"What's your name?"
He answered without hesitation."Dargo.What's yours?"
Should I not answer that?I couldn't think of a good reason not to, and I wanted to keep him talking.
"I'm Taz."It was a stupid name, but I figured an alien wouldn't care.
"Taz."My name rolled off his tongue almost sensually."You are an impressive female."
I frowned at him and I swore he flexed in response.Wow, that was a lot of rippling muscle.
"Thanks."This was not going how I expected."Why are you here?'
He shrugged."I was hunting you."
Well, at least he wasn't lying yet.
"Why?"
"I wanted to take you to our camp.It isn't safe for females to be alone."
Oh how nice, the friendly alien invader wanted to keep me safe.
"Did your friend take Penny to your camp?"It had taken hours to set my trap, and for every minute I'd had to wait, my mind had been spinning a million possible fates for Penny.None of them ended well, and I was done waiting to save her.
"Penny?"He cocked his head to the side."The curly-haired female?"
"Yes, that's Penny."I wondered if I should ask about Hope, but if she'd somehow escaped notice, I didn't want to tell him there were more women running around unarmed.
"Adak claimed her, she's safe."He sounded unconcerned and my heart sank.
"Claimed?"That sounded a lot like owned to me, and it definitely didn't sound like he'd grabbed her to do his laundry.
Dargo's smile turned smug.
"Are you looking for a mate, too, Firebrand?I might be able to help you with that."
I stabbed my prod in his direction and tried not to picture what he was implying.
"No mating," I snarled, struggling to get back into my badass interrogation character.It'd be a lot easier to stay mean if he wasn't smiling so damn much.And giving me extremely effective bedroom eyes.He'd been hot when he was unconscious, awake he was fucking lethal.
I needed to remember that he was actually lethal.In the ‘smash alien monsters into raw burger with an ax’ kind of way.
"Yet," he said, pulling me back to our conversation.
"What?"I really needed to get my head in the game, but Dargo's cheerful attitude was throwing me off.Where were the threats?The attempts to intimidate me?
"No mating, yet," he repeated.
"No mating ever," I growled, wondering how my plan to torture him had devolved into me dodging offers of sex.
"Not even if I lick your cunt?"
I was going to have a heart attack.How had he said that with a straight face?
"No."I sounded like I was strangling, and I debated zapping him just to piss him off and get his mind out of my pants."Definitely not even then."
Dargo shrugged, managing to look relaxed and in control sitting on his ass with his hands tied.
