Kyro: A Sci-fi Alien Abduction Romance (Captured by Aliens Book 5) by A.G. Wilde (best summer books .txt) 📕

Evren rubbed her temple, as she tried to connect the dots.

“Are you saying it is bad that I know?”

Kyro nodded. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because now that you know, we’ve put your life in danger.”

When her eyes widened at his admission, he was sure she would begin screaming and demanding answers.

But not Evren.

No.

His Evren was much too strong for that.

Instead, she’d taken a few moments for his words to sink in and then she’d stood and demanded that Rokan assist him back to bed.

It was like the conversation had ended there but he knew better than that. He could see it in her eyes; the questions she wanted to ask swam there like great urtisks in a sea of concern.

Once he was lying down again, fresh oofla material wetted and placed on his forehead, she perched on the edge of the sleeping area, looking at him intently.

“I can take it from here, Rokan,” Kyro said, eyes moving to his friend who hovered by the door.

Rokan nodded, one final glance at Evren before he slipped out of the sleeping area. She turned her head to watch Rokan leave before focusing on him once more.

“Kyro...” Her voice was unsure and so was her gaze. And even though he’d dreamed of the scenario in which he could tell her what he was about to tell her, the reality of it was still daunting.

Especially since when she looked at him, there was uncertainty in her eyes—uncertainty not about what she had seen or what she was about to say, but uncertainty concerning him.

She didn’t trust him anymore, and that tugged at his heart more than anything else.

“Evren, I...” He trailed off. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Was it true?”

“Was what true?”

“About you being a slave? Was that true? Was everything that you told me a lie?”

“It was true. It was all true. I would never lie to you.”

Her gaze became pointed before she averted her eyes. “I know I shouldn’t be mad, but I feel...betrayed almost. I feel like I don’t know you.”

That cut deep.

“You do know me.” The real me, he wanted to add, but that was a lie. She didn’t even know what he really looked like. Saying such a thing felt disingenuous.

When she still did not raise her gaze back to his, Kyro continued. “I am Vorti. My people were shifters from a world far from this one. We were a peaceful people.” He paused. “But that might have been our downfall.”

When she finally looked at him, her gaze rising to his and her brow furrowed slightly as she focused on his words, Kyro continued. “Long ago, there was the Great War. The Tasqals came to our world with mighty armies. They killed our females. They killed our males. They took females and children...kept them tied up with crude braces around their necks.

“Those braces...” he rubbed his neck absentmindedly, the memory of his own brace strong in his mind. “...they emitted a charge that stopped Vorti from shifting.”

Kyro moved his eyes away from hers. It was hard seeing the pity and sorrow reflected there. It was not the way he wanted her to look at him.

“You were taken...” she breathed.

A sigh left his frame, causing the wound in his side to ache, but the immediate physical pain held nothing against the pain in his mind—the pain brought back by remembering every vivid detail as if it all happened yesterday.

“My father fought for us. In the large arena, he and his brothers fought. He fought for us and his brothers fought for their wives and children.” He let his gaze wander to hers again. “He and many others fought in those horrible arenas, fighting beasts from unknown lands, the winner the last one standing—and we were forced to watch. Many times he was almost killed but that didn’t sate them. The Tasqals put him in that arena over and over and over...”

A breath shook out of him.

“You don’t have to tell me this,” Evren said, her hand moving to touch his leg. The warmth of her skin against his, the comfort that it brought with that simple touch, was almost overwhelming, but he had to continue.

After what she’d seen and the fact that he’d had to hide it all from her, he had to let her know everything. Even if she had to forget later.

“No. You must know this. You must understand.” He paused, inhaling deeply before he continued. “My father was fighting for us. To keep us safe. The Tasqals told him and the other men in the arenas that if they fought, they wouldn’t touch us—their wives. Their children.” He could feel the fire begin to burn deep within him at the memories. “But they lied.”

“What do you mean?” Her voice was so soft, so innocent in all of this that it pulled him from the rage he was falling into.

“Even as my father fought, they used my mother. In front of me and my brother, they used her. She was the first to die after bearing offspring for the vile beasts. She suffered, rotting from their horrible disease.”

Evren’s hands moved to cover her mouth in shock.

“Still, my father fought for us, me and my brother. We were all he had left. All he fought for.” He paused, the emotion making the muscles in his throat expand to the point it felt as if his grief was choking him. “Father fought, not knowing that the Tasqals were forcing us to shift, injecting some chemical into us so we could not take back our normal form until the chemical wore off.”

He paused again, the next bit of memory ripping into him so hard he clenched his hands into fists.

“They made my brother shift into a Dragsxli beast. Forced him to keep that form with their drugs. And...”

“No...”

“Yes.” Kyro nodded, the scene playing out in is head. “They sent him into the arena to fight my father.”

“No...”

“Father killed him.”

He watched her swallow hard, tears in her eyes as she looked at him. “Oh,