colony. What if he got free? What if he didn’t, but others of his kind discovered he was being held captive?
Her lips thinned with uncertainty.
“Charlie?” Jace prodded, a note of worry in his voice.
She looked up and met Mia’s eyes. As a member of the guard and a military unit, she had no doubt that Mia had signed non-disclosure forms as well. She saw a light of understanding in the other woman’s gaze despite the concern that clouded her face.
“It’s fine. I’m sure everything will be just fine,” Charlie mumbled as the droid returned and set their drinks down in front of them.
None of them looked convinced, but they didn’t argue. She was grateful. She didn’t have any comfort to offer them, and she couldn’t tell them what she knew. For the first time since she started at the lab, the NDA weighed on her.
Doug’s face pulled into hard lines as he frowned, and Jace and Ben wore identical expressions of unease, but she forced a reassuring smile. Picking up her beer, she sipped deeply from the cup and tried to forget the wrath in the eyes of the alien as he stared at her from the other side of the habitat barrier.
It was going to be fine. The scientists would insist that he be moved out of the enclosure, and eventually he would be released with apologies. Nothing terrible was going to happen.
Everything was going to be just fine.
Chapter 13
Rhyst examined himself now that the spying female was gone. She was no better than the others. She had caught his attention, but she showed her true nature. She had done this to him by sedating him, and that made her an active part is his violation.
She had not been present. That much he knew for sure. Her scent clung to his prison in a faint, lingering perfume. Although the sedative had rendered him unable to move, it had been a special sort of punishment that he was aware of everything else around him. He caught the scents of those who had touched him without permission. Hers was not among those scents.
A growl rumbled from his throat, his cock smarting from the rough hands that had forced away his protective plating and explored his genital pouch, forcibly extruding his member so they could manipulate and examine it. He had wanted to rage and claw at them but had been impotent to protect himself in even the simplest of ways, incapable of even voicing objection as they examined his genitals and anal glands.
He should not have ignored his first instinct to treat them as hostile invaders. Instead, he had decided to give the species a chance to redeem themselves and settle the bloodshed between them. Allowing his capture to force close confines so that they might communicate had been a foolish decision.
Every single one of them was at’sahl. The colony itself was a stain of cruelty. He would escape and draw up the might of the a’sankh against the offworlders. They would be dealt with without compassion, just as they had refused compassion to him.
Disappointment was bitter in his mouth that the female had proved to be just as depraved and terrible. They would die all except this female, who would be at his mercy as he had been at hers. She would know the pain and confusion of a world in which she was controlled and owned by someone else. That would be his single gift of mercy among all those within this center of study and torture.
Hatred flowed through him even as his body continued to ache from their rough examination and depraved behavior. They had even surgically removed one of his claws so that they might study it. Beasts! They were no longer worthy of salvation. By the time all was said and done, they would regret that they lost his willingness to speak with them and learn of them. That time had now passed.
He would not waste any pity or sympathy on them any further.
He would bide his time and plan. And then he would escape.
The roar of the storm echoed overhead, and Rhyst tipped his head back, feeling the energy pulse through his fur. He grinned as he savored the power. Soon, all within the colony would taste his power as it descended over them with more force than even the desert storm blowing savagely outside the dome.
Chapter 14
Charlie glared at the stubborn male standing at the opposite side of his habitat. She was frustrated with