Captured by the Alien Warrior by Hope Hart (best pdf ebook reader for android TXT) 📕

princess for the next three months. I thought it was a one-off. He was stressed with work.

“Long story short, by the time I finally left, I had no friends to call. I’d basically disappeared. They thought I’d been too wrapped up in my new relationship to care about them anymore, and I had nowhere to go. They would’ve helped me if I’d told them. If I’d let them know what Ben had done to me. But I was too ashamed. I moved out, and he found me. Then I moved again, and he found me again. The threats, the pleading, the constant fear—it got to be too much. I thought I loved him. So I went back.”

A tear rolls down my face, and Dragix kisses it away. “You were alone and scared.”

I nod. “And weak.”

He catches my chin in his hand. “No.”

I shrug, still disappointed in myself. “A few weeks later, I did something to annoy him. I don’t remember what it was. All I remember is that he wrapped his hands around my throat.”

Dragix pulls me close, his huge body shaking as he kisses every inch of my face. I sigh, catching his lips with mine.

His lips are warm, gentle. He kisses me like I’m precious.

“You survived.”

“Yeah. A stroke of luck. He’d forgotten that one of his friends was about to arrive. He told me to go into the bedroom and shut the door. I did, and while I was there, I shoved whatever I could find into my backpack. And the moment he took his friend into the living room, I bolted down the hall and straight to the police.”

And then I spent three years on the run.

Dragix is silent for a long moment, and then he draws away from me. “And then you landed here, and I took you and stopped you from leaving. Stealing your freedom away. No wonder you hated me. No wonder you want to leave.”

I shake my head. “Yes, when you first took me, I thought you were just like Ben. But you’re not, Dragix. You’d never hurt me. If you didn’t do it when you were more beast than man, you won’t do it now. I know that deep in my bones.”

“I will take you to the other two-legs tomorrow,” he says, and my mouth drops open.

“What?”

“If I do not give you your freedom, I am no better than the male who tormented you for so long.”

My eyes sting. The dragon learned about autonomy. About freedom. For me.

I gaze down at him. I don’t want to go, and that’s why I need to. This is the smart choice. The only choice.

Dragix

I mate with my little two-leg over and over again, throughout the day and night. I do not yet trust my wings to hold us, so I will have one more night with Charlie before I give her her freedom.

Guilt plagues me at the thought of her terror when I took her. Not just because I was a creature that she had never seen before but because she had already been abused.

I am…ashamed.

“You’re thinking about it again,” Charlie says softly, and I glance down at her. When the day began to heat, we moved down to what was once my parents’ room. The room is large enough for me to lie in dragon form, which would help me heal.

But I don’t want to miss a moment of this. Of lying with Charlie, my Charlie.

She sighs at my silence. “I forgive you, Dragix. You never hurt me, not even that night when I tried to escape.”

“I would never harm you.”

“I know.”

The sun is rising, the room turning a light gray. If I do not make myself take her soon, I will not be able to.

“We should go.”

Charlie sits up, her dark hair tousled around her beautiful face. “Are you sure? Can you fly?”

I nod. “We will go now.” Before I change my mind.

She suddenly looks so sad that I have to turn away.

“I will meet you upstairs,” I say.

“Okay.” Her voice is small. “If that’s what you want. I’ll go say bye to Maez.”

I nod and stalk out. Maez will not understand my choice. For a long moment, I regret ever seeing that ship fall from the sky. Regret ever being curious enough to fly toward it, to investigate the scent that drew me. If I had resisted the urge, I would have stayed in my winged form, never knowing any different. Never knowing this…loss.

But then you would not know Charlie.

She is wearing billowy dark-gray pants and a shirt the color of her eyes when she steps out onto the top of my mountain. She’s clutching a bundle in her arms, and I can smell my scent. My scales. She looks fragile, and sad, and so beautiful that I have to turn away as I shift into my winged form.

It hurts, but I embrace the pain. I would rather feel this pain than the pain of losing Charlie.

“Dragix…”

“We will go now.”

Her expression is sad when I finally look at her, and I have to glance away as a tear drips down her cheek.

“Okay,” she says softly. “You’re right.”

I help her onto my back and stretch my wings, ignoring the ache that lingers from the healing. I eat three udazin as we fly and immediately feel less drained.

And I take my little two-leg to her new home.

Chapter Eleven

Charlie

Thanks to the tears streaming from my eyes, I can’t even enjoy my last flight with my dragon. Dragix, thankfully, gives me privacy while I cry, but I know he can likely smell the salt from my tears.

He eats a few animals along the way, and it seems to help him fly faster. I hope he’s completely healed, but I’ve got a feeling that he’s still not yet at his best.

I wipe my face as he moves lower, no longer using his wings but soaring on an air current.

This is the smart choice. The right choice.

So why does it feel like shit?

Dragix lands, and