Feral Series IV: Feral Fallout by Skhye Moncrief Page B

D'ena. Because she proved on the trip here that hers was a heart that had to be won. And, by law, she was the only mate I could have now.
    I must have reached some plateau with my relationship with Solvun. He took me for a walk later that night. Unchained except for my stupid outfit of chains. Right down to what I'll refer to as a mess hall filled with a menagerie of aliens who obviously hadn't seen a female in person in ages.
    Maybe he thought it safe enough to parade me around.
    "Keep your eyes on the floor,” Solvun muttered over his shoulder at me.
    Scratch that last thought. Fine, however. I could play the docile possession of the possessed. But he'd been aloof since he returned from his outing. Something happened. And he wasn't talking about sharing.
    "We'll eat,” he muttered at me. “The more you act like you like me, the less they'll watch us."
    I guess he should have defined like . I interpreted the concept to mean fond of .
    We'd eaten something dense and chewy, akin to meatloaf, avoiding censoring alien gazes. Then Solvun rose, maybe expecting me to follow in his departure. I managed to keep up with the squeak of each heel of his knee-high black boots. But when he sat on a stool to play what had to be cards by the flatness of the small sheets of material he held with his five extraterrestrial friends, I had nowhere to go. But on him.
    Scrutinizing alien gazes were everywhere.
    He didn't balk when I draped his back with my body.
    You know, by his chuckles, I'd have to throw everything he owned on the table that he liked my attention and would have whipped out a cigar if he had one. Just to get me to play with it like some souped-up egotistical politician. And that's exactly what a king was. So, I went with the moment to play our audience.
    Who wouldn't have run her palms all over his glorious broad chest anyway?
    Everyone in the room must have agreed by the silence descending upon the menagerie of odd humanoid bodies. Slowly, the throng squeezed in, giving me a wide berth, probably fantasizing about sticking something up one of my extremely short pant legs. But, Hell, if things boiled down to the only way we could escape this prison was in setting off a who-gets-the-girl riot like I resorted to back in Turkey, well, I had better get started on working up the friction to necessitate said emotional fog and wiggle my ass in the wee shorts.
    Because smoke screens always saved my ass.
    "Your little tick seems to have changed her mind about you by the way she's sucking your neck,” some purplish-black guy with bug eyes, literally wide bottomless dark eyes the size of saucers, tossed a metal card onto the metal table and went on about his business waiting for Solvun's reply.
    Solvun didn't skip a beat in the game. He tossed a card with some foreign symbol onto the table with the seriousness of a man out for blood. “She's mine, Hatch. If you don't like the show, throw in your ticket."
    Oh, the King's good. I ran a palm slowly down his ripped supple midline. Down. Down over firm muscles, to the soft skin around his navel.
    He grabbed my wrist and chuckled. “Enough D'ena. I'm trying to concentrate."
    "She acts like you drugged her with !Dakos pheromones."
    Drugged? Flonn drugged me? Hmm. I slid my arms around Solvun's slim waist beneath his arms and settled against the meat of his shoulder where just my eyes could peek at the prisoners seated around the table. Bugs and small reptiles with wide jaws came to mind.
    Ugh. I'll keep the golden god King .
    "Is your little pet helping you cheat, Solvun?” A gray hairless man set an accusing gaze on me from next to Bug Eyes.
    Great. Solvun would know my sight wasn't on the ground. I tucked my eyes behind Solvun's back and just waited for the reply.
    "She's never seen the game before now. How would she know what I need to help me win?” He patted the back of one of my hands. “Hold tight, D'ena. I'm almost finished. Then I'll take care of you."
    The crowd