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

as the horror of the last words reached her bones.

Was it saying that if they treated her roughly, she’d only last a month?

As her gaze focused back on the beasts in front of her, it took everything within her not to take a step backward.

“Let the auction begin,” the robotic voice announced.

As the beasts in front of her began raising glowing blue cards, one by one, she did take a step back.

Her breath deafened her ears with every inhale and exhale as she watched the cards move.

Bidding.

They were bidding on her life.

And she had no control over it. Gripping the weapons she still held underneath her arms, Cleo focused on controlling her breathing.

Focus.

Restraint.

She couldn’t let her emotions, her fear, mess up any opportunity she had to escape this.

As she stared across the room through the transparent wall in front of her, she saw that the group of aliens bidding was becoming more frenzied.

She couldn’t read the currency they were using on the cards but it was obvious tensions were getting heated as the cards were being lifted at an increasing pace, almost as if the bidding war was getting tense.

Off to the corner, that same toad-man she’d noticed before was still staring at her with the serious expression he’d had when she’d walked in…only now, his seriousness seemed to be slowly transforming into utter rage.

He must be losing then.

That made her gaze drift over the others, trying to determine which one was winning the bid.

Her gaze landed on one in the center—a huge male with a curious scar over one eye. Its other dark eye focused on hers, unblinking.

As soon as it realized she was looking at it, a slow smile spread its lips and Cleo resisted the urge to puke.

It lifted its hand slowly. There was a blue card between its fingers that suddenly turned red as he held it in the air.

Her spine froze.

Somehow she knew what that meant.

He was the winner.

And her suspicions were only confirmed when the beast’s comrades rose and began filing out of the room, leaving the one with the red card in the middle.

It didn’t move, it just stared at her, that disgusting smile still on its lips, and for a few moments, she wondered what it was going to do.

Then it stood, and this time, it did get a reaction from her. Cleo took another involuntary step backward.

It was huge.

She knew it was big, but when standing, it was a whole other version of giant toad.

Fuck!

She took another step backward as the Tasqal came toward the transparent barrier.

It couldn’t get through, could it?

But before that thought could even leave her mind, the barrier in front of her dissolved as if it had never been there.

Swallowing hard, she took another step backward and felt as the constriction around her neck tightened a little, reminding her it was there.

It did that, she realized, whenever she had thoughts of resisting…whenever she wanted to flee…and she tried to calm her hammering heart—only, that was difficult to do with something that belonged to a swamp advancing toward her.

“Pretty…little…thing…”

The Tasqal talked.

That only made it so, so much worse.

“I finally have acquired one of your species,” it said.

“What do you want?” Her voice sounded alien to her, made of steel even though her insides were turning into water that wanted to run away into the creases of the floor below her and disappear.

The beast’s throat moved and the sound of bubbles popping filled the little room.

It was laughing.

To her horror, the beast lifted a leg onto the platform and stepped into the room, filling the space even without touching her.

This was worse than claustrophobia. There was nowhere to run.

Nowhere to hide.

Squeezing the weapons still gripped and hidden underneath her arms, Cleo took another step backward, and her back bumped into the wall behind her.

Out. Of. Space.

Her next move would have to be the one that allowed her to escape this room, this situation, unharmed.

“What do I want?” The toad-man cocked his head, his one good eye studying her. “You, of course.”

It didn’t hesitate. In one movement, its white robe fell and it took another step toward her.

Her vision blurred with the sudden burst of adrenaline that flooded through her.

She couldn’t see the creature’s disgusting, diseased-looking body. She couldn’t see its hand caressing it’s member as it advanced on her.

All she could do was feel.

She could feel the rage flood through her, replacing the blood in her veins.

Arms unfolding, she aimed for the eyes, sinking the wooden shiv into the good eye and her lucky shrapnel in the other.

The beast howled and reached for her arms but then something she didn’t understand happened.

Before he could even touch her, his body was against the other side of the wall.

Cleo’s eyes widened.

It was the other toad man. The one who’d been sitting in the corner.

“Qrakking jekin!” the injured Tasqal howled. His eyes were bleeding a dark fluid and she doubted he could see. “My eye!”

“Shut the phek up,” the other toad man said, and Cleo took a step back, her eyes darting from one to the other.

“What is this?” the injured toad-man said, his hands grasping the arms that held him against the wall. “What are you doing? KILL THE JEKIN who dared to harm me!”

Cleo’s eyes darted to the space where she knew the door was.

Two disgusting aliens who wanted to rape her were having a spat and she was sure she shouldn’t stay around to see the end of it.

But as she made to move, the words of the new Tasqal caught her ears, making her freeze in the spot.

“Don’t you dare run, Cluu. I’m not about to lose you again.”

Cluu?

She turned to stare at the beast that had spoken, her mouth falling open, her eyes wide.

CLUU.

How did he know that name?!

Sohut.

A feeling of dread filled her, she almost lost her balance.

Sohut had given her that name. The only way the toad would know that name was if he had somehow gotten to Sohut.

Somehow, her lucky metal dislodged from the