Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 46078 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46078 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
At that moment, the door opens and another larger Leonid guard walks in. He glances at me, does a double take, and stares.
“What is this?”
“It’s a human,” the first guard says.
“Female?”
“Yes.” The Leonid looks at me to confirm. “Female?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Take her to the stronghold. Leonidas likes to fuck strange things.”
This does not feel like the improvement in the situation I had hoped for, but I am headed for the stronghold in the company of the more junior guard, who does not seem to be entirely happy with the situation.
“You’d think he had enough females to mate with after his last wild raid,” he mutters to himself, barely acknowledging me at all. “Every female in the city is or has been pregnant to that fucking sick tyrant. Now we have to give up anything with a female hole to him? We’ll be mating our paws for years to come.”
Sounds to me like the males of the city are tired of the sexual tyranny of their great leader.
He takes me to the stronghold by walking me through the city, not even bothering to put cuffs or chains on me. I’m not really perceived as a threat. I’m just an inconvenience in his day.
I have to wonder why Azlan never told me much about this city. I have been woefully under-informed about almost everything in his life. I guess it’s because I was never really supposed to be part of it in his original plan. I was never supposed to see this planet, let alone this city.
The closer we get to the bastion of Leonidas, the more that cold and nervous feeling begins to take hold of me. I am dangerously close to losing my nerve, but all I have to do is physically get there. The machines should do their jobs on their own afterward, and then Azlan will come in his ship and save me and we’ll all live happily ever after. That’s what I tell myself, anyway. It’s what I have to tell myself, because every step toward the lower gates to which I am being ushered toward makes me feel smaller and smaller and less and less likely to be able to do anything.
I start to consider how Kain has hung me out to dry, how if the bag was taken from me, and if they found me out, there’s nobody to back me up.
I am in full sweat regret as the guard delivers me through this astonishing city in a walk that takes us through several districts of various characters and purposes. There is a merchant level, where Leonids of all ages and sexes mill about. This is the first time I have seen female Leonids, and they are very beautiful, lithe creatures with an easy grace. They are powerful too, with long claws elegantly painted in shimmering colors, and gowns of fine fabric that dip low enough to reveal the cleavage of their first set of mammaries.
“Want to sell that?”
A trader leans out of his booth as we go by, eyeing me with some interest.
“She’s going to Leonidas.”
“I’ll buy what’s left when he’s finished with her,” the merchant says.
“I’ll let you know if there are any scraps,” the guard replies, pulling me on.
I could run. I could run and I could hide and I could try to sneak out of the city. That would be smart. But my mission is to get the fucking bag into the fucking stronghold, and I am going to do just that.
Before I know it, before I even want to know it, we are passing down a series of paths that dip below the bastion of Leonidas. Cold shadows fall over me, wrapping me in clammy embrace.
We are met at a barred gate by a very large Leonid guard with a stunning golden mane and eyes. He is on another level of guard, an alpha guard.
“Delivering fresh meat for Leonidas,” my gate guard says.
“Kitchen is around the back,” the alpha guard says.
“She’s not meat. Well, not that kind of meat.”
The alpha guard looks me up and down. “Leonidas does not want that thing.”
“Have you asked him? The commander told me to bring her here.”
“Throw her out of the city. She’s some kind of abomination,” the alpha guard replies.
Fuck me. I am so close to achieving my goal. I wonder if I am close enough yet. I feel like I would know if I was. If the machines in the bag had activated, surely alarms would be going off and guards would be mobilizing.
“She’s a human. She’s fuckable. Let Leonidas decide.”
“I’ll run it up the chain, but don’t leave her here. I’m not dealing with gate trash.”
My guard bristles but doesn’t reply.
The alpha guard rips the bag out of my hands and tears it open. I brace myself for death, knowing that once he sees what I have in there, he is going to know that I am no mere human cookie seller. He is going to see the machinery and know that I am part of a plot to bring down the great and evil Leonidas.