Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 56021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 280(@200wpm)___ 224(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 280(@200wpm)___ 224(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
“Not yet,” Wrath says. “We’re going to need to deal with Adaine.”
Not yet? What the hell does not yet mean?
Zin groans. “Adaine? What does she have to do with this?”
“She found the human first.”
“She has no use for a human.”
“That’s not the point. We’ve taken something she had. We don’t want a repeat of the Red Door incident. Go see her. Offer her something in trade. We are fighting a hard enough battle with Thorn. We do not need to start another front in this war.”
“Very well. I will see what I can do.”
Zin leaves, and I breathe a sigh of relief. I don’t want to be in his presence, and I definitely don’t want him to ‘have’ me.
“As for you,” Wrath says. “You are my possession now.”
“I don’t want to lay an egg,” I say quickly.
Wrath chuckles.
“Some of you have value as breeding stock. Others of you appear to make for good hostages. You, Allie, appear to be an amusement. Take those robes off.”
“I’d like to keep them on, please.”
“Take them off,” he says.
I narrow my eyes. It has been made apparent to me that these saurians do not often take no for an answer. I have not often given no as an answer either, but my patience is starting to wear thin. Even as a professional doormat, there is a limit.
“No.”
His brow shifts with surprise.
“No, human?”
“No, Allie,” I say. “I have had a very unpleasant time lately, and I would like it if that stopped.”
“If you want to have a nice time, do as you are told and take the robes off. They belong to Adaine, and she will want them returned.”
Fine. Sure. Why let me have dignity when you can offer some filthy scraps of fabric to the female everybody seems to be absolutely terrified of.
I take them off and throw them down on the floor, wrapping my arms around myself. He can’t take my arms off me, though he probably would if he could. I hate what I am wearing underneath. It is filthy and it is gross, and it was gross and filthy to begin with, but now it is even more so.
“Want my arms too? Want my legs?”
I start crying. I am too stressed, too sad, and too scared to hold it back anymore. I am not brave, and this day has forced me to be too brave.
There is a grunt from Wrath. I hear him approach, though I cannot see him properly because my eyes are full of water. I don’t often cry. I haven’t cried in years. I didn’t think I was capable of it anymore. But I have been able to hide away for years now. Ever since Captain Sullivan took me on board, I have been able to live in a relatively safe little bubble. Whenever there was fighting, I was tucked away, hidden while the crew fought for me in proxy, I suppose. I never felt unsafe before. I never felt exposed. Since Lettie dropped me on this world, I have felt nothing but unsafe.
He picks me up, and I feel his saurian skin against my all-too exposed flesh. He feels warm and rough at the same time. There is texture in every part of him. Compared to Wrath, I am very soft and very smooth. I feel like a little meatball.
“You are emotional,” he says. “There is no need for you to fear me.”
“Everybody fears you. The whole world fears you. Of course I should fear you!”
There’s a soft chuckle. “I am dangerous to my enemies. You are not my enemy. You will never be my enemy. You are something precious that has been found in my territory and surrendered to me because you are my due, and my possession. Do not worry. I take very good care of that which I own.”
His words probably shouldn’t be comforting, but they are. Not just his words either, but the feeling of being held in his arms. He is treating me like one might treat any scared little animal, and I am responding to it just as a frightened creature would.
“I am going to take every scrap of clothing off you, because you are filthy,” he says. “Your hair is caked in mud, presumably from the lake. You have scratches on your flesh that need to be treated. You are a mess, my human. I will clean you up.”
I risk looking up at him. “You’re not going to get someone else to do it because you have better things to do?”
“What better thing would I have to do than look after you?”
He truly is dangerous. I always thought it was his violent brutality that you had to watch out for. But Wrath’s true weapon is his charm. He just met me, and already he has discovered what I most need — what I crave. I want to be taken care of. I want to let him look after me.