Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 66904 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66904 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
I drop the little round ball into his waiting hand. He examines it briefly, before putting it into his pocket. He does not let my arm go, so I remain stuck, arched back against the wall, looking up at him rather ashamed of myself. I’m not embarrassed at having tried to escape, but I’m fucking humiliated at having been caught.
“Sorry,” I whimper again. I want to shrink away from him, but that is practically impossible with the way he is holding me. I am forced to stand in place, and I am made to look him in the eye as he inspects me with that cool, detached demeanor.
He says nothing. He gives the briefest of nods, then releases me. My instincts make me want to scramble further away, but what would be the point? This room is too small to evade him, and he is obviously so much faster than I am. The first time he caught me, out in the forest, I didn’t see him coming and assumed I’d just done something stupid. Now I’m not so sure. Now I think he might be able to move faster than any creature should be able to move. His reflexes seem impossibly quick. There’s a part of me that wants to test them just to find out. There’s a bigger part of me that doesn’t want to move a goddamn muscle lest he snaps on me. I can sense his predatory nature, and I know that nothing this strong, this fast, and this quiet is safe.
“Please don’t hurt me.”
Maybe I’m safer than I think, I try to rationalize. Shan seems self-contained and self-controlled, and not easily annoyed. The other outlaws wouldn’t shut up the entire way back from the forest to their hideout. He did not respond to a single of the taunts of the other outlaws on the way back, and he only roared in the halls outside when the smack talk became too much to allow.
He walks across the room and removes the leather holster which carries his weaponry and such. He hangs it up on the back of the door. My eyes follow the motions of his arms. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and every part of him ripples as he moves because he is absolutely ripped. This guy is scales, muscle, and bone. My eyes run down his body. Some of the saurians have tails. This one doesn’t. This one has a thick, meaty ass with glutes I know are powerful enough to hunt me down. He is wearing dark pants that cling to his body in a frankly sinful way. It’s the sort of styling that hot girls in even hotter clubs wear, but for rough outlaw saurians.
Shan turns back around, his dark gaze settling on me again. I see his eyes narrow just a fraction, and a bolt of anticipation and fear run through me. I still haven’t moved from where he left me, and now he is coming back. This time, he’s leaving behind all the weaponry I could have attempted to grab and use on him if I’d had anything resembling presence of mind. Though, now I think of it, I don’t think I’d have a snowball’s chance in a volcano of using his own weaponry on him successfully. He’s too quick. I need to look for some other kind of edge. I’m not giving up just yet, but I do know that I’m going to have to be damn smart to get away from him.
My brain freezes as Shan gets close enough to me that I feel his energy somehow penetrating mine. He is muscular and he holds himself in that very specific way that people who are very, very dangerous hold themselves. Sort of a lithe, powerful gait that could erupt into violence at any moment. Is he angry with me? How would I be able to tell?
I feel myself shrinking away from him as he stands in front of me, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to look up at him. He reaches out, curls his index finger, and tucks it under my chin, holding my face up to his for his inspection. I wonder what his intense, dark, mysterious eyes fathom in me. Does he find me weird looking? Probably. I’m probably just a short, round, fleshy blob to him. I’ve always been good at stealth and subterfuge because I’m not one of the sorts of women who stands out. I’m not statuesque and murderous like Raine, and I’m not a blonde ball of energy like Sullivan. I’m just Lettie. Or Lottie, sometimes, because people often forget my name. They forget me entirely from time to time, which I use to my advantage.
“Please, let me go. I didn’t come down to the planet to be…” I can’t finish that sentence, not with the word they used.