The Alien's Little Sister (Stolen by an Alien #8) - Amanda Milo Page 0,21

up a place there because everybody who saw me knew I belonged with one of the combatants.” Her glance at me now holds pride. “My people tend to be noticeable on that planet.”

“Something tells me your family is noticeable on any planet.” I eye the dorsal spines that stick out of the back of her tunic. And her tail, so animated behind her as she tells this story, snapping and rattling like she’s angry.

“It’s true,” she says proudly. “Anyway, my brother spied me and paused his fight to point at me. But his attention must be focused on his combatant at all times. I felt terrible to realize I was dangerously distracting him. I immediately moved to return to the stands where he’d first put me.”

My tennis shoes start pounding the treadmill, my steps aggressive. All I can see are my own sisters in this scenario, and it’s killing me. “Okay.”

“I started to go. But when he turned back to his opponent—”

“Oh hell no, sweetheart.” I wipe my hand over my face, too many late night human trafficking documentaries dancing behind my eyes. Acid is churning in my stomach. Like if I don’t chill soon, my insides are going to make gut-eating butter. There goes my gastric health. Also? I’m taking this information straight to heart: if I tell this woman to stay somewhere, use duct tape or Gorilla Glue.

“I didn’t disobey him! I only thought about it. But I’m not senseless,” she defends hotly. Her scales flash in the crappy light from above and her tail snaps and she’s really pretty.

DAMMIT, MATT, WHAT DID WE SAY ABOUT THAT WORD!

But seriously—I bet whoever took her thought she was pretty too. “What happened?”

“Well, it turned out that it was no accident that the Luvuuds sat in front of me and blocked my view. They had been hoping to drive me from the sight of my brother’s friends, who had been spread out in the stands also watching the match. As I was heading back through the tunnel to return to the stadium, the Luvuuds met me, and took me. By the time my brother’s watchers reached the tunnel mouth, it was too late. Just out of their sight, I was being loaded onto a slaver’s cart. What’s the matter?” she asks, concerned.

“Stress ulcer,” I say raggedly, holding a fist to my gut as I jog harder. “Go on.”

She eyes me worriedly. “It was determined that I was a virgin—”

So this is what a brain aneurysm feels like.

“—and I was put on a freighter and transported with a ship full of other beings to an auction planet,” she spits out quickly.

But she may as well be ripping a Band-Aid off of an alligator bite.

A faster delivery doesn’t do a whole lot.

“Inara…” I choke.

She speeds up her steps to match my pace. We’re jogging. Like there’s a pair of T-Rexes chasing us. I’m panting. She’s not. “It was a frightening experience,” she grumbles before stressing, “but I’m fine. Nothing happened to me! My brothers rescued me before the auction began.”

“AUCTION,” I cough out. It was ‘determined’ you were a virgin just what the hell kind of auction was this... Thank God some of her brothers are gladiators. No doubt they all have a very particular set of Liam Neeson-level skills. Skills they’ve acquired over a long career of ass-beating other aliens. Skills that make them nightmares for aliens who abduct their one and only sister. “They were going to auction you.”

Inara gives me a furious look. “Not you too!”

I raise my hands off the handlebars. “Hey, I’m not… Look, if it were up to me, the world wouldn’t be unsafe and a woman could sit wherever she wanted without having to worry if her brother's friends can keep her from getting dragged off by slavers. Sheezus. Is there anywhere out there where it’s… not like that?”

Inara’s mouth twists. “Our homeland.” Her face might be alien, but it’s painted in easy-to-read lines of frustration. “Public executions for wrongs are swift and unforgiving. In a way, you could see the remaining populace as being naturally selected against deviance. There is no fear of being harmed there. As a female, I mean.”

I gape at her. “Why the heck did you leave?”

Her tail slaps down hard, punching a slice in her treadmill’s belt that makes an extra loud swishing noise as the thing is run back under and around again. “Because my family treats me as if—” She huffs a breath and lowers her voice to a