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

“I saw it happen. I watched it. I was just a child about three orbits old, but I was forced to watch, just as I had been forced to watch them use my mor.”

As Evren wiped her eyes, he wished he could end the story there, but he had to continue.

“Father took off his own head when he realized. Right in the arena. He turned to them, raising his chets, and he did it.” Kyro stared at the wall, the scene playing in front of him as if he was back in the cage in the pits of the arena watching.

“They cheered,” he continued. “The Tasqals cheered.” He blinked, his eyes still glassy from the memory. “I will never forget those cheers. From that day, I knew it would never end. I had to escape.”

“How? How did you escape?”

“They began moving us to a weapons program. They were training young Vorti to fight for them. I was young enough to brainwash, so they chose me too.” His eyes focused on hers. “I escaped when one of the guards was too idle putting on my neck brace. I shifted into a small animal and ran. I have been hiding ever since. Rokan too. But unlike me, he never went to the arenas. His family managed to escape during the Great War. The few Vorti who managed to abandon our planet have been on the run, hiding out in the open, pretending to be other species. It is the only way to survive.”

Evren blinked.

“You mean...right now...you’re shifted? This isn’t the real you?”

When he shook his head in the negative, he watched her eyes widen and that same uncertainty grow within them once more.

After a few moments, she stood and went to the bathing area. He assumed she was taking the time to sort her thoughts but soon he heard her running the water and then she returned with another piece of wet oofla material.

How could she still tend to him when he just told her that his very image was a lie?

Replacing the oofla on his forehead, she asked, “Why hide now, even here? You’re at the Restitution’s base. Shouldn’t you be safe here?”

“No.”

When he said that, her fingers paused. “What do you mean?”

“The Tasqals are a powerful race. They own almost everything on this side of the galaxy. Their reach goes far. During and after the Great War, they spread stories, rumors...about the Vorti...” He paused. “Beings fear us. We are hated. They see us as dangerous. Vicious. Untrustworthy criminals who can shift into anything we choose.”

“Can you?” Her fingers began fiddling with the oofla she’d just placed over his forehead. “Can you shift into anything you choose?”

“Almost anything...”

“Like...can you shift into a mouse?”

“Mouse?”

“A small, small animal. A tenth the size of a skunkat, maybe.”

“It would be difficult to compress my molecules, but I could try.”

Her eyebrows shot up.

“Could you shift into me?”

Kyro hesitated answering but in her eyes shone genuine interest.

“Yes.”

Her eyebrows shot up farther and she was silent for what felt like whole minutes. “You are...amazing.”

The world stood still at her words.

Never had he expected anything remotely close to what she’d just said.

Her response was just proof enough that she was from a different world.

“Amazing? We are scorned. Hated.” He paused. “Hated for what we are.”

Locking eyes with her, he hoped she could see the sincerity and seriousness in his. “If the Tasqals get word of the presence of any Vorti, it is a death sentence. They will hunt him, and they will not stop until they find him. Then he is a dead Vorti or an enslaved one.”

Evren dropped her hand, her fingers brushing his cheek lightly.

The movement had him stilling beneath her touch.

“Is that why you didn’t tell me? Do your brothers know? Xul and the others I mean.”

“No one knows except for you.”

Evren nodded slowly.

“Now that you know, you are in danger. If they find out the truth, they will come for me. And you are my weakness.”

“What do you mean?”

A breath shuddered from him.

“The Tasqals...if they can’t get to me. They’ll get to the ones I care about the most. That is why nobody knows. That is why what I am is a secret.” He paused as another breath shuddered through him. “My power to bend my molecules to my will is my gift. But it is also my curse.”

Evren blinked and he felt her finger brush over his cheek once more, sending a delightful feeling through his skin that spread all over his chest.

“You didn’t tell me because you care about me?”

Had he said that out loud?

For a moment, he could only look back at her, searching her gaze to determine her thoughts.

“I do care about you... I care about you very much.”

“Is that why you haven’t contacted me in so long?”

“Staying away from you is the best way to protect you.”

“You were trying to push me away?”

“Yes.”

“But you came as the skunkat.”

“Skunnkatt?”

“That gray animal.”

“Ohhh. The canee.”

“Why did you come as that animal? What if someone caught you?”

“The canee are common animals on the base. But do not touch them like you touched me. Some are not as...friendly.”

“But it was you though, at the shuttle yard.” She’d asked that question before, but he guessed she was still processing things.

He might as well let it all out now. He had a feeling she knew it was him anyway. “Yes. It was me.”

“You came every day. I rubbed your back. You purred.” She smiled.

Kyro frowned slightly.

This was not the reaction he had been expecting? “It does not anger you?”

She took a moment to ponder that because her eyes narrowed for a bit before she responded. “No. It makes me feel...good inside.”

“I...do not know how to respond.”

“Then don’t.” She smiled again.

A sound by the door had them both looking up and Rokan stood there, his gaze uncertain. In his hand was a small vial.

“Do you have it?” Kyro asked and Rokan entered the room, giving Evren a wary look.

“The serum. Yes,” Rokan said, stretching the vial to