Captured by the Alien Warrior Hope Hart (interesting books to read for teens .txt) 📖

I have no idea how I’m going to get down the side of the mountain without alerting the predator at my back.

Cross that bridge when you come to it.

I tiptoe toward the side of the mountain. Dragix stops snoring, and I glance back over my shoulder. In the darkness, his scales glimmer in the moonlight, and his eyes gleam like melted gold as he opens them and glares straight at me.

Fear slams into me like a freight train. I’m suddenly that mouse again, sizing up my chance of surviving the cat that’s slowly getting to its feet.

I run.

I know I shouldn’t. Predators love it when you run. When you show you’re scared. But I can’t help it. I bolt to the side of the mountain and scramble down, hauling myself over the rock until only my hands are holding on to the rock above me.

Dragix lets out a roar that makes the mountain tremble.

If I weren’t holding on to the rock for dear life, slipping and sliding my way down the side of the mountain, I’d slap my hands over my ears.

Instead, I scream back. My scream is half rage, half pure, undiluted terror.

A gust of air hits my face, and I move faster, my bare feet sliding for purchase on the rock. The sound of flapping wings turns my panicked breaths into dry sobs, and then I’m snatched up once again, Dragix pulling me away from the mountain and into the sky as the air turns hot with his rage.

He roars at me again, and this time I do slap my hands over my ears as he drops me back on the top of the mountain.

“Fuck you!” I scream back.

He throws his head with a snarl, baring those lethally sharp teeth at me, and then he seems to turn into a burst of light.

My mouth drops open. I’m looking at a man.

A man who looks as surprised as I am.

He’s butt naked, bronze skin gleaming in the moonlight. His hair falls beneath his shoulders, tousled and as gold as his eyes, which widen as he brings one of his hands up to his face.

He takes a step and stumbles, staring down at his feet as if confused.

I rub at my eyes.

A dragon was bad enough. This proves that I’m truly going insane. Am I even on an alien planet? Or did I have some kind of breakdown and I’m really on Earth, about to wake up from a nightmare?

Silence stretches between us as he stares at me. I carefully—very carefully—avoid dropping my gaze any lower.

Butt. Naked.

He looks like a Greek god, and he seems to have figured out how his body works because he stalks toward me. He’s still relatively unsteady on his feet, but his face turns hard as he frowns at me.

“You will not leave.”

My eyes widen. Thanks to the Arcav, I have a translator in my ear. But the dragon…

“You speak my language?”

He gives me a look. “My people speak all languages,” he says. His voice is low and rough, and his mouth seems to hesitate as he forms the words, but his tone drips with arrogance.

Of course they do. Why wouldn’t they?

If he understands me, maybe we can talk this out.

“Look, I get that you’re used to being the ruler of the animal kingdom around here. But if you’re not planning to eat me—and I really hope you’re not—then please let me go.”

For some unknown reason, he seems surprised by my request. His thick brows rise, his gold eyes widen, and then he scowls at me, as if the very suggestion is ludicrous.

“I am tired of being alone,” he says. “I have healed you, fed you, kept you safe. You will stay here until I decide you may leave.”

I clench my teeth so hard I’m surprised they don’t crack.

Not only is he both a dragon and a man—and how the hell is that even possible?—but he’s clearly crazy.

“You’re not alone. You have Maez.”

He ignores that, seemingly distracted by one of his fingers, which he holds up in front of his face, studying it with a frown.

“Yo,” I interrupt the staring. “Did you hear me? I want to leave. You can’t keep me here.”

He meets my gaze. “I saw you, and I took you. I am Dragix. I can do what I like.”

For some reason, I attract crazy like honey attracts bees on Earth. This planet is obviously going to be no different. I open my mouth, and he narrows his eyes at me.

“I am faster than you and stronger than you, even in this form. You cannot leave.”

With that, he turns back into a dragon, effectively ending our conversation.

Dragix

I had…forgotten my two-leg form. It has been so many centuries since I chose to walk instead of fly that the shift took me by surprise. From the look of wrath on Charlie’s face as she stares back at me, she is not pleased by my shift back to my dragon form.

It was entirely unplanned.

For the first time in longer than I can remember, a shadow of fear slides over me.

I am shifting forms with no warning.

What if I shift back to my two-leg form while flying with Charlie?

No. I will not take her off this mountain until I have remembered how to control the shift.

I gesture toward the ground where we sleep, and Charlie stalks toward it, her back straight, her shoulders tight. Now that I have felt the rough ground beneath my bare feet, I realize that it cannot be comfortable for her to sleep on.

I felt the little two-leg remaining tense and awake next to me even as she pretended she was sleeping. So I also feigned sleep, wondering just how she would attempt to escape.

She has no understanding of how sensitive I am to movement, noise, and smell. Even if I had been in a deep sleep, I would have woken as she rolled away from me.

I didn’t expect her to attempt to scramble down the side of my mountain.