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I woke lying on a somewhat soft bunk. Soft being a relative term. But anything was softer than the floor of my prison. A light scrap of material covered me.

Khal sat on the foot of the bed, studying me as if I was a teromotan laid out on a slide for inspection. His intensity made me squirm, though I’d done nothing wrong.

Not too wrong, anyway.

“You didn’t do it?” I croaked out. Damn, what had they done to my throat? Hauled me back down the hall with a rope wrapped around it?

He lifted his eyebrows, then winced.

I wasn’t the only one who’d been beaten, then. From Khal’s face, he’d received a fresh round recently. Hopefully not in defense of me. I wasn’t sure why I thought it could be in my defense, though. No one defended me any longer, except myself.

“Do what?” he asked.

“I’m dressed, so I’d say you didn’t fuck me. Impregnate me. Get it over with. Well, unless you’re the gentlemanly type who re-dresses a woman after fucking her, that is.” Not that I wore much. Between them dragging me around and me cutting off pieces of my shirt to tend wounds, I’d end up naked soon.

“If I…fucked you, you’d know it.”

“Guess so.” My voice came out defeated, which was a dangerous way to sound. I sat up, grimacing at the sting to my back. Laser fire. Muted to stun, not kill. I’d have a nasty, bubbly burn that would need tending soon, or it would fester.

My wind eked out; I was unable to suppress it. I’d never been someone others called pretty, but with all my cuts and bruises and fractures, my marketability was dropping fast.

Just shifting this much released my stinky pit smell into the room. I shouldn’t care about what I looked like. Stunk like.

But no wonder Khal hadn’t fucked me.

“I wouldn’t do it to you unless you wanted it,” he said. “And, by the time we did, you’d want it.”

Rolling my eyes, I propped my shoulder against the wall. It still hurt from where they’d dislocated it four weeks ago. My primary source of pain until they arm today. I’d had to slam my shoulder against the floor to put it back in place. But leaning on it right now beat falling backward, which my body was inclined to do. “Think highly of yourself, do you?”

Something I could possibly read as awareness flared through his golden eyes. It lit an answering spark inside me.

Which I suppressed.

I would not let myself have feelings for this shifter-man.

It might not be so bad to lie with him, though, if that spark was anything to go by. Assuming I got a say in who I lay with.

Hadn’t happened so far in this lifetime.

“They agreed to our terms,” he said, rubbing his fingers through his amber streaked, dark brown hair. I imagined it was glossy and beautiful when he’d cleaned it. The kind of hair a girl would take pleasure running her fingers through.

Not this girl.

“Our terms?” I asked.

“No cameras. Covering over the door. No fucking a cat. And…”

“And?”

“The first time will be within the next three days.”

“Isn’t that lovely.”

“Got to warn you about something, though.” His gaze was pinned on the closed door, without a single stray in my direction. His eyes did dart down to his lap, however.

“Problems getting it up?” I asked. Wouldn’t that be the biggest joke? Here I was, sort of willing to spread my legs, and the guy they’d selected was a dud.

He snorted.

“Then it cooperates when you ask it to?” I couldn’t stop my snicker from slipping out, which totally surprised me, because I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed. There had been next to nothing in my life worth smiling about in years. Being on the run and trying to avoid a war did that to a person. It stripped all the joy from my life. “You got size issues, then?” I wasn’t sure where my spunk was coming from. Or why I was directing it at Khal. He must bring out something I’d kept hidden for far too long. “If that’s the problem, it won’t offend me.”

“Damn, you’re cocky,” he said, shaking his head. Shifting back on the bed, he turned to face me, stretching his leg up to straighten it beside my thigh.

“Cockiness bother you?”

He chuckled. “Not a bit. But my…size is not the issue.”

“Then…?”

“They’re drugging my food.”

I gave a curt nod. Nothing new there, for both of us. They enjoyed keeping me in line.

