Page 23 of Tempting Her Grumpy Protector
“GET UP, WARRIOR!”
The female voice boomed in his skull, cutting clean through the haze of sleep. There was no mistaking who it was.
Greer sat bolt upright, blinking.
“Goddess?” he gasped hoarsely.
“Your woman calls for you—she is in peril!”
The cold weight of fear dropped straight into his gut. So it hadn’t been a dream, after all. Sunny really did need him!
“Where?” he asked desperately. “Please, Goddess—tell me where she is and I’ll go save her!”
“Follow the sound of her mind-voice. She is still calling, though it may be faint. Hurry, Warrior—she doesn’t have much time!”
Greer didn’t waste another second. Still in his sleep trousers, he vaulted down from the high bed, landed in a crouch, then sprinted for the door. He shoved it open, the humid night air slapping his bare chest, and focused—searching for that faint pull at the back of his mind.
There.
“Greer…Greer…”
Sunny’s desperate call was weak—it was like a trail of heat, drawing him between the shadowed huts, deeper into the village. He followed it at a dead run, the pounding of his heart louder than the distant drums.
At last he reached the Communal hut…and then he saw her—held by a tall Thropp’ian woman at the edge of the gathering, Chief Lowhung was looming far too close, a satisfied grin on his triple-eyed face.
“Come, my lovely one,” he was saying, as he took Sunny’s arm and began leading her away. “We will go into my hut and make the music of Mating together. Then you may stay with me as one of my Bound wives all your days.”
“N…no, please. Don’t want…can’t…do that.” Sunny’s cheeks were flushed, her pupils blown wide, and she was swaying on her feet. Clearly she’d been drugged, though he had no idea with what.
A bloody red curtain of Rage dropped over his vision and Greer’s fangs grew long and sharp. His woman was in trouble—the bastard was trying to take advantage of her! He’d drugged her and now he was going to rape her.
No, he’s fucking not! She’s MINE!
And he would kill if he had to, to get her back.
16
SUNNY
The ground tilted under Sunny’s feet, the torches along the edge of the meeting area smearing into golden streaks. Somewhere she had lost her shoes. She tried to plant her bare toes in the packed earth, to resist the big, three-eyed Chief tugging her toward the far edge of the gathering, but her knees didn’t seem to want to lock anymore.
“Come,” Chief Lowhung rumbled, his massive hand clamped around her upper arm. “We will talk… alone.”
“I don’t think tha’s…tha’s a good idea—” Her words slurred together and stumbled over each other. Her tongue felt thick, her lips slow. The sweet-spicy Mating Drink she’d sipped was still warm in her stomach, and every beat of her heart sent a strange, liquid heat rolling through her. She should never have touched it—she knew she was a lightweight. But she’d never gotten so drunk so fast from such a small amount of alcohol.
There must be something else in it, she thought dizzily.
But what?
“I insist. You will come with me.” The Chief’s grin was all teeth and his third eye was looking at her hungrily. The scent of him—strong, male, and far too close—made her head spin harder. She dug her heels in again, but it was like trying to stop a freight train with a feather—he only yanked harder on her arm and she was powerless to resist.
“Lemme go,” she mumbled, her vision blurring around the edges. “Can’t…not gonna go with you.”
“You will enjoy my company,” he assured her, leaning close. “You are already warm for me. I will pleasure you until dawn, lovely one. Then you will be mine.”
“No! Nononono…” The protest caught in her throat as her knees buckled. The Chief’s hand tightened, dragging her toward a shadowed hut at the far end of the clearing.
Panic sparked, cutting through the haze. Her Think-me was hidden under her hair, but she didn’t have the strength to focus on it now. She twisted in his grip, heart pounding?—
