Sohut's Protection: A Sci-fi Alien Romance (Riv's Sanctuary Book 2) A.G. Wilde (best way to read an ebook TXT) 📖

enclave and Cleo slowly grew to appreciate and even enjoy the company of some of the aliens that lived there.

They were all still wary of Wawa and kept their distance whenever he was around. Still, they tried to make her comfortable by constantly offering her woogli smoke and more of the salt and vinegar rice cakes whenever they saw her alone in the camp—which was hardly ever.

Sohut stayed by her side, only leaving now and then to scout the perimeter.

When she wasn’t caught in his arms or doing some activities with the Torians, she would head into the nearby jungle to catch mogs for dinner.

Today was one of those days. The camp was running low on food.

Sohut was just coming out of Senrit’s hut when he noticed her heading into the jungle. He jogged up to her and caught her around the waist.

“Going hunting again?”

Cleo smiled and leaned into him. “They’ve been so nice to me, to us, it’s the one way I can contribute.”

Sohut glanced back at Senrit’s hut before eyeing the jungle beyond the clearing.

“Where’s Wawa?”

“He ran off into the woods some hours ago,” she replied.

“I’m coming with you then.”

Cleo nodded as they started to move toward the growth of trees.

It was usual.

If Wawa wasn’t around, Sohut didn’t let her enter the jungle alone.

They were her two bodyguards.

An unlikely pair, but she treasured them both anyway.

“Is Senrit still wary?”

“Yes, but there’s been no sight of the Tasqal’s Hedgerud fighters. I don’t know why they’d been in Koznia anyway.”

Cleo nodded.

If the aliens were wary, she was too.

As they made their way into the jungle, away from the camp, she kept her eyes and ears peeled.

With Sohut around, he could just whistle and the jungle-penguins would come but she knew they still had to be alert.

They were walking in silence and the undergrowth was becoming thick.

Being in the camp for the last few days made the jungle seem terrifying and if she hadn’t been living in it for a year, she wasn’t sure she could have gone hunting alone with only Wawa by her side.

Such were the thoughts in her head that when Sohut’s heavy hand landed on her shoulder, the suddenness of it had her freezing.

Turning slightly, she cast a wide-eyed look at him.

He was holding her rigidly as he came to press his body against hers—so close she could feel the cords of his chest muscles pressing into her back.

His hot breath fanned her over her ear. “Don’t. Move. Don’t even breathe.”

Cleo stiffened.

Something about his entire being made goosebumps rise over her skin.

He was staring straight ahead into the bushes, his green gaze cold, and every muscle in his body felt alert and ready.

A chill traveled down her spine and Cleo stiffened even farther as a strange feeling suddenly enveloped the area.

It was the sort of feeling you get when you become aware that you’re in the presence of something very, very dangerous.

She was vaguely aware that Sohut was reaching into his trousers and pulling something free and a side-eye told her it was his blade.

There was something out there, something threatening, and she wondered if it was one of those guards the Torians had spotted.

The thought that there was an enemy in their midst…

For a few long seconds, nothing happened.

There wasn’t even a sound.

Still, she didn’t dare to move. She didn’t dare to breathe, as Sohut had said, and as she held her breath, the bushes in front of them stirred.

Wawa…please let it be Wawa.

But what appeared through the bushes looked nothing like her little companion.

It was as black as night. So black that it took a few moments to realize she was looking at an animal and not into a dark void.

Even its eyes were dark.

It stood on four legs but on its back, rising into the air, were four sharp spikes that stood from its spine.

It stepped out of the bushes and paused, looking at them.

Behind her, Sohut was as hard as stone and she realized he was moving slowly to stand in front of her, blocking her from the literal nightmare in front of them.

“The fuck…” She breathed almost soundlessly. “…is that?”

“A spined creature…” Sohut was in front of her now, blocking her from the beast that stood unmoving. “Don’t move.”

A spined creature?

The same creature he mentioned was Wawa’s prey?

How the…

Moving just slightly enough that she could see around Sohut, Cleo’s eyes widened in disbelief.

No way.

That…thing in front of them was huge. There was no way little Wawa could take it on and survive.

Even as she looked it now and the rest of its body appeared from the bushes, she couldn’t imagine Wawa taking down something that was that big.

There weren’t four spikes on the thing’s back. There were many. Four large ones came before the smaller ones that ran along its spine right down to its long reptilian-like tail.

“Run.”

One word.

One word uttered from Sohut’s mouth before there was a blur of black in front of them and a horrible, horrible growl that seemed to shake even the leaves around them.

In the panic of her mind, it took a second for the word to register and then adrenaline pumped through her so fast, she took off, heading in the direction from which they came.

As her feet beat against the jungle floor, she prayed this wasn’t the time she fell over a root or vine. This was the exact time people fell in the movies—when their lives depended on them not stumbling.

Fear pushed her forward. But as she ran, her breath coming in sharp gasps, she realized something.

She was running alone.

Cleo stopped dead in her tracks, a bunch of low-hanging branches giving her a sharp slap in the face as she did.

Turning, she searched the bushes behind her for some movement, any movement.

Where the fuck was he?

In the few moments she took searching the orange bushes for some sign of blue, a gut-wrenching reality dawned on her.

Sohut wasn’t coming.

He was frickin’ fighting the thing.

Panic had her frozen for a few moments.

She was an idiot.

She shouldn’t