have to wear these? The dark colored top was long sleeved, but the collar was cut in a V shape, almost going obscenely down to her navel, with only a small string connecting the top to the corners so it didn’t gape open. The pants went to her ankles, and a drawstring kept them up. At least she was covered and not expected to wear something lewd, or nothing at all.
When she stepped toward the mirror she got a look at herself for the first time in years. There had been a few cracked and aged mirrors passed around the camps, but she’d never been interested in looking at herself. For some reason when she had, all she saw was a woman trying to run from something that would never stop chasing.
Her hair was dark and long, tangled even more from the bath. She looked around, found a comb, and started moving it through her hair. She’d had small necessities while in hiding, but they weren’t a priority. Brushing her hair and bathing hadn’t been the most important thing for her kind trying to stay away from the Rogues. They’d figured out long ago that the Rogues used heat sensors to find out where they were. At first they could go deep enough into caves that the sensors couldn’t detect them. But the Rogues soon picked up on what they were doing and advanced their technology.
Over the last twenty years the Rogues had slowly changed their technology for finding humans. The humans had even started finding minerals that blocked out the heat signal sent from their bodies and that was able to be tracked by the Rogues. Of course the minerals hadn’t saved them this last time. They hadn’t been in that cave for a full day, not even enough time to find the right minerals for everyone before they were found.
Breathing out and setting the comb back down, she braced her hands on the stainless steel basin and stared at her reflection. She was skinny, her cheeks slightly hollowed, but then again not having a substantial diet of protein would do that. They mainly lived on the few fish they could catch close to where they were staying, berries, and even some flora that was edible. But living a hard life and on the run was not so bad because she was alive, and with people that she cared for.
Or at least she had been with people she cared for.
Staring at her eyes, the one blue and one green, she’d always had others point out the uniqueness with them, some even warning her that if the Rogues ever got her they might use the anomaly of dual eye colors for their experimenting. Although she’d never heard of Rogues experimenting on humans, not during her lifetime, she was still wary of standing out, and being noticed.
God, where had Jayce gone? She knew he hadn’t escaped because she’d watched him get shot with the stun gun, and once that happened it was lights out. She had now experienced that firsthand. Smoothing a finger over the splattering of light freckles over her cheekbones, she wished she’d done things differently, wished she’d been able to hold onto Jayce a little longer. She may not have been in love with him, and have only seen him as a friend, but she’d loved him with all her heart. He was a good man, a strong and protective one, and now she knew she’d never see him again.
Closing her eyes and breathing heavily, she told herself she needed to be strong. Escaping might be the brave thing to do, but it was also the stupidest. Until she saw what the outside even looked like, and if there was even a chance she could escape, she needed to stay alive. That was her ultimate goal. Dying at the hands of the Rogues wasn’t going to be in her future. She promised herself that.
7
She’d been in the bathing chamber for far longer than he liked, and although Tolcan had told her to take her time, he wanted her near him. It was illogical for him to desire a female like this, so strongly, so intensely that he was acting out of character.
Maybe he was so aroused for her he just wanted between her thighs, sampling that pussy he knew would be better than anything he’d ever had? No, he knew that wasn’t even the truth, even if it passed through his mind.
This wasn’t about sex, not even the