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

He’d get to the exchange, get a distorter, and find Clee-yo.

As he slipped the sat phone back in his satchel, Sohut gulped.

That might be the last time he ever heard his brother’s voice but now he only had one objective and she needed him.

Clee-yo.

He was going to find his Clee-yo.

28

Cleo’s eyes fluttered open and for a second, she didn’t know where she was.

The lighting was different, the smells different, the sounds…all different.

Anxiety made her sit upright immediately.

She was in a…

Looking around, her eyes widened.

It was a like a magical garden for fairies.

Purple blooms that resembled sakura trees hung over her and there were actual butterflies.

Real butterflies.

She stared at them…unable to believe what she was seeing.

What were monarch butterflies doing on an alien planet?

The soft trickle of a stream caught her ear and she stood on shaky legs.

Was she dreaming?

Was she dead?

Reality slammed her like a semi out of control.

Sohut!

As she dashed from underneath the trees, her heart in her chest, she noticed two things.

One, she really was in a magical fairy land.

Two, she wasn’t alone.

In front of her, huddled together, a group of aliens sat on the rocks.

Something within her chest clenched.

“She’s awake,” one of the aliens murmured.

As her eyes darted from one to the other, Cleo took them in.

Their features were soft, and they didn’t look threatening.

Females.

They were all females, Cleo assumed.

Some had strange fleshy bits on their heads that reminded her of Medusa and others were bald-headed.

“Hey.” One with the Medusa-head turned and looked her way. “Are you okay?”

Cleo just stared at them.

What in the actual fuck was happening? What the hell was this?

Something moved to her left and her head snapped that way.

There was a clear panel there.

It looked like glass and it rose against the wall, separating the magical garden from whatever was on the other side.

“Where the hell am I?” She breathed, moving toward the glass.

What she saw on the other side almost made her collapse and it was only because she pressed her hands against the glass that she didn’t.

There were toads, walking toads on the other side.

Toads dressed in white robes, all walking around as if they were viewing goods…viewing her.

Cleo took a step back.

There was movement to her right and her instincts took over as she snatched whatever was coming toward her.

It was an arm. The arm of the female that had spoken to her, and the woman looked at her in surprise.

“It’s okay. Calm down. You’ve been unconscious for a few days. Take it easy.”

A few days?

Glancing at her hand holding the woman, Cleo let go and took a step back.

“Who are you? Where am I? What are you doing here?”

The woman gave a small smile. “My name is Lee-yunna. I was chosen just like you were.” She motioned behind her. “Me and the others.”

“Which sector did you come from?” one of the other females asked.

“Sector?” Cleo took another step back, the reality of the situation weighing on her mind.

She’d been captured…again.

And Sohut…he was probably dead.

The thought made her want to collapse.

“I wasn’t in a sector, whatever that is,” she replied, threading her hands into her hair as she stared wide-eyed at the ground. “I was free.”

“I know you’re probably in shock right now—”

“What is this place?” Cleo turned her wide eyes to the female in front of her. “Where am I?”

“This is our terrarium. It’s where they’re keeping us before the auction.”

Auction?

She was in a cage.

There was that feeling around her neck again and she touched her neck as she took a step toward the transparent barrier.

She could just about see her reflection in the glass and there was a thin blue line around her neck.

It wasn’t solid, but it felt like it.

It was a clasp of some kind and memory of the moments before she was taken came rushing back to her.

Sohut.

Slamming her fists against the glass, she screamed at the beings on the other side.

She wasn’t an animal, goddamnit!

She wasn’t going to be caged, auctioned, and bought!

She’d die first.

As the beings on the other side paused to look at her, some coming close enough she could see the sores on their bodies, she looked one of them in the eye.

On the other side of the glass, the toad-man smiled.

Lee-yunna took a step toward her, causing Cleo to step back farther.

“Stay away from me,” she said, as her gaze darted around the fairy forest.

It was all for show.

There wasn’t anything magical about this. That reality was making panic rise within her.

“I have to get out,” Cleo murmured, her gaze still darting around.

“You’ve been unconscious for a few days…” Lee-yunna said. “Come sit with us. We will explain it to you.”

The female smiled at her and Cleo nodded slightly before she allowed the alien to lead her over to the other females.

They were all sitting on a set of rocks out in the open and as she and Lee-yunna approached, the conversation didn’t wane.

Whatever they were talking about though, Cleo didn’t hear.

Her focus was on the transparent glass and the many toad aliens she’d seen on the other side.

“How long was I unconscious for?”

“We are not sure,” one of the females stopped talking with the others to answer. “We are sometimes drugged after their tests. It is hard to tell the time, but the drugs don’t seem to affect Lee-yunna.”

Cleo’s eyes moved to the female who’d spoken to her first and Lee-yunna smiled.

“It’s been at least five days.”

Five days?!

Alarm made Cleo rise suddenly.

Sohut.

“I need—” she stuttered. “I need to get out. There’s somebody out there. Somebody I need to get back to.”

“There’s nobody to get back to,” one of the other females said. “You will be the property of a Tasqal in a few moons. They are all.”

The thought made Cleo feel sick.

As reality slowly settled within her, she frowned.

“You can understand me. How?”

“You were not awake for the tests. They update everyone’s language chips. It makes the process easier, in case you are bought with another…”

She didn’t say another what, but Cleo knew.

Another slave.

Lee-yunna