Page 3 of Owned By the Hvrok

Her breath caught in her throat. It wasn’t fear at first. It was instinct. Primal.

The thing wasn’t human. And it didn’t care if she was.

“S-Stay back,” Sylvia said, her voice raw.

It didn’t respond. Didn’t even pause.

Instead, it tilted its head, emitted a string of dry, clicking sounds, and tapped a device on its thick belt.

Pain.

Instant, searing, indescribable.

It burst through her neck like lightning. Her knees gave out. She dropped to the floor, hands clawing at the collar she hadn’t even realized she was wearing. A scream tore out of her before she could stop it—hoarse, ragged, full of shock.

Then it stopped.

She gasped. Gagged. Her whole body trembled, teeth chattering. The metal around her throat pulsed once, like a warning.

Through blurred vision, she saw two more enter behind the green brute.

Tall. Thin. Graceful.

Alien.

Their faces were completely blank, covered by smooth plates of mirror-dark glass. Their bodies moved like water, silent and unsettlingly precise. Their long fingers glided through the air as they approached her, as if they didn’t walk—they drifted.

“No,” she rasped. “Don’t?—”

They grabbed her. Cold, hard fingers. No response to her struggling, her kicking. She cried out, tried to fight, but the collar hissed again, and pain shot through her body.

Her limbs gave up.

They stripped her.

Effortlessly.

Like she wasn’t even a person. Just an object.

Tears slid down her cheeks, but she bit her lip to keep from sobbing. She wouldn’t give them that. Not yet.

They dragged her to another chamber. Mist poured down from overhead—warm, dense, and laced with that same sterile, sharp scent. She stood naked beneath the jets, trembling as invisible streams scoured her skin.

She clenched her fists.

“I’m not a fucking animal,” she whispered.

But no one heard her.

When the mist faded, they handed her garments—if you could call them that.

The fabric slithered between her fingers like something alive. Slick, dark purple, trimmed in silver. The top hugged her chest tightly, leaving her arms and midriff bare. The lower piece was worse—high-cut, narrow, showing far more than it covered.

Shame battled fury in her chest.

They wanted her on display.

And that meant she was being prepared for something.

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