Page 60 of Saved By the Alien Hybrid

Rentir woke before the others,restless and uneasy about sleeping in a separate room from Cordelia. At least, he thought he’d woken first—he hadn’t seen any trace of Melam in the building.

He’d helped Cordelia to bed the night before as she’d begun nodding off by the bath, but she’d pressed a hand to his chest and shook her head at him when he tried to climb in alongside her. He had shamelessly whined like a kicked whelp, which had caused her eyes to grow tortured, but she held her ground. Reluctantly, he’d retreated to the room beside hers.

The bed was too soft and the sheets too fine. The room was cavernous compared to his quarters. It had made him long for the comfort of Cordelia’s already familiar warmth all the more. He thought he may have drifted off for a few hours, but mostly the night passed in a haze of exhausted awareness.

His hands trembled as he prepared breakfast for her. He had no idea what was causing the weakness in his body. His training as a young hybrid slotted for security detail had been just as rigorous as anything he’d been through in the last few days. It should not have left him shaking like this. He pressed his handsagainst the metal counter and hung his head in frustration when he spilled the juice concentrate he’d been trying to pour for her.

He was ravenous. His clothes felt too tight—hisskinfelt too tight.

Growling under his breath, he abandoned his task and returned to the industrial fridge where Melam had left massive hanks of meat hanging from hooks as big as his forearm. Hunger rode him so hard that he felt delirious with it; where once he would have possessed the good manner to cut from the larger portion and plate his food, it was all he could do now not to snarl as he dug claw and fang into the icy cold flesh, tearing at it like a wild creature.

Blood quenched his parched throat, dribbling down his chin to soak the neck of his shirt. He paid no mind to the mess, thinking only of the fuel it could offer, fuel he desperately needed.

Why?

To mate. To fight. Fight for her.

He snarled into the flesh, feeling ever more mindless, riding the razor’s edge.

Cordelia.He wanted Cordelia. Wanted her under him. Wanted the sweet sounds she made when he brought her to come. Blood slicked between his fingers, coating his hands the same way her arousal had the night before.

Blood and sex, that was all his mind could focus on, the two things twining together until they were one and the same within him. His claws rent through the flesh, tearing away strips he could fit in his mouth. The soft plink of blood against the metal grate of the floor warred for supremacy with the loud hum of the cooling machine.

“Rentir.”

He snarled, whirling on the intruder. His lips peeled back from his teeth, revealing the mouth of a born predator that hadonly ever been playing at civility. He would have thought Melam unaffected by the sight were it not for the way his scyra rattled anxiously behind him.

“You are not well,” Melam rumbled.

“I am fine!” The little bloody flecks of spittle that flew from his lips contradicted him.

“You are not. Something is affecting you. I have seen behavior like this before, when the animals in the forest grow rabid with disease. You should let the medpod attend to you before you worsen.”

“I do not need the medpod!” He turned from the male, even though it made him bristle to have the stranger at his back. He ran his claws over the half-decimated flank of meat he’d been eating, nearly as big as he was. “I am only hungry. My injuries, our travel… I only need to eat, and I will be well again.”

“Like an animal? Rending flesh with your very fangs? Is that how you always eat?” His tone made it clear he already knew the answer.

Rentir turned back to him. Finger pointing, he advanced on the towering hybrid. “You want me to look weak in front of her.” His anger stoked into a frenzy. “You want her for yourself. I will kill you first. She ismine!”

“Rentir?”

His heart tripped over itself at the sound of her voice.

“I heard shouting. What’s going… on…” She stepped around Melam, her hair and clothes still mussed from sleep. Her breath came fast, as though she’d heard his raised voice and had come running to his side.

Shame speared at him as her eyes went wide. Cordelia looked between his bloody mouth and claws and the ruined meat behind him. When she sought guidance from Melam, that shame was crushed beneath the force of his anger.

“Get away from her,” Rentir said, moving to stand between them.

Cordelia flinched back from him, the scent of fear wafting toward him from where she stood.

Wounded, he looked back at her. “No,” Rentir said softly, reaching for her.

She sucked in a surprised breath, dodging his bloody hand.

Rentir’s fingers curled, and the fist fell to his side.

“He isn’t well,” Melam warned.