Sohut's Protection: A Sci-fi Alien Romance (Riv's Sanctuary Book 2) by A.G. Wilde (ebook reader that looks like a book .txt) 📕

He was the reason his brother had lost his tail.

He was the reason his brother, the only person to have loved him, had almost died.

Till this day, he hadn’t told Riv about that conversation with their mor.

He couldn’t.

How could he say he was the reason his brother’s entire life had been upended?

He didn’t have the gonads to.

And so he’d taken the field jobs. At least then, he was useful. He was of use and such jobs caused him to stay away from the Sanctuary as much as he could, just so he didn’t have to face the recluse his brother had become because of him!

He should have run away that day after his mor had said those words.

But he didn’t.

He’d been weak.

Too weak to protect Clee-yo.

As his labored breaths began to calm down he was vaguely aware of a sound at the edge of the fallen trees.

Squinting in the darkness, he caught the shape.

Wawa.

The slizz snarled at him, racing at him through the darkness. He only managed to catch Wawa mid-air.

The slizz was snarling at him, its teeth protracted, and its eyes bled to black.

It could smell that Clee-yo wasn’t there anymore.

“I didn’t kill her!” Sohut growled. “She was taken.” He hated saying the words but Wawa seemed to calm down a little at the sound of his voice, so he continued.

“I didn’t kill her,” he murmured again. “She was taken by Hedgeruds.”

The slizz made a sound in its throat as its teeth retracted.

It was a questioning sort of mewing and Sohut let out a sad huff of a laugh.

It loved her.

Wawa loved her.

Of all the creatures, his Cleo had befriended a slizz.

Of all creatures, she had befriended him.

“I don’t know, Wawa,” he finally said and he could see, even in the darkness, that Wawa’s ears perked. It was the first time he’d had a proper conversation with the animal. “I don’t know why the Hedgeruds…”

As Wawa wasn’t trying to kill him anymore, he set the animal down and watched it as it paced in front of him, sniffing the ground as it did.

Twiddling with the tracker in his hand, Sohut frowned.

The Hedgeruds had come…not the Gori…and that spelled trouble.

The Hedgeruds only worked for the High Tasqals.

Rich, powerful and cruel, it was no secret that the High Tasqals trafficked beings from Class Four planets—mainly for their entertainment.

Their slaves never lasted long. Not with the disease the Tasqals carried. It was the same disease that was decimating the Tasqal race.

They were dying. Rotting.

And so they bred, forcefully, with beings that had no legal protection on this side of the universe.

His stomach twisted.

The thought that the Hedgeruds were taking Cleo to the High Tasqals for her to be…

He couldn’t stomach the thought.

He needed to get her back.

Groaning, he stood. Every nerve in his body protested.

“We have to get her back,” he muttered and at his feet, the slizz made a sound of agreement.

Taking a few steps in the direction of the stream felt like he was trying to claw his way up a mountain that had one-hundred percent more gravity than usual.

But he could make it.

He would make it and his body wouldn’t hold him back.

He hadn’t let it hold him back when he was in the mines, even though he was sick and close to dying most of the time. He had stayed alive for Riv because dying would have been the ultimate insult to his brother’s life.

He could do that again.

He’d overcome the pain in his muscles and he’d force his limbs to move.

“Let’s go get her, little one.” He looked at the slizz and Wawa jumped on him, perching on his shoulders just as he did with Clee-yo.

Sohut gripped the tracker in his hand.

They could do this.

They were going to get their female back.

It felt like hours before he was walking back at normal pace, but he managed to retrieve the contents of his satchel that the cursed mogs had thrown all over the vines near the stream.

Grabbing everything he could see, he set off at a run, his breath coming in gasps as he pushed his body forward.

He didn’t have a plan but what he was about to do was dangerous.

Nobody went against the Tasqals.

Nobody except the rebels in the Restitution and he was no rebel.

But he was in love.

Clee-yo was his gnora. His soulmate.

He could feel it.

And he wasn’t going to lose her, even if it meant he had to die getting her free.

Riv. He needed to call his brother Riv.

Connecting his sat phone, he punched in his brother’s code.

“Sohut?” Riv’s voice sounded over the line. He sounded phekked off, but that was his brother—he was never in a good mood.

“Riv,” he breathed as he ran through the darkness, trusting his instincts that he was heading the right way. “I phekked up badly, brother.”

“What do you mean?” The concern in his brother’s voice was immediate and it wrung his life-organ. Riv had always cared for him, like a father more than a brother.

He was so indebted to him he didn’t know how he was ever going to repay him.

“There’s something I have to deal with.” Sohut breathed. “I don’t know when I’ll be coming back to the Sanctuary.”

“Something like what?” Riv asked.

“Remember that exotic animal I’m here to catch?”

“Yes…”

“She’s not an animal.”

“She?”

Sohut gulped.

“She, brother. She. The same species as Larn.”

“You mean La-rehn?”

“La-rehn. Yes.” Why was saying this so hard? “Well, I helped capture one of her kind and…” He paused. Saying it was like admitting that he was really weak.

“…I phekked up, brother. I think I’m going to have to do something stupid,” he finally said.

He could hear the silence on the other end of the line.

“Explain,” Riv growled after a few moments.

“No time. I have to get to the exchange.” But there was no longer the low crackle of the connection.

Glancing down at the device, he realized it was out of charge.

It seemed the phekking mogs had detached the sol battery.

Phekking little fat excrement holes.

Gritting his teeth, Sohut