In Enemy Territory - Shannon West Page 0,14
that—he wasn’t in their damn army. Rasc had noticed the man before around the compound; he was a gorgeous redhead, with the exotic stripes under smooth, tanned skin. He had perfect features and brilliant green eyes and the height of the Tygerians without too many of the bulky muscles. Not that he wasn’t big. He was, just like all of them, but he wasn’t overgrown with ugly, bulging muscles like Kroman.
The officer had appealed to Rasc right away, though he hardly liked to admit it even to himself. He’d overheard that asshole Kroman say he was the adopted son of an important Tygerian senator. The senator was rich, powerful, and a friend of King Davos. Bonnett himself was tight with Prince Mikos. Figured.
He’d been embarrassed to see the gorgeous colonel in Kroman’s office that first time, witnessing his humiliation at Kroman’s hands, and had said his piece and gotten out of there as fast as he could. A glance at Kylon Bonnett revealed his worried frown at Kroman’s nasty attitude toward him, however. Actually, Kroman had been no more hateful to him than usual. Or maybe he was just getting used to the bullshit. But the very next day, he’d received a transfer. Coincidence? Maybe. But his intuition told him Bonnett had something to do with it.
He hadn’t been tempted to try any tricks on Bonnett—so far, anyway. He was biding his time to see how that situation worked out. In fact, he was giving some serious thought to seducing that young Colonel if he could. He knew Tygerians had a weakness for humans, and the young man was good looking enough—fuck, no sense in lying about it, the man was a walking wet dream. He was the best looking Tygerian on the planet, outside of Prince Larz himself.
Rasc was pretty damn sure he’d enjoy trying to seduce him, despite the fact he was a Tygerian. Rasc’s life might even change for the better in a hundred little ways if he could pull it off.
“What in the four hells are you doing, slave?”
The loud, harsh voice sounded close behind him, and Rasc scrambled to his feet, dropping the cigarette and crushing it under his foot. Not in time, though, as an ugly and particularly unpleasant guard named Talzar appeared suddenly and without warning in the back of the alley and roared his displeasure at him and Setin. He came storming up to them, his fists clenched, and poor Setin lost his nerve, unwisely trying to run. He got a hard fist to the back of the head for his trouble. It dropped him to his knees, and Rasc sincerely hoped he had sense enough to stay down there.
“As for you…” the guard said, turning and shouting in Rasc’s face. “You lazy scumbag. Why aren’t you on the work detail with everyone else?” He pulled back a meaty fist to hit Rasc in the stomach, and Rasc tried to prepare himself by tensing his abdominal muscles—a trick he’d been trying since he was a boy, dodging his half-brothers’ vicious blows. One which had never worked, by the way, but was purely reflex.
Rasc doubled over with the blow and groaned as loud as he could, hoping the extra noise would satisfy the guard’s sadistic need to hear him suffer. It did hurt like a mother-fucker, so he wasn’t pretending much.
“And you, Farlian,” Talzar shouted, turning around on Setin. “Since you’re already down there, make yourself useful! Suck my typpid!”
A typpid was Tygerian slang for dick, and Setin lowered his head miserably, recognizing the term. He crawled a few steps forward on trembling knees, knowing better than to object, though dread was in every line of his body. Just as Rasc was about to intervene with his fists, a redhaired god suddenly descended from heaven in the form of Bonnett, who appeared at the end of the alley.
“What in the four hells is going on here, Sergeant?”
The guard turned in surprise, fumbling to pull down his robes, and immediately came to attention, hitting his chest with one fist while raising the other in the air—the Tygerian salute for a superior officer.
“I found these two men hiding here with contraband, sir,” Talzar said, addressing the colonel, who had taken an aggressive step forward. “They’re both well-known slackers, you see, and Colonel Kroman told me to watch out for them.”
Bonnett looked past the guard and met Rasc’s eyes. “These men are no long Colonel Kroman’s responsibility, sergeant. They’re in my unit now. But is that