Free Claimed by Lee-Ann Wallace Page B

at least some of his family were there.
    The group seemed to notice her at the same time. Almost as one they turned hostile eyes, ranging from bright yellow to grass green and every colour in between, towards her. She didn’t need to remember all the information the pod had given her to know the Morgath were a male-dominated society. She could tell just standing there watching them. Their aggressive stances and the condescending looks in their eyes all spoke louder than words.
    “ You, ” one of the males growled.
    Tina looked into the bright yellow eyes of the male who approached her. Father, then. Sorvar had his eyes—they were the same shade of yellow, and this male’s scales were the exact colour of the scales Sorvar had retained on his body. But he wasn’t mated. How could he have three sons if he’d never mated?
    He towered over her as he stopped in front of her. Taller than Sorvar by a few inches and broader through the shoulders, he was more than formidable. He was quietly terrifying, but Tina refused to allow him to intimidate her. She would not let him see her fear or turn into a teary blubbering idiot.
    “Your Majesty,” she said with a little bow.
    She should have paid more attention during etiquette classes. It had all seemed pretty redundant at the time. She’d never imagined she would come into contact with the ruler of a planet. They rarely left their homes, and Tina had accepted a position on a station so the chances of her coming into contact with one were almost nil.
    Now she stood in front of not only the king of the Morgath but Sorvar’s father, and his son was in a coma because of her. What did she say to him in this situation? That she was sorry? It seemed like a useless gesture, the words nowhere near enough for what had happened to Sorvar.
    He didn’t give her a chance to say anything even if she could have figured it out. His hand shot out and wrapped around her throat, lifting her off the ground. Tina’s heart started to pound as pain speared through her neck. The thing that had coiled tightly in her gut before Sorvar bound them that was now spread throughout her body sent fire licking through her veins. Tina bared her teeth in a snarl and glared back at him.
    God damn son of a bitch. She knew a bully when she met one. Her father had been one, too. She was going to kick Sorvar’s ass for not warning her what kind of male his father was.
    “ You are the one who has done this to my son. You have made him weak, and that fool Crasgich broke the truce because of you!” His hot fetid breath washed across her face, choking her with its heat and stench.
    She gripped his huge wrist in her hands. “Sorvar is not weak, and if you think he is, then you are a fool,” she gasped.
    He shook her like a rag doll, sending spikes of pain through her neck and down her spine.
    “If my son dies because of you, I will tear you to shreds myself and send the pieces back to your precious planet to prove to them that they are too weak and pathetic to be of any use to the people of Morgath.”
    He squeezed his hand, and Tina gasped and struggled. One day she would take him down a notch and prove to him she wasn’t weak, that humans weren’t weak. The only way to deal with a bully was to stand up to them. Another hiss blew his putrid breath into her face. Then he dropped her to the ground like a sack of potatoes. She landed with a jarring thud, her legs collapsing underneath her.
    “Pathetic,” he growled before turning away. “Kartoc, Derkah, put her in the dungeon. She can enjoy Tardic’s hospitality while I wait to see if my son will survive.”
     
    Tina’s heart seized in a painful clench only to resume at a frantic pace. Oh, hell no! She hadn’t broken any laws. She wasn’t some child deserving punishment.
    She stared at the back of Sorvar’s father. Over her dead freaking body would he put her in a dungeon. She pushed herself up off the rough ground, climbing to her feet. Two males walked