AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The sensation of dying was one I wished on no one.
Each time felt as real as the last.
A dozen knives might have been stabbing me from the dull pain I still felt.
Glancing over, I met Talan’s wide-eyed gaze, his typically calm demeanor shattered.
“You…” he stammered, searching for words. “You sacrificed yourself… for me.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “It’s only logical,” I began, voice still raspy. “I mean, here I can… afford to die. You can’t.”
For a moment, we simply stared at one another, the weight of my sacrifice hanging between us. “That doesn’t make the pain any less real, or the terror any less haunting,” he said, pain evident in his voice.
I hadn’t considered how witnessing my death might affect him.
“I wantyouto Claim me,” I admitted, my voice a mere whisper.
The implications of that statement were loaded, given the nature of the game.
Heat rushed to my cheeks.
I could scarcely believe what I’d just confessed. “I mean… I mean, I want you towin.Not for you to… to… uh…”
But the intensity of his gaze never wavered. “Riley,” he began, his tone soft, caressing, “I wish to win you too,more than anything.”
We shared a charged moment, emotions running high, each of us lost in the other’s gaze.
But our little bubble of shared intimacy was disrupted when I chanced to glance past him.
I gasped.
Two of the alien male pods contained grotesque, bloody remains.
It was a stark reminder of the stakes in this game.
Talan followed my gaze and grimaced. “Our victims,” he murmured, the victory tainted by the means.
We weren’t the only ones who noticed.
The two remaining alien males in adjacent pods turned their heads slowly, their eyes darting between us, the slain, and back again.
A palpable sense of tension filled the pod room, heightened awareness of the roles each of us played.
We were a team, but they were solitary competitors, each striving to be the last creature standing.
A shared realization flashed between them.
Their approach so far had been aggressive and direct.
But now, with evidence of our capability so bloodily laid out before them, they were rethinking their strategy.
And as the pods started to hum, indicating the impending restart of the next round, one truth stood out clear in my mind:
They wouldn’t be so reckless in their pursuit from here on.
Their gazes met ours, eyes narrowing, the game’s dynamic irrevocably shifted.
Alliances might be made, tactics altered.
