Page 16 of Hooded (Gladiators of the Gryn #5)
FERN
“Here.” Narlix shoves a bowl onto my lap.
“I’m okay,” I gasp, shoving it to one side, ready to leap off the slab and make my escape.
“I wouldn’t bother.” Narlix sighs. “The meathead who brought you here is right outside. And as far as the Tormelek are concerned, you don’t need all your limbs to mate.”
“I don’t…” The bile is coming up again, and this time, I can’t stop myself from being sick, gasping as my stomach empties.
“Have some water,” Narlix says, handing me a water pouch.
I shake my head.
“Fine”, she says, turning her back on me and opening the door.
The massive Tormelek from earlier fills the opening.
“She’s to go back to the Gryn. Protocol red-thirty.”
What little I can see of his face under the metal helmet is a huge, broken smile.
“What’s protocol red-thirty?” I ask as he takes hold of my arm, in a grip strong enough to break the bone if he wanted to, and pulls me towards him.
“You’ll find out,” Narlix says. “And my advice is don’t resist.”
I’m pulled out of the door.
“Fuck your advice,” I yell back as I’m dragged away by the Tormelek.
Because the eagle creature might not have been able to stop any of this happening, but it doesn’t mean it had to make it so easy.
As we go through an airlock, the more rarified atmosphere thickens. The sweat of a thousand bodies in an enclosed space, or at least what remains. I catch the occasional glimpse of other cells, the occupants a blur behind the forcefields. Whatever faction of piracy these particular Tormelek are into, it’s not for goods.
It’s for flesh.
There’s a roaring, rending sound which gets louder ahead of us. Behind me, the Tormelek guard chuckles nastily.
“He’ll be in the mood for mating when you return. I enjoy seeing females split into two.”
If I hadn’t already thrown up, I can guarantee I would be again. It’s like somehow I’ve been shielded from the horrors of this galaxy up until this moment and now they’re being shown to me in technicolor.
How could I have been so blind?
Our cell is at the end of the row. The forcefield shimmers violently as we reach it.
“He’s been like this since you took the female,” one of the guards on the platform above shouts down.
“You’ve already been mating with him?” the metal clad one says, almost disappointed.
“No, I certainly have not!” I fire out.
His eyes glitter with unpleasantness.
“I’ve only ever seen Gryn on vids, and once they’re like this, there’s no stopping them,” he says, placing his palm on a red square on the outside of the cell.
The bright light comes on from above and the noises within the cell cease instantly.
“Maybe mating will calm him down, little female. You’d better be prepared to offer him your cunt as soon as you can.” He leans closer. “Because protocol red-thirty means he mates with you, willing or no. Or you both die.”
The forcefield deactivates, and Klynn is on the floor, frozen in the act of attempting to rip at the metal. The guard shoves me forward as the light goes off, and the huge Gryn snarls like he is about to take on an army.
Behind me, the forcefield comes back on, and I have no option but to step forward or I’ll be fried.
Klynn lifts his head. His eyes are pits of darkness, his entire face twisted with rage. He huffs out two hot breaths, his massive claws digging deeper into the floor.
“You will mate the female, or you will die,” the guard above calls out. “You have one nova-hour.”
Some of the rage within Klynn subsides, and he stands upright, wings shaking.
I press my back up against the wall, close to the forcefield. He doesn’t move his eyes from me. It’s only because of the movement in his feathers I know he’s not frozen again.
“Little fury?” he says, taking a step towards me.
I shift as far as I can along the wall until the forcefield fizzes in my ear.
“I will not do anything you don’t want to do,” Klynn says quietly.
I’m not entirely sure I can speak, my throat is so constricted.
“They want me to breed with you. And if you don’t, they’ll either kill us or breed with me themselves.”