Free Defender (New World Book 7) by C.L. Scholey Page A

the embankment on the grass had covered her in mud, her jeans and socks were sodden. The ache in her chest grew worse. The pain built, but she wondered if it was an anxiety attack. She really deserved one right now.
    “Hurts.” Her palm rubbed across her chest.
    “My shield detects an illness beginning inside you. There is pain, I sense it. Your temperature is rising. The cage would be too cold and cause more harm. It’s not my mission to harm, or be seen, or to capture, or to fucking give an anal rat’s ass. Damn. Stupid mission. Just when I thought I couldn’t hate Krish more.”
    Taz picked her up and strode to a cot. The cot dipped when he sat beside her. He ran a hand over his short spiked blond hair. His head tilted as though thinking. He took her hand in his and held tight. His hand was warm and grew moist in a way she found pleasant. He cocked his head. He nodded and said yes aloud several times as though answering unheard questions.
    Oh God, he’s insane. The voices in his head speak to him.
    “Close your eyes,” he said. Macey shook her head no. “I won’t leave you to wander. You need rest. I’m going to bite you, but my fangs will scare you. My fangs will give you enough drug to knock you out. This drug is different from the last, I can’t use a numbing agent, it will interfere with the end result and my fangs will be larger and pierce deeper. I sense your exhaustion. I need to make you sleep little female. When you wake you should feel better. Close your eyes, human female.”
    “No.”
    “Fine, be stubborn. Don’t die of fright, although it would serve you right for your disobedience.”
    Macey sucked in her breath when Taz’s top fangs grew past his lower lip. They were larger. Clear liquid dripped from each. He was in human form, wearing only tight grey pants, nothing else. Taz gripped her hair and tilted her neck to expose her throat. In the light he was scary as shit and she saw everything.
    Vampires do exist.
    “Don’t eat me,” she managed to gurgle.
    “ Gross, female.”
    Taz used his other hand to cover her eyes. Two sharp pricks pierced her flesh this time and before she could say ouch, Macey was unconscious.
    Taz wrinkled his nose as he sat up. The female was too emotional. Eat her? As if. Tonans weren’t a race of cannibals. What a disgusting image. If he needed to sedate her again, he wouldn’t warn her, he would just do it. Insubordinate little thing. Krish would have beat her for her willfulness. She was lucky he wasn’t here. Her skin was on fire with fear, confusion, and desperation. The emotion in her secretions was everywhere. Terror, sadness, loneliness. She was hot and cold. He gazed down on her limp form wondering what to do next. She was sodden. The clothing she wore was cold which might be adding to her distress. Taz didn’t like it much when he had been soaked in confining materials.
    Taz went to the replicator and demanded a heated blanket. Heated blankets drew away the cold and dried wetness. A soft fluffy large blanket appeared and Taz took it to her. Taz tucked the blanket around her. The blanket was chipped with sensors and molded to her, within seconds her hair was dry. It was the best he could do. He didn’t know how to take care of a human female. She was too fragile. And Taz was weary.
    The only times he had ever been weary on his planet was when Krish locked him away from sunlight as punishment. It happened often as a child and more often as a teen. He would emerge, crawling, half dead. It’s what they did to the Castian prisoners and still they kept their secrets. Not one broke. Then again, neither did Taz. The human females were weapons. They would be the fall of the Castians. This female would be his fall if he didn’t keep his distance. Her touch and scent were emotional toxins.
    He rose from the bed and dragged his weary body to the regenerator. The pull of his shield to return to the female was annoying and strange. Taz had no time for her. She