been dreading. And it was almost here.
Suddenly her nerve broke.
“I can’t,” she whispered, the words slipping from her mouth before she could stop them. “I can’t—I won’t!”
She started to run but she didn’t even get two steps before V’rex caught her and swung her up into his arms. Carrying her like a little girl, he strode over the stone floor and mounted the many steps leading up to the exit of the Amphitheater with ease.
“Oh yes you can, little girl,” he growled at Penny. “And you will—we both will. You’ll see.”
Then he carried her away from the cheering crowd toward the little white houses where he would take her for the first time…and every day after that for the rest of their lives.
Thirty-Four
V hated that his curvy little bride feared him. Because of his half Kru’ell One heritage, he could feel every emotion she experienced as she experienced it. Partly because he was touching her through most of the ceremony and partly because he was just so damned attuned to her—like he’d never been with any other female.
He felt her anger and hate directed at him when she’d first realized he was to be her Forever Mate, but that had changed to deep embarrassment while the two of them recited their “vows.”
Her pink cheeks and stumbling words as she begged him to breed her were both adorable and arousing, as far as V was concerned. He could tell she wasn’t used to talking dirty. And he’d felt an unmistakable tendril of arousal from her as he had returned the favor with his own vows. She might not like him much, but her body undoubtedly reacted to his—there was no denying that, he thought.
But her desire hadn’t lasted. It had turned to fear and pain when he’d had to mark her with his initial. He could still see the red lines of the capital V he’d burned unwillingly into her flesh just above her left breast. He would heal it as soon as he could but Gods, he’d hated marking her!
You’re just like him, a little voice had whispered in his head when he saw the tears in her soft brown eyes and knew that he had been the one to put them there. Just like him when he hit her…when he made her cry…
Maybe those bad old memories, which he’d pushed away almost as soon as they surfaced in his mind, were the reason V had turned the branding pen over to his new bride and insisted that she mark him too.
He looked briefly down at his own left pec. Penelope. It was an unusual name but he liked it—liked seeing her handwriting on his body for some reason, though he couldn’t understand why.
Penelope hadn’t been able to understand his actions either. He had felt her confusion as he told her to mark him, to prove that if she was his, he was also hers.
But then confusion had turned to fear again and right now she was terrified.
She thinks I’m going to rape her, V thought, looking down at her soft face, which was pale with dread. Her eyes were so big they seemed to have taken over her entire face and he could feel her trembling against him as he carried her over the neatly manicured paths towards the Love Hut which had been designated as theirs.
He wanted to say something—wanted to let her know he wouldn’t hurt her, or reassure her some way. But he was grimly aware that the entire fucking Compound was bugged. The GL and his orange NeverBreeder mutants would be watching everything—probably listening too. They didn’t even try to hide it, either. The brazenness of their spying was somehow even more infuriating and it meant he didn’t dare to say anything out loud to the girl in his arms.
He could only carry her into their new bedchamber and hope she understood…
Thirty-Five
Penny was trembling with fear as the big Hybrid carried her along like she weighed next to nothing—which she knew for a fact was not the case. He had carried her up all those steps at the Amphitheater without even losing his breath once and now he was striding along like it was nothing to carry a full-gown woman around in his arms for miles. She couldn’t get over how horribly strong he was.
He’s so big—there’s no way I can fight him off, she thought desperately as he strode through the public park towards the rows and rows of little white houses. Oh God,