C10 Knox - Intoxicating

What were they doing to her? Humans were fragile creatures and she didn’t have healing like me. I paced in the cell, beating my fists against the stones. My voice was hoarse from yelling at the fucking guards to return, to come and fight me.

No one answered me. Not that they’d be that stupid. If I hadn’t been asleep when they’d hit me with the tracking beam, I could’ve fought them off. At least I could have given them broken limbs for their trouble.

What was taking so long? What were they doing to Samantha? Had they captured more of my kind and decided to use her for breeding with another prisoner?

My heart raged in my chest that something was wrong. Didn’t matter what my mind rationalized—that this was all a ploy to get me to care about her—when she was working for the Roulex. Except… Celica wouldn’t have given me her blessing if Samantha were a threat.

I clenched and unclenched my fists. My knuckles where I beat at the stones were already healing. My thoughts churned like the raging storm outside. I remember her eyes studying me—my thumb brushing the corner of her soft cheek. Her kisses and how she met my passion with her own. She hadn’t backed down or flinched.

That had to be real. She’d trembled with desire under my touch.

Simitar! I’d even smelled her arousal and if I closed my eyes, I could taste her on my tongue and feel how my body craved her.

But that was just what these Roulex wanted. They’d already taken everything from me. My Celica. My freedom. My life. I would not allow them to bring a child of mine into their twisted, corrupted world to be experimented on. I would kill them all to keep them from laying one scaled appendage on any child.

My gut twisted. No. I would never let that happen. No matter what, I had to do something to stop this.

I paced back and forth in the small cell, suddenly feeling more cramped than usual. Yet, at the same time, everything felt empty and dark.

When heavy footsteps sounded down the hallway after what seemed like hours, I ran up to the bars, straining to see if it was Samantha returning.

She walked with a limp and my heart twisted. Had they injured her to make her plight seem more real? Or punished her for not having sex with me by now? I couldn’t go through this again. Losing someone and being powerless to save them, would break me and I would never be able to put myself back together again. Not that I was even halfway whole now.

The tractor beam held me in place, but when the guard shoved Samantha inside, I managed to move my arm and punch the Roulex in the face. The satisfaction of hearing the crunch was worth any beating.

They wailed on me with their whips and clubs. I grabbed one by the whip, jerking him toward me, before head-butting him. Then I kicked another in its stomach and stepped on a third one’s tail.

“Stop. Don’t hurt him,” Samantha said, groggily.

So, they’d drugged her. What else had they done? Rage surged in my chest and I punched another in the throat.

“Shut him down! Shut him down,” one Roulex yelled.

The cuffs on my wrists turned blazing hot, the tranq medicine seeping into my veins.

No! I would rip their filthy hides off for touching her, for Celica and every other female they had hurt.

But my legs grew thick and heavy. My fists missed their marks. I sank to my knees while they took out their injured.

Then they resumed their attack on me, but I could do nothing.

I felt each strike. Blood filled my mouth. I couldn’t even move to spit it out or swallow.

“Stop it, stop it,” Samantha cried. “You’re killing him.”

After a kick to my groin, the Roulex unleashed the tractor beam and I fell to the floor, pain lashing through me.

The Roulex left, slamming the barred door behind them. Satisfaction filled me that they had to help carry out three of their own. They weren’t dead though. Damn it. But they would remember me for days to come.

Samantha touched my shoulder. Tears trailed down her cheeks. “Why did you do that?”

My jaw was too sore to answer her. Did she think I was immune to a woman in peril? That I would just stand by and do nothing?

Maybe that’s exactly what she thought since I hadn’t been able to do a fucking thing when they had come and taken her. I had let my guard down and had fallen too deeply asleep earlier.

I clenched my fists, enjoying the feel of the soreness from where I’d punched the bastards. I would heal soon enough.

She cradled my head in her lap, stroking my hair out of my face. Occasionally, the edge of her fingertips brushed along the edge of my horn, sending desire pulsing in my veins.

“Say my name.” I wanted to hear my name again with the unique timbre of her voice. “Please.”

Instead of questioning, like she drove me insane with, she said, “Knox.”

It was like she plucked a string inside me that attuned everything to her.

I drew her down to me, spinning her until she was cushioned with my wing beneath her and in my arms. Her breaths quickened and I wanted to claim her right here, right now, to sink deep inside her and make her mine.

But then the prison would win. The Roulex would have me and any child we made—and that will never happen. I will not let them take any child of mine.

I cocooned her to me because I wanted to touch her, keep her near me. As fucked up as it was that she could be a spy and might be doing this on purpose. At least trapped with me, she couldn’t report back to the Roulex. Slowly, I let my body shift into the hyper-sleep of my people to heal my wounds faster.

The last conscious thought I had was how, underneath the aphrodisiac shampoo and soap she’d washed in, was another more intoxicating scent.