“While the random sedative can be shaken off,” Khal added. “I don’t think they’ve been putting moodar in my food so far.”

No need for an aphrodisiac when a person’s alone. But lock up a woman with a virile cat shifter and it’s a whole new story.

They’d want to make sure I cooperated.

I lifted my chin and tucked my broken arm closer to my belly, holding back my wince. “I won’t eat.”

His heavy gaze ran down my face. My chest. Stopped where the light cloth pooled at my waist. I resisted the urge to yank it up over my head to hide, because I had no reason to concern myself with what he thought about me. “You’re skin and bones already.”

Way to make a girl feel good.

He huffed at the sour expression I knew was filling my face. “Look. You don’t need to worry about me. I won’t…”

“Force me?”

“Nope.”

“What about the friend they’re using to blackmail you into this?” I’d heard a snarl. I didn’t know much about him, except, he must be…shifter. I was unsure how I knew that fact, but I was certain.

“He wouldn’t want me to do anything like this.”

I shoved my chopped hair off my face. Long ago, in another life, my hair had hung down my waist. It had been shiny. Pretty. Something to be admired. But I’d hacked it off with the same piece of slate I’d used on Hartlin’s face. Then he could no longer snarl his fingers through my hair and drag me across the floor. Like he’d done when they’d wanted me in the lab, and I’d resisted. “Not even to save your own life?”

“Not even then.”

“You might be more noble than he is.”

Khal shrugged, the movement making his breath cut short.

What a pair we were. The walking wounded. Utter wrecks. And they expected us to breed?

“Hold out your arm,” he said, extending his hand.

I did as he asked. What had given me away?

“Your wince,” he said, and I had to wonder how he’d guessed what I was thinking. “And the fact that it’s bending in the wrong direction again.” Staring down at where he’d laid it on the bed, he grumbled. “You messed up my handiwork.”

“Sorry. Had to jump Hartlin.”

“S’okay.” His eyes met mine. “I totally get it. But this baby’s gonna hurt when I realign it.”

“Just do it.” I gnawed on my lower lip. “Fast.”

A quick jerk and a snap sent me to the eighth circle of hell. Tiny stars danced around the room, and waves of nausea threatened to make me upchuck the water I drank hours ago. I pinned my lips together to hold back my scream. Only a whimper slipped out.

“Sorry I hurt you.” With a scrap of material he’d sliced off the end of his bedding, he bound my arm in position, then looped the cloth around my neck to make a rough sling.

I borrowed his words. “S’okay.”

He nodded.

After I could breathe again, I slumped back against the wall. “When we going to do it, then?”

“Let’s hold out for as long as we can.”

“While they drug us.”

“It’s that or we commit suicide.”

“Rather try to get out of here on any given day.”

“Me, too.”

“A baby could be worth it,” I said softly, pressing my uninjured palm against my concave belly. To think they hoped to fill me with child. Or have Khal fill me with child. Semantics mattered.

At any time in the past, my family would’ve rejoiced.

Now, would they mourn?

Probably already were mourning.

Khal snorted and leaned back against the wall, tucking his knees up and wrapping his arms around them. “Bonding over the little prodigy already?”

“It’s part mine. But I’d be more inclined to bond with it if it wasn’t a product of rape.”

“Won’t be rape.”

I twisted my lips, holding back my smile. And he called me cocky? “Won’t be love, either.”

His gaze settled on where our feet touched. “Nope. Don’t think I can give you that.”

“Fair enough.” A twinge I shouldn’t be feeling shot through me, an echo of remembered pain. This wasn’t the place for romance with this cute shifter-man, and I didn’t have a heart to offer him, anyway. Best to keep this clinical. “I meant that a baby could buy us nine months to find a way out.”

He shrugged. “It’d buy us both a little time. But, once you’re knocked up, they’ll have no further use for me.” He squared his shoulders. “And that’s fine. I’ll have something figured out by then.”

