Page 14 of Owned By the Hvrok

He touched her.

Just above the shoulder.

The contact was gentle, feather-light. But it felt like a jolt of electricity shot through her skin, into her blood. Her nerves lit up. She almost pulled back.Almost.

But she didn’t.

Because somehow—terrifyingly—he wasn’t hurting her. The pressure was soft, almost... reverent. His fingers glided across her skin like he was tracing something precious. Something fragile.

Something that washis.

His hand traveled slowly across her collarbone. Down the curve of her arm. The sensation made her shiver, and she hated how her body reacted to it—how her skin warmed under his touch despite the horror clenching her chest.

Then he reached for her face.

She held her breath.

His fingers brushed her cheek, trailing down the side of her jaw. She could feel the calloused pads of his fingertips—textured and alien, but warm. Real. Present. The hand of something that wasn’t supposed to exist outside of fiction. Her breath came out shakily.

She didn’t dare move.

He didn’t speak. Not a sound.

Instead, he reached for her hair.

Sylvia stood like a statue as he gathered a section of it between his long fingers, letting the strands slip slowly through his hand. His touch was slow, deliberate. Curious.

She couldn’t stop staring at his skin. That deep, otherworldly blue. Beautiful and terrifying all at once.

And then, through the smooth mask of his helmet, heinhaled.

A sharp breath, like he was drawing her in.

Smelling her.

Her stomach twisted.

Like a collector appraising something new. Like she was a rare find, something exotic to be tasted, studied...kept.

It filled her with dread.

He hadn't spoken a word. Hadn’t made a sound. But somehow, this quiet, unhurried inspection was worse than shouting or threats. Because it told her everything.

He was treating her like something precious.

Something valuable.

And that meant he wasn’t going to let her go.

Ever.

CHAPTER 10

Kyhin remained still, a hulking shadow in the dim blue light of his ship’s chamber, watching the human girl as she stood before him. Her name, he had not learned. Her species—humans—originated from a distant, irrelevant planet called Earth. A primitive place, from what little he’d gleaned. Isolated. Unaware of the galaxy that churned and burned around it.

Yet somehow, it had produced this. Her.

She was small: pale-skinned with a flush to her cheeks that signaled either fear or anger. Or both. Her golden hair caught the low light and gleamed like something precious. Her limbs were slender, her posture tight. She was afraid—he could smell it—but there was something more in the set of her jaw, in the way she glared up at him through those impossibly blue eyes.

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