I should have been terrified, screamed for help, except my body was alive and on fire around him.
“I’m special, I get it. The Khonsu aliens want me so they can continue draining me for themselves, rather than you and your friends doing it, right?” I held my chin high, trying to show him I wouldn’t be pushed around, finding confidence I never knew I had.
He braced a hand on the wall over my shoulder, his body pinning me in place, not saying a word but staring at me.
Something about their presence affected me when I stood too close to them. I loathed that their dominance and controlling ways turned me on when it never should.
“I...is t...that all I am to you,” I asked, lowering my voice, remembering the times I’d spent with him and enjoyed, believing he cared for me… truly cared. But I’d been mistaken. “Someone to please you?”
He leaned down and his lips brushed the skin beneath my earlobe. Soft and tender, the opposite of the way he held me in place. “I’ll never hurt you.”
His words left me shaking, a moan pushing on the back of my throat, and all I could focus on was his body against mine, the swell of his chest, the inferno raging inside me.
“You need to trust me,” he murmured and leaned closer, his lips grazing mine. His mouth pressed harder against mine, kissing me with a fever I never imagined. A light pinch pierced my lower lip, and I pulled back.
“Ouch.”
Corran was licking the drop of red blood… the blood he’d drawn from my lips.
His kiss had been electric, and I almost believed him… almost fell for his hypnotizing words… almost let myself feel something other than fear. But he wanted me to lower my defenses.
When darkness curled behind his eyes, alarm bells blared in my head. I pulled away from him, jerking free from his grasp, and recoiled.
He turned on me so fast, I didn’t see him take the syringe from his pocket until it was too late.
A firm hand caught my wrist in a flash, and I was wrenched toward him. I dug my heels as I twisted to pull away. Intensity rippled over my flesh, and I screamed, struggling against him...but it was useless. I shot a leg out to strike him but missed him.
“Corran, please don’t do this. Please,” I cried, fighting to wrench my arm from his grip, but I might as well have been trying to break free from a mountain.
My heart was pounding and dread was closing in. “Don’t do this. I don’t want to be a baby incubator. Please.” My voice quivered, and I drove my fist into his chest, over and over. Hitting with all my might.
“Ella, please trust me. I don’t want to hurt you,” he kept saying those damn words but I couldn’t think of anything else but escape, my eyes gliding up to the syringe in his left hand.
My breaths grew ragged and rash, and I kicked him again, this time in the shin. His grip softened, and I ripped free before running to the wall where the doors had been earlier.
A cry fell from my lips, and my hands searched for the door, hitting the wall for an escape.
Come on, come on, damn you.
A sudden gush of pain pierced the side of my neck and agony shuddered through me. It hit me so fast, I didn’t remember falling back or landing in Corran’s arms.
“W-what d-did y-you do?” I whimpered.
Heaviness darkened his eyes… but I saw something else behind his gaze… sorrow. “I’m sorry, little bird. We can’t lose you.”
Shadows crowded the corners of my eyes, and the next thing I knew, I was falling into an endless pit of darkness, my world vanishing.