Free Taken by Space Pirates: A SciFi Alien Romance (Bound to the Alien Book 2) by Flora Dare Page B

hummed between us. I could feel the bond tightening around us, binding us, binding me.
     
    Finally, our idyll was broken by Dr. Blattodea. One of the little robots fetched us from our cell and brought us to her laboratory. She left us standing for hours, watching her cluck over piles of notes. She finally looked up and frowned at us.
     
    "You were both a waste. My instruments should have detected something when you had intercourse and completed the bond." She shook the flimsy pages in rage. "But this is a bunch of nothing."
     
    Sam said, "Does that mean you are withdrawing from your side of the agreement? It's not our fault your instruments failed."
     
    She snorted at us. "Your precious sister is on the ship." She threw the pages down and leaned back in her chair, a glittering, malicious smile crossing her face. "That portion of the experiment will be even more entertaining, considering how irritated you have both made me."
     
    All I could feel from Sam was wild exultation. And I was happy for him. I'd sacrificed our chance of breaking the bond for this. I understood better why Tlavi was ready to give up everything for Meli, even when he didn't understand what was driving him.
     
    Dr. Blattodea stood up and said, "If you want to see your sister, strangle Thearaugqua. Now."
     
    Sam advanced on me and I flinched. Could I trust him? Should I fight him? Could I? His hands wrapped around my throat, warm and sensuous, until they begun to tighten. My hands found their way to his wrists, and a single tear slipped down my face. I realized I couldn't stop him if I wanted to, and that I was recreating my own mother's death. She couldn't stop my father.
     
    And just like her, I didn't even want too.
     
    As blackness edged around my vision, all I could do was share how much I loved Sam and that it would be okay.
     
    All hell broke loose when his hands abruptly released me. The door exploded into melted slag, and Foundation shock troops streamed into the room. Sam covered me with his body as Dr. Blattodea was hit with electrowhips and dropped to the floor.
     
    "I'm sorry, so so sorry. I'm so sorry. Forgive me."
     
    Sam was covering my face in soft kisses, weeping onto me. Our tears mingled.
     
    I smiled up at him. "Nothing to be sorry for. I believed in you."
     
    The troops pulled him up and helped me to my feet. A man walked through the door. Yastlama! The man who was more like a father to me than my own. Who raised Tlavi and I when my father wandered. Before I could run to him, Sam greeted him. I staggered. What was he doing here? How did Sam know him?
     
    Yastlama walked over to me, holding his arms out, sorrow on his face. "Thea, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize what would happen."
     
    I stepped away from both of them. Doubt and fear clashed in me. What was he talking about?
     
    I drew myself up into as icy cold and untouchable a demeanor as I could. "Gentlemen, I do not understand what is happening, and I have been held prisoner for some time. What the hell are you doing here, Yastlama?"
     
    He looked helplessly over at Sam. He started to say, "I can explain everything..." but I cut him off.
     
    "Start, now. I'm done waiting."
     
    Sam held his hand up to Yastlama. "Let me. Thea, I've been working with him. He was the one who rescued me. We've been working to infiltrate the Reivers."
     
    "You what? What does that have to do with me?"
     
    They both shifted uncomfortably.
     
    Yastlama finally broke the growing silence. "We knew there was a connection to your father and to you. But we also knew that you were very well protected and rarely ventured to the outer edges of the Foundation. But your brother took you with him to Earth." His voice trailed off and Sam picked up where he left off.
     
    "And Yastlama alerted me that you were venturing out of the safe zone. So I grabbed you."
     
    My voice was frozen. All I could do was stare at them. They could have just as easily killed all of us.
     
    Finally I said, "I want to