Page 75 of Bred By Sor'en

Clayan and I both knew it.

Whatever would happen next would be the end of our fun. The end of our friendship.

The screams had started immediately.

It had been so deafening, the stars swirling ahead dizzy to a child unfamiliar with space. I was fucking terrified when the first of the nearby males had thought to begin stomping me. Their foot coverings keeping them safe. Their blows landed so jarringly that I thought they would kill me right there. I yelled for Clayan to run. Forgetting in my panic that I was the only one not welcome.

That Clayan was safe. I think he’d forgotten too.

My vision blacked out as a male’s hooved foot drove jarringly into my face, and Icrawled. The sound of the incoming Port Police had stopped their assault, but the hatch seemed so far away, the terrified, hiding face of my friend had seemed impossible to reach.

He’d meant to help. I was almost there when a small, pale hand reached out, gripping my arm from inside the hatch. He’d dropped to the floor in less than a blink later.

In less time than it took me to scream for him to stop, his pale body foamed and writhed on the ground just inside the hatch as I watched in bloodied horror. Adder had shown up just after that.

The rest plays out like a horrid dream.

The lives I took to keep Adder from attacking our planet. To telling the galaxy what I had done.

We would’ve been eradicated, exterminated like vermin.

I still don’t know what lie he told to cover up the death of a young Kalzait royal, but Vortara shut down for many orbits following. Something about a space gas leak in the Outer Rim. Talks ended with my people, the Kalzaits had bigger problems now than trying to offer a small, nothing planet protection in hopes of studying us.

It could’ve saved us. So many females, my friend, so many generations of hiding could’ve been forgotten. Maybe we could’ve been welcomed into space.

Now they certainly never would.

The agony leaves me all at once, leaving myself and the prince panting. When my vision finds me again, my body is well beyond spent, and I’m surprised to see the male truly shaken.

A sickening, dangerous hope fills me before my logical mind thinks better of it.

“You—" he stutters before brushing himself off and straightening. Returning to his arrogant posture and blank stare as easily as one would when slipping on a garment, but his voice betrays his emotions as he clears his throat. “He grabbed you.” His hands shake as he tucks antennae back into his hair.

My mate fails to stifle a little sniffle. “You didn’t do it on purpose.”

“It was still done,” I whisper.

Ravian huffs. “I had thought the Sor’en from his stories was an imaginary beast he dreamed up to make our lessons less boring. He… he loved you.”

I swallow past the sudden lump in my throat. “He was my friend,” I offer simply as if that explains it all.

And it should.

But I am what I am.

“Return my mate to me, Prince Ravian,” I order, but the plea is in my eyes.

I wish to watch my child grow.

To teach him that he is not a monster.

He shakes off the last of his emotion after that. Huffing again, but this time far more dramatically. “Well, this just became a far more complex day than I had planned on having.”

Hue perks up, but she’s moving slower. Groaning as she gets to her feet. “Why?” The hope in her voice bolsters mine, and far away, Melion’s too. It would’ve made all this far too easy to companion here to take my mate away from the ship. You cannot chain a shadow. I assume some energy tech keeps him out. Likely for the best, Melion can be trigger-happy at the best of times.

He shifts his hands through his hair, his wings fluttering as he smacks the control panel bio-coded to him, and I doubt many others on the wall. “Because now I must committreason, and my family is not known to be a forgiving bunch.”

“You’re letting him go,” Hue cries, finally flinging herself into the safety of my arms. “Oh my god, thank you.”