Amazed once more by his massive appearance, I lose my breath. And before a scream can tear from my throat, he rushes straight for me, hauls me into his embrace, and lays me flat on the ground.
EIGHT
PET
Darolus
The human struggles against me,nearly knocking the tube of ointment from my hand. “Do not move,” I order, trying to turn her over. But the more I try, the more she yells and fights to sit upright and scurry away. “I have something for your flesh,” I growl. “Be still and let me untie your arms.”
As much as Iwantto help her—as much as I do not like the sight of her bleeding wrists or the sallow pallor of her eyes, or the sound of her belly yawning in hunger—she is not making it simple. Not in this, nor in what came before. I cannot forget what she said.
She thinks I might be afraid of being…taken.
Taken? By whom? By humans? For what reason I cannot fathom.Are they searching for someone or something like me in particular… or are they searching for…
It only proves what I already know to be true. I cannot let her leave and tell others about my whereabouts. I do notneed her kind or mine coming after me and discovering my treasure.
So she is to stay here… as my captive…
Catching up with the direction of my thoughts, I choose to dispel them from my mind completely rather than let them play out.
“Let me go! Get off me!” she shouts.
Frustrated with her fighting, I pick her up entirely, flip her over, and rip off her binds, then spin her to face me again right after. I pin her hands above her head with one of my own, and she kicks her armored feet at my tail, but they bounce off, the sharp edges barely nicking my scales. “You are going to get yourself further hurt, female. Stop moving.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” she screeches and kicks harder, the chains around her neck jangling with her twisting struggles. Some get caught in her tangled hair, and as I’m about to chastise her again, she abruptly sighs and stops, her body melting into the ground. “It’s no use,” she grumbles. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“No. You are not,” I agree.
Huffing, her pale green eyes flick to mine and I am disturbed both by how alluring they are and how quickly she went from violent to submissive. But her eyes… They are unlike any eyes I have ever seen. Framed in thick black smudge, the dark color emphasizes the lighter green irises. They are bright and disarming, expressive yet hard to read. Just like her struggle against me, her emotions seem erratic.
I think I liked her better unconscious.
But it has been a long time since I last looked into the eyes of another. Too long.
“You say you have something for my skin?” She tilts her chin at the hand gripping the tube to her side.
Shifting off of her, I release her hands and give her theointment. “It is from a… hosssspital,” the word tastes strange saying aloud, “deep in the city.” I indicate the orb on the ground, which has rolled closer to the wall. “It tells me things I ask.”
“A hospital. Like where people go to get better?” She sits up and looks down at the tube in her hand, turning it over and reading the side. The short hair in the front of her face falls forward, hiding her eyes from me. Wondering why she cuts her hair so short in the front but leaves the rest of it long, I do not realize I am hovering over her until she is asking me to move back. “I can’t breathe with you so close to me… You smell terrible.”
I rear back, affronted by her words, lifting my hands and sniffing them. Discovering nothing untoward, I smell other parts of me and only discover a hint of musk and sweat. There’s no rotting meat, no diseased flesh, no filth. Scenting the air next distracts me, and I do not realize she is slinking closer to the tunnel exit until she is already halfway to it.
I drop my tail between her and it with athump, grunting with annoyance.
She lifts her hands and walks back over to her spot on the hide. Sitting down, she settles with a small flourish, curling her legs under her and bringing in her thick footwear under her bottom. More disheveled than yesterday—probably due to my dunking her own smelly hair in the water—she is still nice to look at.
Like a pet…
I sniff my hands one more time, then drop them, content with watching her squeeze out the contents of the tube and gingerly rub it over the chapped red skin of her wrists. It’s so soft and vulnerable, bleeding just from rope. I had no idea tying up a human could hurt them. A knot getsstuck in my throat when she winces, and I lean in to pet her hair, hoping to offer her comfort.
She freezes and looks up at me, her eyes landing on my hand and going wide. I pause and draw back at her alarmed expression.
Scooting back warily, she leans away and continues applying the cream, glancing up at me every couple of seconds.
“I’d rather you not touch me,” she mutters after putting the cap back on the tube. “I’m not good with unwanted touch, whether you mean to help me or not. I also don’t like being kept in places against my will. I will fight this.” She twirls her finger, indicating the space around us.
“Yes, the place was called a hospital where I found it,” I respond, answering her earlier question, ignoring her warning. Whether or not she fights is unimportant. She will not win. “Do your wrists feel better?”