Another twinge went through me. Distress that he might be killed after we’d had sex? I needed to suppress the odd softness I was feeling for Khal. In another situation…Well, it was silly to think of how I’d feel for him if we’d met outside this prison.

Right now, I couldn’t allow myself to care about anyone but me.

“It’s a deal, then?” I held out my hand for a shake. Silly, really, considering what we were proposing. Sex and a baby in exchange for more time to live to fight another day. But what choice did we have? If we didn’t cooperate, they’d force it.

Force me.

Fortunately, they hadn’t taken things that far already. It could break me if they did.

He hesitated before taking my hand in his. And, like before, he leaned over and kissed it, his lips soft and warm. Something sorely missing in this hellhole of a jail. “We’ll do it, but not until we absolutely have to.”

“Such charm.”

His sharp glance held me in place. “You’re not the only one being forced.”

Ah, so a Mrs. Shifter waited on Aaidar for his return? Something stabbed through me at the thought, which made no sense. “You married, then?”

He shrugged and dropped my hand.

I tilted my head, trying to read his inscrutable face. “Girlfriend, then?”

“No. You?”

“Yes. No.”

“Yes, to married and no, to the boyfriend?”

“No to both. Not any longer.”

“Hopefully a mutual agreement?”

Why did that crack in his voice make it sound like he cared if I was with anyone else? It wasn’t as if a husband or boyfriend’s concern mattered in our situation. We’d bang, produce, and hopefully leave the Regime behind.

Not that I’d leave my child.

“If you call his assassination a mutual agreement,” I said.

“I’m sorry.”

I nodded, my lips held in a straight line. “I mean, it’s never good when someone is murdered, but he was a real asshole.” Could’ve been Hartlin’s clone.

“I see.”

I sighed. “I don’t imagine you really do. But hells, we’re sort of dating now, right?” If this conversation could be considered dating. I did appreciate the effort he made to get to know me before he climbed on and fucked me. “In anticipation of a little fun in the sack?”

His growl slipped out. “I’d be sick to enjoy this.”

“I don’t need to enjoy it, but I assume you’d have to at least be partly engaged.”

“Let me worry about that part.”

Maybe not so puny after all. His virility, that was. I should not be intrigued by how virile he could be in a sex situation. As he’d said, this was a means to an end. Not a love match.

“Why don’t you sleep?” he said, waving toward the bunk. “Give that arm a chance to start healing.” Standing, he shuffled toward the door, then paced around. “I’ll watch over you.”

What a novel idea.

At this point, I had no choice but to trust him. He’d been given ample opportunity to do whatever he wanted with me but had chosen to wait. To give me the chance to acclimate to the idea or maybe to find a way out of this. Hard to tell why, but it was a courtesy nonetheless.

I lowered myself down onto my side, facing away from him. I pulled the blanket up over my shoulder and settled my arm carefully beside me. It felt better already, which must be because Khal had set it in the right position.

They’d hurt me, far too many times.

Unwelcome tears filled my eyes. Where had they come from? I’d thought that well long since dried out. But here they were again, my sole sign of weakness.

Or strength. A woman could take strength in being able to feel emotion.

I’d sure had my share of emotion lately.

I closed my eyes and snuggled underneath the thin blanket.

Sleep took me…

In my dream, I soared over the desert, my broad wings sweeping grandly, taking me far from everything that could cause me pain.

A series of thuds drew my eye, and I let myself drift down toward the cat pounding across the sand below me.

Sunbeams hit his muscled body, glistening on his spotted hide. His long legs ate up the clicks, easily keeping pace with my flight. The dark stripes on his face gave the impression he cried.

But no. He did not cry.

That would be me.

I tipped my head back and roared. The cheetah’s snarl echoed my call.

Back arched, I reached for the sky. If only I could climb high, where no one could touch me.

With a start, I woke.

I lay on my back.

With a fully naked Khal lying on top of me. Pinning me down. Making it impossible to breathe.

His bone-ripping erection pressed between my bare thighs.