Chapter 7
I'd smacked the brain right out of this guy.
When I announced I was ready to torture him for information, I expected him to try to escape, curse me out, or at the very least mean mug me. But my captive was grinning like he'd won the lottery, sitting on the hard pavement with his legs sprawled out in front of him, and waiting to get zapped.
Asking me to zap him.
Just the sound of the cattle prod crackling made my hair stand on end, there was no way I'd ever volunteer to feel its bite.
If he got off on pain, I would seriously need to rethink my bag of makeshift torture implements. The upside of the cattle prod was the reach it gave me. I really didn't want to get close enough to use a knife, and I couldn't exactly water-board him, either.
I must have captured a masochist because he looked downright excited for me to attack him.
A little off balance, I took a cautious step toward him, half expecting him to lunge for me.
He didn't, he didn't even move, just held his bound hands in front of himself and gave me a slow, blatantly sexual once over.
I felt his gaze like a physical touch and goosebumps erupted across my body.
Determined not to let him throw me off, I decided to start my interrogation slowly. Get him to answer questions he had no reason to lie about. I didn't have any experience torturing people for information but I didn't want him to clam up on me.
Pointing my cattle prod at his face, I was disappointed when he didn't even look at it.
"What's your name?"
He answered without hesitation. "Dargo. What's yours?"
Should I not answer that? I couldn't think of a good reason not to, and I wanted to keep him talking.
"I'm Taz." It was a stupid name, but I figured an alien wouldn't care.
"Taz." My name rolled off his tongue almost sensually. "You are an impressive female."
I frowned at him and I swore he flexed in response. Wow, that was a lot of rippling muscle.
"Thanks." This was not going how I expected. "Why are you here?'
He shrugged. "I was hunting you."
Well, at least he wasn't lying yet.
"Why?"
"I wanted to take you to our camp. It isn't safe for females to be alone."
Oh how nice, the friendly alien invader wanted to keep me safe.
"Did your friend take Penny to your camp?" It had taken hours to set my trap, and for every minute I'd had to wait, my mind had been spinning a million possible fates for Penny. None of them ended well, and I was done waiting to save her.
"Penny?" He cocked his head to the side. "The curly-haired female?"
"Yes, that's Penny." I wondered if I should ask about Hope, but if she'd somehow escaped notice, I didn't want to tell him there were more women running around unarmed.
"Adak claimed her, she's safe." He sounded unconcerned and my heart sank.
"Claimed?" That sounded a lot like owned to me, and it definitely didn't sound like he'd grabbed her to do his laundry.
Dargo's smile turned smug.
"Are you looking for a mate, too, Firebrand? I might be able to help you with that."
I stabbed my prod in his direction and tried not to picture what he was implying.
"No mating," I snarled, struggling to get back into my badass interrogation character. It'd be a lot easier to stay mean if he wasn't smiling so damn much. And giving me extremely effective bedroom eyes. He'd been hot when he was unconscious, awake he was fucking lethal.
I needed to remember that he was actually lethal. In the ‘smash alien monsters into raw burger with an ax’ kind of way.
"Yet," he said, pulling me back to our conversation.
"What?" I really needed to get my head in the game, but Dargo's cheerful attitude was throwing me off. Where were the threats? The attempts to intimidate me?
"No mating, yet," he repeated.
"No mating ever," I growled, wondering how my plan to torture him had devolved into me dodging offers of sex.
"Not even if I lick your cunt?"
I was going to have a heart attack. How had he said that with a straight face?
"No." I sounded like I was strangling, and I debated zapping him just to piss him off and get his mind out of my pants. "Definitely not even then."
Dargo shrugged, managing to look relaxed and in control sitting on his ass with his hands tied.
"Did you have more questions? Or are you going to get to the good part now?"
I was afraid of what 'the good part' was and then decided there was no way I was asking him.
"I need you to take me to your camp."
He lifted his hands.
"Untie me and I'll lead you there."
"Uh, no. You are getting into the back of this truck and telling me where to go and I'll drive us there. Those straps aren't going anywhere."
He let out a long suffering sigh and pushed himself to his feet, er, hooves. When he straightened to his full height, the slack in the straps pulled tight and my eyes bugged out when he was towering over me.
Holy fuck, he was huge, I was eye level with his nipples and I had pretty good heels on my boots.
"Well?" He crooked a brow in my direction and I ordered my traitorous ginger complexion not to turn bright red. I was not checking him out and he had not noticed.
"Well, what?" I croaked, stumbling back when he took a step toward me.
Dargo leaned down and waved his bound hands in front of my face.
"You wanted directions to the camp? Or did you change your mind about being licked?"
"Nope." I cleared my throat and pointed at the truck. "Get in and tell me where to go."
No way it was this easy, he had to be planning something. But to my surprise, Dargo stepped up into the truck bed and sat down without complaint. He was so big the truck sagged under his weight, and his hooves hung out over the edge of the bed.
He gave me one more cheerful grin and pointed toward the edge of town.
"That's the way. If we leave now, we might get there before dark, and then we can revisit the mating or the licking." He looked thoughtful. "I'd also be interested in you licking me, but I can wait if you'd like."
"Stop saying licking!" I strode to the cab of the truck and leveled a glare his way before I hopped in. "I don't want to hear one more mention of mating or I swear I'll drag you behind me the whole way there."
He smiled and leaned back against the back window.
"I like you, Firebrand."