Her knees seemed to turn to liquid and she slid down to the cold, unforgiving floor, on her butt. She drew her knees up in a protective manner and wrapped her arms around them tightly to hug her body. He moved with her to the edge of the cage. He growled again.

“Listen to me. Please? I know a lot about people like you. Do you know that a lot of them are free now? The testing facility they were imprisoned inside was raided by the government and they’re no longer locked up. They live outside, no bars, and no cages.” She sucked in air, knew she babbled, but was proud she could at least speak. She kept going. “They call themselves New Species. They are really free and if they knew where you were they would come to save you. Do you understand me?”

The man’s eyes narrowed more and he stopped growling. He did continue to glare at her. She hoped that he wouldn’t break through the glass and just kill her in the blink of an eye. Her talking seemed to have at least distracted him from battering through the glass.

“I live with one of your kind. He tells I belong to him all the time. It kind of annoyed me until he told me that he never owned anything, never was allowed to care about anything, because it was used against him. He named himself Valiant. He’s part lion. He has the most amazing golden eyes. He loves me and I love him. We live at New Species Reservation. It’s a large area of woods and open land. It’s where your kind live and work together to have better lives. It belongs to them and they are in charge there.”

The man growled at her, tensing. She saw his muscles bunch and he put his hands against the glass. He started to push. The glass groaned and she heard a cracking sound. He would break through. She only had about four feet between her and the barrier. She fought back tears.

“The first time I met Valiant he scared me. He growled the way you are right now. I’d never seen anything like him before. I thought he would kill me but he didn’t. I’d accidentally gone to the wrong place and ended up at his house. He terrified me but he was also the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. His eyes are amazing and he has this mane of reddish-colored hair with blond streaks running through it.” Her voice broke and she blinked back more tears. “He’s a little bigger than you are. Taller. That’s another reason he scared me. He picked me up, carried me into his house, and we started talking.”

The glass cracked more while the New Species continued to push on it. Tammy darted her focus away from his eyes to the barrier between them. Large jagged splinters in it had spread upward toward the top of the room and down to the floor. She didn’t have much more time before it gave way.

“Valiant told me I’m family to your kind now that I’m with him. They call each other that since none of them had parents or blood relatives. That means I’m family to you too. Valiant…” her voice broke from emotion and hot tears slid down her cheeks. “He loves me and he’s got to be terrified for me right now. He doesn’t know where I am. I was kidnapped from Reservation. He’ll be looking for me and he’ll never stop. Please don’t kill me.”

The man backed up to study the glass. Tammy stopped talking to watch him. She hugged her body harder, trying to appear as small as possible while she pushed back tighter into the corner. She knew he examined the glass, searching for the weakest parts. Her words didn’t seem to matter and nothing she’d said made him want to stop attacking the partition to hurt her.

He moved suddenly, backed up about five feet, his attention fixed on one section of damaged glass. She held her breath when he paused but gasped as he lunged forward. He twisted his massive body at the last second before he threw his entire weight against the partition and to her horror, it gave way. He came barreling through it and slammed into the bars only feet from where she huddled. The wall section where he’d broken through crashed to the floor, barely missing her.

Tammy whimpered and lifted her head as he straightened to his full height. He rolled his shoulder that had taken most of the impact from the glass and the bars. A few scratches marred his skin but the wall had broken in chunks, obviously some kind of safety glass. He turned toward her, glaring, and growled. He took a step toward her and another until only inches separated her body from his legs.

“Please,” she begged softly. “Don’t do this. I’m telling you the truth.”

He spread his thighs as he crouched, pinned her between them but didn’t touch her as he sniffed. Tammy stared into his dark, terrifying eyes, hoping he’d have a harder time killing her if he were looking into them. She saw emotion flicker in those dark depths. His hands reached for her, fisted her shirt between her br**sts, and yanked her hard from the floor when he quickly rose to his feet.

Tammy heard material tear when she was forced to stand. She whimpered again. He had her by her shirt and used it to slam her against the wall bars at her back. She stared up into his face and locked her knees together to keep from collapsing. She shook badly when he hunched down to get closer to her face with his own.

Black eyes narrowed into slits as he continued to sniff her. His mouth tightened into a grim, tight line when he stopped. A soft grumble came from his mouth, far too near her own. He pressed in closer until his hot skin touched her arms, which still hugged her waist, and his head lowered more. He smelled her hair, his nose brushed over it, and he bumped his chin against her cheek, pushing.

Tammy squeezed her eyes closed and turned her head away even though she could feel his warm breath fan across her neck as he continued to examine how she smelled. Please don’t tear out my throat with those sharp teeth. She couldn’t get the actual words out, too terrified to speak with his hands on her, and his body nearly crushed hers against the cold metal. His sharp teeth never touched her.