Stolen Desire (Outlawed Realm) Read Online Free PDF Page B

convicted criminals. Men who now followed him. Little did the rulers know what he and his group had done to the guards who’d once terrorized their prisoners, meting out too little food, too much punishment.
    With the last of his strength, Zekin swam Paige toward the first pod, where he’d been introduced to starvation and beatings intended to break him and ensure his obedience in all things, making him as unquestioning as the others in his realm.
    Not for a moment had he bent to the brutality. It made him stronger, more resolved to fight back, even if it meant his end. Better to die an honest man than to be anyone’s slave or puppet.
    The interior lighting of the pods tinted the sea around them a pale azure. With his free hand outstretched, he placed his fingertips on the door’s alloy panel. It required only a moment to recognize his identity. Soundlessly, the metal doors parted. Keeping his arm firmly around Paige’s waist, Zekin swam them inside.
    Once the doors closed, the water receded within seconds. They stood dripping and facing each other, their thighs, bellies, chests touching. Not knowing how Paige would react to that now that the danger had passed, Zekin released her and stepped back.
    She noted that, then regarded the few puddles still draining into the floor’s narrow vents that glowed with light, making the space almost too bright to regard for long. She lifted her face to the transparent walls above them, crisscrossed with metal supports. Thousands of small creatures emerged from the water’s sooty depths, their bodies transparent, revealing their beating hearts. They swirled around the pod. She drew her arms in as though to protect herself.
    “They can’t harm you in here,” Zekin said. He touched the back seam on his suit. His facemask slid up, followed by the silvery-blue material slinking down, away from his head. He gulped great mouthfuls of the sanitized air, welcoming it.
    Paige clawed at her own mask until she recalled how to remove it, fumbling in the back of her suit for the seam. The moment the thing was off her, she spoke in a rush. “I’m not worried about that—I’m not scared.”
    Her teeth clacked and her body shook.
    A wave of worry coursed through Zekin, mingled with unexpected tenderness. An emotion he’d rarely allowed himself to feel. Cautiously, so as not to alarm her further, he stepped a bit closer and lied, “I know you’re not afraid.”
    She smiled weakly, clearly struggling to appear undaunted by all of this. “Can I ask you something?”
    He nodded, prepared for her endless questions about who he was, where he’d come from, where this place could possibly be. Followed by her horror from his answers.
    Her mouth trembled. “Would you mind holding me for a second? Just a second, until I can calm—”
    His embrace interrupted her plea.
    With her arms wreathed around his neck, Paige nuzzled close, her face against his shoulder. Whimpers poured from her, sounding both relieved and embarrassed. Zekin wanted to assure her there was no need for shame. However, the right words, ones that would soothe, were beyond him. She was a woman filled with emotions he’d been trained to ignore and deny.
    How could he do so now?
    Her hair smelled of something sweet, a plant from her side, perhaps. Each time she breathed, her erect nipples pressed into his chest. Zekin’s body reacted as any man’s would, his blood growing heated, his cock thickening. Physiological changes he understood when it came to simple lust. However, the emotions bombarding him continued to stun. Not only did he experience a primitive urge to protect her, as he would any human, but also to matter to her as a man should to a woman. To be wanted, valued, cherished.
    Everything he’d never known and had a small glimpse of now.
    Her caress provided an abundance of comfort that Zekin found enchanting, suddenly requiring it as much as she seemed to. He rested his cheek against her silky hair, inhaling deeply of