and she told me about the other two bodies I had seen in the room with her and the pimp. Apparently they had been vagrants who thought they’d found a pretty good prize.
“They kept me a long time, arguing about what to do with me. And finally they…they decided to strip off my clothes to sell them and then they were going to…going to…” Her voice quivered for a moment, but then she lifted her chin and went on. “Going to ‘fuck me and suck me dry,” she finished in a voice that only shook a little.
Her words sent another surge of fury through me and I had to swallow hard and take a deep breath, trying not to let the protective anger get the better of me.
“So I guess, in a way, I was lucky that R’xs got there when he did,” Natalie continued. “Though his plans for me weren’t any better than theirs,” she added.
“No, I guess not,” I somehow managed to get out in a strangled voice.
She frowned.
“Hey—are you okay?”
“Fine,” I said tightly “Just…the idea of anyone hurting you—those bastards wanting to rape you and drain you…” I shook my head. “I know they were dead when I got there but it just makes me wish I couldn’t have gotten there sooner and killed them like I killed that fucking pimp, little girl,” I told her.
Natalie got a cautious look in her eyes.
“I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to, uh, rile you up.”
“No, it’s all right. I’m fine.” I took another deep breath. The depth of my emotions for her was still surprising me—taking me off guard. Again, I had never felt any of this for a female before. The desire to protect and comfort and nourish and care for her was so strong it threatened to erase my common fucking sense—which was telling me I had to take things slow or I was going to scare her away.
“Um, I never asked you, but how did you find me?” Natalie said, obviously trying to change the subject. “Did you somehow use the tracker in my neck that R’xs put in me?”
“You have a tracker chip in your neck?” I exclaimed. “Fuck, baby, if I’d known that, it would have made things so much easier!”
“I’m sorry.” Natalie shrugged. “He, uh, put it in me right after he decided I was ‘one of his girls.’” She made a face and touched the side of her neck delicately with one finger.
I looked more closely and sure enough—there was a little bump under a tiny white scar that marred the perfection of her smooth, brown skin. If I had known it was there, I could have gotten the frequency and found her immediately, without the side-quest to the damn spaceport. I could have spared her the trauma of being tied up and hearing those bastards talk about what they wanted to do to her—not to mention that asshole R’xs threatening to cut her face off!