Then he turned the girl toward her fated mate, who stood, watching.
The Elder bent the girl over a stone plinth in the middle of the room and thrust inside her violently.
She screamed as he pumped away at her, the crowd returned to cheering and applauding the horrific scene.
My breath turned hot in my throat and I backed away.
What was wrong with these people?
What twisted pleasure could they derive from this?
And this was what Iav planned to be my fate…
But only if I failed to escape.
I backed away from the leering crowd as they thrust their fists in the air in time with the slapping flesh below.
These creatures were pure evil.
Pure darkness.
And right now, in a thousand rooms similar to this one, the same scene was happening.
Abducted alien creatures—both male and female—were being forced to mate against their will.
I felt sorry for the creatures I’d left behind in their cells.
When I escape, I promised them, I would tell others about what I had seen.
Maybe if they teamed up against the Shadow, they could take them down.
But not me.
Not on my own.
Vai was as kind as they came and yet still there was nothing he could do about this terrible treatment.
All he could do was rescue one of them.
Me.
I needed to get out of there.
I needed to make my escape.
I needed to—
I backed into someone.
I instinctively turned and apologized but the sentence caught in my throat.
The creature that stared peered down at me, the creature I had bumped into, grinned at me with that damn dimple in his cheek.
But my instincts weren’t fooled for a moment.
The dark shadow cast across his face warned me he was not my savior.
He was my destruction.
His hand snapped around my arm so tight I thought he would break it.
“There you are,” he said, his tone soft. “We wouldn’t want you to miss your turn now, would we?”
I’d been so disgusted with the scene below I had taken my mind off that throb in my heart.
It was still new to me and I had to focus on it to fully absorb the information I could glean from it.
My mind had floated away and focused on other things.
Terrible things.
And now I was going to pay for it.
Pay for it big time.
I pried at Iav’s hand but it was no use.
It was a vice.
“Let me go!” I wailed.
I knew it was in vain.
There wasn’t a single part of him that could lend itself to showing me any hint of kindness.
I kicked his shin and he brushed it off like a fly had bitten him.
He dragged me through the hall, the onlookers paying me no mind.
The onlookers.
Maybe they would help me…
There had to be one decent man among them.
“Help me!” I cried. “I’m being kidnapped! Help!”
Not one so much as raised an eyebrow.
The only ones who seemed even moderately interested were the other abducted mates.
And they already had enough on their plate to worry about.
Iav dragged me back down the stairs but didn’t take me to my cell.
Instead, he dragged me to just one floor below the main one.
Down here was a long series of doors.
A grand mix of alien species marched to and fro with great purpose.
None were Shadows but darkness had seeped into their features as if the evil in this realm had embedded itself in their very DNA.
Iav shoved a door open and thrust me inside the room.
He yanked my head back and reached into his pocket.
He came out with a vial of shimmering blue liquid.
He held it over my face and tapped it.
A single drop fell from its tip.
I turned my head just in time for it to land on my cheek.
“Open your mouth,” he growled.
I shook my head and breathed heavily through my nose.
“Open it or when your time comes, I’ll be extra rough with you,” he warned.
Extra rough…
I doubted he would do anything else, no matter what I did.
I kept my mouth and teeth clenched shut tight.
He snorted at my refusal.
It gave me some pleasure to see that expression on his face.
Maybe if I was difficult enough they wouldn’t want me to serve as one of their breeders, I thought.
Maybe this was my only real hope of escape…
“Very well,” he said.
He added a couple of dots of the liquid to his fingers.
“There’s more than one way to administer it,” he snarled.
He thrust his hand down my underwear and inserted his fingers inside me.
I grabbed his arm but he was too strong for me to fight.
He roamed around as if looking for the golden ticket.
I squirmed to pull away from him.
I was dry and felt hot friction on either side of his fingers.
He yanked them out and I was relieved to see there was no blood.
He leaned his face close to mine.
“You will give me what I want,” he growled.
He ground his hard cock against me.
I spat in his face.
The anger that flashed across his features promised great violence to come.
I wondered what sort of mistake I’d made to rile him up this way.
I’d already seen what was standard in this place.
What would he do now I had upset him?
He released his grip and I fell to the floor.
“Prepare her for the ceremony,” Iav snapped. “She’s next.”
He slammed the door and was gone.
The women approached me slowly and I pulled at my clothes to cover myself up.
“It’s okay,” a blue-skinned beauty said in a soothingly soft voice.
Her eyes were at least three times larger than a regular human’s.
Her skin shimmered and shifted between aquamarine and navy blue.
“I’m Narissa,” she said. “Come on. Let’s get you onto your feet.”
She bent down to help me up.
I pulled away from her, still recovering from my recent experience of abuse.
I reached for that shadows to pull something out of it.
Anything would suffice.
If I only had to sneak past these females to escape, I had a strong chance of success.
My hand came up empty.
I blinked.
Maybe I was still too shocked by earlier events to concentrate properly.
I tried again but the result was the same.
I calmed my mind, turning it ice
