Freeing Luka: The Clecanian Series Book 2 Victoria Aveline (story read aloud TXT) 📖

Alice peered up at the woman, a small smile curving her lips. “I hope you’re right.”

Chapter 9

Large blue eyes stared up at him pleadingly. Her soft moans echoed in his ear as he tasted her sweet skin. He needed her more than he could say, but she pushed him away.

He reached out to clutch her to him more firmly, but his fingers only grasped at air. Panic made his whole body tense. He spun, looking for her, calling her name. The tranquil mountain setting faded, and hard gray walls rose around him, caging him.

A shadowy figure loomed over him, laughing evilly. Hatred burning in him, Luka lunged at the man, intending to rip his throat out.

As his hands shot forward, an invisible force wrenched them back. He began to struggle though his arms were weak. He needed to get to her. “Where is she?”

The shadowy figure only laughed harder, his loud voice booming and echoing off the walls.

“Luka, wake up!” a distant voice called.

Luka’s eyes shot open. Cold sweat beaded on his skin, and his breaths came in quick, ragged gasps. He was in his room, on his bed, but he couldn’t move his arms or legs. Figures loomed over him. Needing to be free, he began to thrash in his bindings.

A familiar voice thundered over him, “Luka, you need to calm, or I’ll have to sedate you again.”

Luka stilled. Maxu?

His vision was improving with each second, and as it did, the hulking figure of his brother Maxu came into focus.

“Thank the Goddess. I thought we were going to have to knock you out again.”

Luka turned his head toward the voice coming from his other side and found his youngest brother Izor grinning back at him. He studied his brothers’ faces and noticed the dark circles under their eyes and their strained expressions.

“What happened? Why am I tied down?”

Luka tried to recall the last thing he remembered, but a nagging panic and anxiety kept pulling at his thoughts. There was something he was supposed to be doing, somewhere he needed to be, but for the life of him he couldn’t recall what it was.

His brothers looked at each other, the concern showing clearly on their faces. “What do you remember?”

Frustration welled in him. “Let me up! I can’t think tied down like this.”

Izor pulled the corner of his mouth back in a grimace. “You punched Zed pretty hard last time we let you go. Don’t you remember trying to run out of here?”

Maxu said nothing but began loosening Luka’s restraints.

Luka furrowed his brows, trying to recall attacking his older brother Auzed, but it was as if he were examining his memories through thick ice. Hints of images appeared before him, but he couldn’t make out anything clearly.

Suddenly a vision of deep-blue eyes flashed in his mind, startling him and making his scalp tingle.

Soft, unintelligible words floated through his awareness. His cock twitched in response.

What the fuck is happening to me? He absently massaged his now free, aching wrists.

The beautiful, haunting eyes slowly faded, and he felt his gut clench painfully at the loss. Who did those eyes belong to? Were they even real or just a dream?

“What happened?” he said to Maxu more forcefully, feeling an overwhelming urge to leave his home and run…somewhere.

“We have only learned some of the details recently, but from our understanding, you have been working undercover to investigate Helas.”

He stiffened and rose from the bed. His brothers shouldn’t know that.

Luka had been suspicious of Helas for quite some time now. Since starting his role on Helas’ research team, Luka had suspected he may have been doing experiments on his own. His misgiving intensified six months ago when Helas started missing work without a clear explanation, then reappearing with controversial ideas for their research that he’d come upon seemingly out of nowhere.

When Helas had started casually joking that the Alliance laws were holding back their research, Luka had finally broken down and approached the Queen directly with his concerns. His instincts had always warned that Helas was less harmless than he seemed to be, and he’d recognized a grain of truth in the man’s repeated joking.

He’d fully expected to be shut down and punished for accusing a superior. But to his surprise, the Queen had agreed and confided in him that there were rumors of an underground organization bent on saving their species no matter the cost.

The Queen had requested his assistance in bringing this organization to light, and Luka had agreed. He’d convinced Helas to join him and a few colleagues on an extended research trip in the isolated Skuzio Valley. Initially, Helas had declined but a few weeks after their arrival, he’d shown up, claiming his plans had changed. For the last five months Luka had huddled around fires and tromped through marshes, all while attempting to grow close to Helas and learn his secrets. There was no way his brothers should have known about Helas, unless…

Luka’s eyes widened as the memory of a stark white hallway and a set of monitors came back to him.

“Helas found out, didn’t he?” As he looked between his brothers’ tight expressions, bits of memory came rushing back. He began pacing around the room, the heels of his palms grinding against his temples, and tried to follow his thoughts as they returned to him.

Izor and Maxu eyed his movements but stayed quiet, possibly sensing the tenuous grip he had on his memory at the moment.

Luka remembered attempting to infiltrate Helas’ group. He’d slowly earned the man’s trust by laughing and agreeing to his comments about the Alliance laws. He’d then started voicing opinions of his own to Helas concerning their research and how it’d never amount to much at their current pace.

Luka had spent months in