Shadow’s eyes softened. “Every male at Homeland would give their lives to protect you. That’s the truth. You never have to share sex to be safe. You matter and are precious. Do you know this now?”

“I do.”

“Good.” He glanced away. “It was an honest mistake, Beauty. Don’t torment yourself anymore with the nightmares.” His hand dropped from her face to return to the small of her back where he rubbed.

She snuggled against him. He was warm and so strong that she really did feel safe being held by him. His heartbeat slowed. He had large hands but they were amazingly gentle and the soft petting of her lower back was welcome.

“Tell me about you,” she encouraged.

His rubbing paused. “I was raised at Mercile. They kept us chained inside rooms and experimented on us.”

“How were you freed?”

His body tensed. All his muscles seemed to harden against her before he blew out a breath and relaxed again. “I had been moved to a new place where they did other things to us. I don’t want to discuss it. It’s not a good story.”

“Do any of us have those in our past?”

His chuckle surprised her. “No.”

“Please tell me?”

Shadow held the small female secure in his arms. She was dainty and he was afraid he’d scare her by moving too fast. Her skin had been chilled when she’d first rested her cheek against him but she warmed quickly. He was glad for that despite it being torture to hold her so close when he had to trap his hard dick between his thighs to hide it.

“Mercile employees had learned that other facilities had been breached by law enforcement. They were being hunted and they managed to drug and move some of us to a new location. They were desperate for money and we were the only means they had of making enough of it to attempt to flee the country and avoid prosecution.” He paused, not wanting to tell her the rest.

“How did they do that? Were they offering to ransom you to the NSO?”

“No.” He managed to hold back the anger he still felt. “It seems there are a bunch of rich humans who would love to own a Species baby.” The idea enraged and sickened him that some infant might be treated as if it were a pet. “It isn’t a good story.”

Her hand on his chest moved, stroked him gently, and he hated the way his dick throbbed. She didn’t have Species hands. Her palms and fingertips were more human than Species, their texture soft. Beauty had been through a lot and the fact that she trusted him enough to sit on his lap left him in awe of her courage.

“Please tell me? I shared with you.”

She had. The thought of what had been done to her seemed to lessen his own trauma. She was so small that she wouldn’t have stood a chance at defending herself. At least the bigger females were strong and had lashed out at their captors whenever possible. He was relieved she hadn’t been molested as a child but it made him angry that she’d been harmed at all.

“They gave me drugs.” He couldn’t refuse to tell her his story. “The breeding drugs.”

“What are those?”

She hadn’t come from Mercile. She’d been spared the testing, had been given away to an investor—a more personal, hellish experience in his mind. Gift Females had been cut off from all others of their kind and most of them had been murdered at the hands of their abusers.

“Mercile invented a drug that increased our sex drives to near insanity.” Shame filled him that he’d been used that way. “They did things to us to force out our semen to sell.”

“Why would they do that?”

“They wanted to freeze it and sell it to other humans who believed they could use female humans to carry our young inside their wombs. They planned to sell the infants.”

Beauty snuggled tighter against him. “I’m sorry. Were they able to do it? Do you have young out there?”

“The doctors don’t think it worked. I desperately want to believe that is true. I have nightmares about helpless infants in the hands of those monsters. My offspring.” His voice deepened but he tried to refrain from snarling. “I would track them down and save them if it was the last thing I did, even knowing I’d die.”

She continued to stroke his chest and he appreciated the comfort she tried to give. “The doctors are smart. I’m sure they wouldn’t say that unless they believed it. I know Dr. Trisha and Dr. Alli well and they wouldn’t lie to us.”

“I know. I trust them too. Our sperm dies quickly and they said it wouldn’t have survived the freezing process they used to ship it to another country. That’s where the buyers were located.”

“You should stop worrying about that then.”

He hated to do it but he shifted a little. His ass was starting to hurt from sitting too long in one spot on the hard wood under him. Beauty didn’t seem to mind or even notice since she didn’t protest in any way.

“The storm is passing. I should radio for help.”

“It’s still raining.” She pulled away from him enough to stare into his eyes. He loved hers. They were such a soft brown and so sweet that it amazed him that she could trust anyone after what had been done to her. “Stay with me. Please?”

He didn’t want to leave her either. “I’ll stay for a little while longer but then I must call in for a female officer. You need to be returned to the women’s dorm.”

She smiled. “Isn’t that funny?”

“What?”

“That we call it that. Do you know what has been difficult for me to learn since I came here?”

“What?” He was curious and liked it when she appeared amused.

“I was raised around all humans and they never used the terms female or male. I’ve had to try to learn to use those words. And there is the whole ‘human’ thing. They were just people to me. Why isn’t it females’ dorm instead of women’s dorm?”

He couldn’t help but smile back. “I’m unsure. I think that’s just what the building was named when we were brought here and it stuck.”

“Why are Species called female or male instead of women or men?”

“Mercile referred to us solely as that. They were men and we were less. Just males.”

He hated to see her humor fade as sadness invaded her gaze. “Oh. I know about being thought of as less.” Her chin lifted. “The guards gave me mean names.”

He didn’t even want to know what she’d been called. It would piss him off. “I like the name you took.”

“The rescue team chose this one for me and I kept it.”

“It is very fitting.”

She smiled again. “You think I’m attractive?”

Beauty took his breath away and trapped it inside his chest until he forced his lungs to work again. “Yes.”

“Good. I think you’re attractive too.” Her hand left his chest and timidly rose to his hair, her fingertips brushing the ends of it. “Why is it so short?”

“I worked with the task force of humans who work for the NSO. I just returned to Homeland days ago. I lived in the basement at the unit’s headquarters. We cut our hair to fit in with the others.”

“I hate basements.” Her hand lowered to curve around the top of his shoulder and made him very aware of her light touch. “Did you have windows?”

“No.”

“I didn’t either,” she admitted. “I remember the times I was taken out into the sunshine.” Her eyes closed as if she clung to the memory so she could picture it vividly in her mind. Her expression validated his guess when she smiled. “It was so warm and bright. Those are some of my best memories of growing up.”

“I’m glad you had some good ones.”

Her eyes opened and she smiled. “There was a small courtyard with grass and a water fountain. Once a week I was allowed outside for an hour or two. Master didn’t like how pale my skin would become and he said I needed a little color.”

Shadow wanted to wrap his fingers around the human’s throat and choke the living shit out of the one who’d abused Beauty. She was grateful that someone had allowed her time out of her cell because they hadn’t liked the way she looked. It also explained why she would run outside during a storm. She had no idea how dangerous it could be.