Page 4 of Bound By the Alien King

“You’re hurt!” She sat up, too surprised to think of her modesty, and regretted it instantly when the knife in her rib twisted, forcing her back down.

“The salt.” She could hear an equal grimace in his voice.

Of course, Nightborn were allergic to the high concentrations of minerals in the Salten Sea. That’s why the human colony was located on an island, for defense. The waters burned Nightborn skin and, along with a few well-aimed arrows, kept them away from the city walls. This one must have had seawater plastered all over him as he carried her to safety, and he likely hadn’t left her side since. He must be in agony.

“You should’ve washed it off.” The rebuke left her lips before she could stop it.

“You would’ve died of chill if I’d left you,” he returned.

“And you’re willing to pay in pain because you want me alive. What for? Blood? Ransom?” Her breath hitched. “Breeding?”

“No.” His voice echoed harshly in the space, bouncing off stone. A cave, then, not a hole in the ground. “I merely want you not dead and not here, so the treaty can remain not broken.”

The treaty. It all came back to the saltstained treaty. The reason she had to escape the colony was the same reason he wanted to send her back. If the Nightborn knew what the council was doing, knew what they had been doing to subvert its provisions, the treaty would be null and void, anyway.

She crossed her arms and set her jaw, blinking against the blackness that pressed against eyes as they strained and failed to focus on something, anything. “I’m sorry, but I can’t go back.”

His voice echoed so she could hardly tell where he stood. “You must. You’ll be missed, and my people will be blamed. You probably already have been missed.”

“The treaty ends in two nights. We just have to wait it out.”

“We aren’t doing anything. You are going back, conscious or otherwise,” he growled, stopping her continued protests before she could squeak them out. “Every hour you remain on the shore is another step toward war, something neither of us can afford. What good are your precious ribbons if they’re sliced to shreds along with everything and everyone else you love?”

Chapter 3

Damir watched her blink defiantly into space, her vacant gaze pointed slightly to his right as she sat on her knees, toes pointed behind her, in the small cave. She couldn’t see in the dark as Nightborn could, and it was almost endearing to see her try, like a fish attempting to walk on its fins.

“You should have left me on the rocks,” she blurted out, and he scented her welling tears. Another human dramatic: their sadness emerged from their eyes, slick and salted. It wasn’t enough to display their woe. No, it had to be caustic to those around them as well.

“You’d rather die than go back to your colony,” he observed dryly.

“I would.” She sniffed and scrubbed her eyes, still staring in the wrong direction. “You don’t believe me? Of course not. You probably think I’m being hysterical.”

He chuckled at how close she’d come to the truth. The movement made the salt-charred skin on one wing crack, and he felt a warm trickle of blood leak out. “What’s so terrible about going home? You don’t want to study your lessons?”

“I’m not a child,” she snapped. “That’s the problem. If I were a child, my father wouldn’t be trying to marry me off to my loathsome cousin Herold.”

“Oh, I’m well aware you’re not a child.” He watched her cheeks redden, and her hands crept to cover her breasts, like she’d just remembered that he could see her in the dark. He couldn’t help being a little disappointed to lose sight of their ruddy tips. “Let me see if I have it right. Instead of simply refusing the match and accepting the consequences of your choice, you’d rather drown. Death is merciful compared to the cuts of sharp-tongued gossip, is that it? That seems quite logical. I can’t understand why anyone would call you hysterical.”

“You think I can refuse? I have no other option. No one will have me.” She spat these last words through her teeth, her lips trembling and her gaze fierce. The longer he looked at her form, the more he had to acknowledge that he’d been wrong. She was pretty enough for a human. But her anger transformed her into something truly stunning.

Her lips stretched into an unhappy smile. “Lucky me, cousin Herold is now eligible for marriage. The boy who has spent his life pinching me because he likes to see the marks. Did you know he once killed a kit because his mother gave it a dish of milk and didn’t give him one?”

“So?” he asked.

“Don’t you find that disturbing?”

Damir shrugged, wincing at the lash of pain it caused across his back. “I do, but I’m surprised it bothers you. Your kind kills to eat all the time. What’s one more creature dead by your hands?”

“That’s rich, coming from a bloodthirsty Nightborn,” she scoffed.

This female seemed determined to die one way or another. Since he couldn’t very well impale her on his claws, he tried to slice her with his words. “We may drink blood, but we only take what we need. We leave our prey to strengthen and grow. We don’t slaughter them. We don’t eat their young. Yet we are the bloodthirsty monsters. Human logic.”

Her long, quiet pause surprised him. He thought she might rise to his bait, but she seemed to consider his words instead of simply lashing back.

“He enjoyed it,” she said finally. “That’s what disturbed me. He enjoyed the kit’s pain and death, like he enjoys hurting me. Do you enjoy it when you feed?”

“Yes.” He enjoyed all parts of it. The intoxicating thrill of scenting his prey. The occasional wild flights chasing after a spooked herd. And the fiery spread of fresh blood over his tongue? He’d never tire of the taste. He could feel hot threads of venom pulsing in his gums at the thought.