Deep Penetration; Alien Breeders I by Stacey St. James Read Free Book Online Page B

emphasize
her status as an experimental animal rather than a person and that
thought plunged her spirits to lowest ebb.
    To her dismay, he didn’t return her to
the cabin where they’d first put her. Instead, he carried her to
his own. She held out some hope for a few moments that he’d only
done so to appropriate the clothing he’d loaned her, but he
disabused her of that notion as soon as she’d stripped and handed
it back.
    “ Consider yourself a
prisoner of the Anunnaki,” he said tightly. “You’ll stay here. If
I’m not here, there’ll be a guard outside.”
    “ Where would I go even if
I wanted to escape?” she demanded plaintively.
    His gaze flickered over her face. “You
are too hardheaded for your own good. I admire your spirit, but
I’ve no intention of allowing it to overcome your good sense … or
my admiration mine.”
    Emerald swallowed convulsively. “You
could imprison me in the other cabin just as easily and I wouldn’t
be around to bother you!”
    He moved closer, capturing her face in
one hand and tilting her head back so that she had to look at him.
“It won’t bother me, Emerald. I can assure you of that.”
    The implication in the way he looked
at her if not what he’d said should have frightened her. Instead,
it only suffocated her spirits further. She didn’t feel up to the
challenge of trying to protect herself. She felt as weak, and lost,
and afraid as the child they called her. Tears welled in her eyes
in spite of all she could do. “Why didn’t you just leave me in
peace?”
    Some of the ruthless aggression left
his face. For a moment, she almost thought he would kiss her again
and her belly fluttered with anticipation. Instead, his face
hardened again. “If I had, you wouldn’t be of any use to me,” he
said coldly.
    She wanted to fling herself down on
his bunk and cry her heart out when he’d left her. Instead, she
pulled the coverlet from the bed, wrapped it around herself, and
curled up in one of the chairs on the opposite side of the room.
Her chest ached with the tightness of unshed tears she refused to
give in to. Her thoughts were no comfort and did nothing to ease
the ache.
    Everyone couldn’t be gone! She
couldn’t accept that. She thought she had to accept that she was,
in truth, on Earth and that the Anunnaki had resurrected her from a
speck of DNA left behind. And if she accepted that, then she had to
accept that a great deal of time had passed since whatever it was
that had happened, but she couldn’t believe the human race was
extinct! Somewhere out there, there were survivors. There had to
be! They’d existed for thousands of years, fought everything Mother
Nature could throw at them, and survived—despite the odds against
them. Whatever had happened, there would’ve been some with the
cunning, determination, and luck to make it and, in the time that
had passed, they would’ve multiplied.
    Even supposing she could escape,
though, how would she ever find them?
    Or were they only hiding from the
aliens? The Anunnaki?
    She should’ve trusted her instincts,
she thought with a sudden flicker of reviving anger! They weren’t
benevolent! They had their own agenda and she was simply a pawn
they meant to keep!
    * * * *
    It was Koryn that woke Emerald several
hours later when he entered the room carrying a tray like the one
she’d been brought the night before. She roused enough to study him
before he spied her, long enough to see the consternation on his
face when he discovered she wasn’t in the bed where he’d apparently
expected to find her. Relief flickered in his eyes when he saw her,
but his face tightened with irritation.
    No doubt it had given him a nasty turn
to think she might have escaped!
    “ I brought you something
to eat,” he said after settling the tray he’d brought on the table
near the chair.
    “ Thank you,” Emerald said
neutrally, wondering why he’d brought it instead of sending an
android with it.
    Grabbing another chair, he