Page 5 of Gemini
But I’d never been used to violence and my mind and body were in shock from the sudden, unfamiliar pain.
“A good woman opens her legs enthusiastically. A perfect one does it while keeping her damn mouth shut,” he added, tightening his hold on my face as more tears streaked down my cheeks. He smiled at my silence. “See? Not that difficult.”
He shoved my head as he stood, the back of it hitting the rough trunk.
That was it. I was going to either die here or be taken away and die a slow, painful and humiliating death as one of Alessio’s pets, the very man I’d been warned against for my whole life. Because he didn’t simply collect women, but onlyAsianones. And, before myfamily had moved to Galleat a couple of hundred years ago with the first wave of settlers, they came from Korea. Well, at least my mother’s family all did. My father was half Japanese and half German. My features, however, had nothing European.
Which made me perfect for Alessio’s collection.
The leader of the group sighed, his arms crossed over his chest as he narrowed his eyes, scanning the trees around us.
It was dead silent. So quiet I couldn’t even hear his men walking around anymore.
“Where’s everybody?” he said through gritted teeth.
Maybe they were eaten by the predator lurking around, I thought. Damn, how I wished I had the nerves to say that out loud.
“I’ll take a look,” he added. “Don’t try running off or you’ll get a matching bruise on your other cheek.”
But the second he turned around my jaw dropped. My heart stopped. My stomach turned to knots.
I stared, wide-eyed, at the gigantic form holding the asshole by the throat with a clawed hand as his entirely black gaze scanned my face with a frown. His dark, enormous spread wings fluttered behind him as his jaw clenched, and he tilted his head to the side, slowly turning his face to the man in his grasp.
He said something, the language unfamiliar to my ears.Shit, I don’t have that language in my translator database…But neither did the man who had abducted me because his eyes only widened, terrified and full of confusion.
“What?” he said.
The otherworldly man—probably a Gemin—sneered, looking back at me. He took a step closer, pulling the helpless jerk with him and crouched in front of me. He lifted his free hand and slowly brought it to my face, eyes settling on the spot where I’d been hit just moments before. My eyes closed and my body tensed, anticipating pain. But it never came.
The pad of his thumb brushed over the bruise and our eyes met as I re-opened mine. He gave me a questioning look before moving his hand to point at the man he was holding with a firm grip.
“What—”Wait, can he understand me?“I-I don’t know what you’re asking.”
His shoulders slumped but he repeated the motion; caressed my bruise with a soft touch before pointing at the asshole trying and failing to get free.
“Are—are you asking if he did it?”
“Asae.”
A shiver went down my spine at the sound of his deep voice. It was calm. A deadly promise. I looked at my captor, his eyes wide as he tried to shake his reddish purple head at me, like if I lied it would save his life. But would lying savemine? No.
“Yes. He…he did it.”
It happened so fast I barely saw it. His head had been purple but mostly normal for a second, then the neck snapped at an odd angle, his eyes suddenly blood-injected and empty the next.
My heartbeat turned erratic as I jolted, arms shaking but fighting to get free from the damn rope. He had killed him without a second thought. Would I be next? And was it truly worse than being found by Alessio?
After two days, the Gemins had finally found me! Maybe…maybe that man wouldn’t kill me. Maybe he would take me to my husband, maybe—
I froze. His hand moved in the pocket of his pants, eyes not leaving mine. Was he searching for a weapon? Was my neck not worth being snapped? I…Shit what is going on?
When he pulled his hand out, it was closed around a small folded paper. Well, not that small, but it appeared ridiculously so in his large palm and long fingers. He carefully opened it, revealing not one but at least two sheets. He picked one and lifted it in front of me, making my heart stop altogether.
Me. It was a picture of me and a lot of my personal information written around it. My name, my age, my planet of origin…Things I doubted he knew how to read.
“That’s—it’s me,” I said.
“Asae.”
