Page 8 of Taken to Lemora
His scowl becomes more severe — so severe, it’s like he’s trying to squish all of the features of his face into as small an area as possible. It would be funny if his ire weren’t targeted at me because I know that if he chooses to act on it, it is my duty to accept his anger in any and all of its forms.
“What did you use to break the window?” He says again and, when I don’t do anything but stutter foolishly, he prompts, “Was it your hand?”
“Nob, it was the statue.” I indicate with my chin.
He doesn’t look away from my face. “What statue?”
“The one on the lovely little side table just to your right.”
“I don’t see it.”
“But you…”Never contradict the male. He is always correct. I have to fight a frown because Igmora didn’t prepare me for this. My instinct is to disagree with him, because Iknowhe did not look, but I also know that I need to help him along and make the answer to his question quite clear.
I swallow. “Of course. It’s just over here.”
I walk sideways to stand beside the statue so I don’t have to remove my wrists from behind my back where they’re safely hidden away.
His shoulders slump forward. He rubs his face and sighs, as if he’s exasperated with me. Panic surges in my lungs. I almost snort, but manage to disguise it beneath a delicate sneeze. When I look up he grunts, “We both know I don’t give an ohr about the statue. Let me see your hands, female.”
The female must obey the male’s commands. His every command. She must be gracious and do whatever he says. But if I show him my hands, then I’ll…
“Pagh! I don’t have all lunar!” His voice is so loud it booms through the room and through me, like I’m nothing but air.
I jump and quickly hold my fists out in front of me, cautious to only show him the backs of my hands. It has the desired effect because his own fingers halt as they circle my wrists and I hear him suck in a very subtle, yet reverent breath.
“Your markings…” he says softly, his thumb rubbing over the bright red pattern that curls across my dark brown skin. “Tevbarannos didn’t mention markings. You’re not the female he’s looking for.”
“Nob, I’m not,” I say, confirming his words. The kind pirate male had looked so sullen when Igmora had given him a glimpse of me from the door. He hadn’t been allowed to touch, like the others. “He said so himself.”
“Good,” the male grumbles to himself. He makes the word sound like a curse, distracted as he is by the colors clashing over my arms. “That’s good.”
The red skin-toned markings extend over the backs of my palms, circling both arms. On the right side, they slide past my shoulder and unfold over my neck before curling around my right ear. On the left, the markings extend up my arm and spread over my shoulder blade to form one enormous swirl on my back. Though he cannot see them, my breasts are also red and so is my stomach, abdomen and groin. There are also red swirls on both my feet and ankles and my left leg, but strangely none at all on the right one.
Abruptly, he clears his throat and when he speaks again, his interest seemingly evaporates. He’s dispassionate surliness once more. “I haven’t seen your markings before. Are you from Quadrant One?”
My heart summersaults. My stomach dives. My lungs float.He doesn’t know who I am. He isn’t here to buy me at all.I gasp and rip my wrists out of his overwhelming and rough fingers. “Stars!” I stumble back, running into the moving chair and causing it to scurry away from me again.
Because if he isn’t going to be my master, then all of my talk of havingonemaster has flown out of that broken window. Because no one will want me if I’ve been tainted by another male and maintaining my purity is the most important commandment I’ve been given.A female must be untouched, except by her master. If she is, then she will end up on her back with not just one master, but hundreds of them.If I’m tainted, Igmora might just give me to Tyto freely then for him to torture with his pronged tail and his cutting claws before voiding me into space, like trash, as it’s rumored he’s done to other pleasurers before.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” I shout again when he says nothing.
His shoulders jolt, as if stunned. He glances around like he’s confused, then reaches up and touches the base of his left horn in what appears to be an absent gesture. “I thought this was the way out.”
“Nob…nob nob nob…” I’m suddenly furious. So furious that I do the unthinkable. I rush to the small side table, grab the statue and turn… Before I know what’s come over me, I chuck the statue at his head and, in a split instance of pure horror, I realize my aim was true. The gold connects.
The little alien prince’s penis clunks against the center of this mighty male’s forehead before bouncing off and onto the carpet. The huge male canters back a step, like I just blasted him with a cannon instead of a dinky little thing, barely a trinket in his oversized paws.
“Off!” He scoffs, moving the hand on his horn to the space between his eyes, so large and lovely. “What was that for?”
Honestly, it’s a good question. I should be angry that he came in and touched me or that he saw me and that no one is supposed to see me except for the bidders. I should even be angry that he came in and stole precious moments from me that I should have been using to escape. But I’m mostly, irrationally, overwhelmingly angry because in those precious seconds when I thought he was here to purchase me, I felt something I haven’t felt in a very long time. Maybe, even…ever.
I felt hope.
And now, just as quickly, he’s stolen away this shriveled, desiccated dream that he never knew he gave me at all.
“You are not supposed to be here!” I point at him and a droplet of blood slashes from the end of my finger and onto his tunic, making my hand feel like a blade.
“Your ohring hand,” he growls, touching his horn again — nob, grabbing onto it like he’s worried it’ll fly away. Then he reaches up with his other hand and grabs both horns at once. He looks rather…ridiculouslike this, but I don’t have the adequate time to appreciate it as I scramble once again for the window. “I told you, you were injured.”
