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)
“Excuse me?” I poke my head back in the doors, only to be greeted by a frown. I don’t think we’re supposed to go back. I think we’re supposed to keep going.
“Yes?”
“What do I do now?”
Her smile brightens. “Anything you like. The shuttle is almost here. Bye bye.”
The shuttle comes, picks me up, and goes to a seedy little station on the outskirts of the sector. It’s good, because accommodation is cheap there. With the money I’ve been given, I could live here for months. That’s the theory. In practice, I’m robbed on my second night there and I get kicked out of the dive I was paying to stay in.
The third night, a male alien approaches me while I am sitting outside the building, trying to decide whether I will be able to survive the elements. The station gets very, very cold at night. I’m going to have to creep into the interior of something, or I’ll almost certainly freeze.
“How much?”
“How much for what?”
“How much for that mouth?”
I am confused for a moment, then the lechery in his voice filters through my dense mind. He wants to pay me for my body, and that is lucky, because my body is quite literally all I have left.
Wrath
“She was sucking dick on a shuttle stopover when Sullivan found her,” Raine says, apparently unaware that I will quite happily snap her neck.
Raine is explaining a great deal, but I am going to need for her to stop saying it in front of Allie. I can see the effect it is having on my mate, the way her face is crumpling, her eyes taking on a tearful hollow expression.
“That’s why we kept her in the closet. That’s where you keep keep the machines and tools. We tried to use her for what she was made to do, but every time we put a weapon in her hands, she’d freak out. They must have broken her head good before they released her. She’s no use to anybody.”
“Shut your mouth,” I snarl. Raine was one of the captains, but as far as I can tell the ship has had a total carousel of captains. Everybody gets a turn.
She ignores me, because she is made that way, and arrogant enough to think I will not do terrible things to her if she does not listen.
“It’s why Lettie used her as bait. She’s not a person. She’s nothing more than a…”
“Finish that sentence, and you will regret it. Avel being your mate will mean nothing. If you further hurt my mate’s feelings, you will suffer.”
“You don’t get it. She doesn’t have feelings. She looks like a person, but she’s not. Her brain’s been tampered with. Probably why you like her.”
I pick Raine up. She is taller than my mate, but she is not nearly big enough to resist me. I throw her out of the room, quite literally sending her flying into the hall with no concern for how she might land. I shut the door behind her, assuming she will run crying to her saurian mate. I never imagined I would ever feel sorry for Avel, sadistic executioner that he is, but I cannot imagine what it must be like to have to tolerate that creature.
When I turn back to Allie, she is looking at me with wide eyes.
“Oh my god. I can’t believe you just did that. She was like a rag doll,” she laughs, stunned.
“Did you put hands on my mate!?” Avel comes storming in, furious, Thorn close behind him.
“If you were listening, you know why. I need a private space for my mate and me. Recent revelations need to be processed. Your mates seem to think that mine is a target for bullying. They are wrong. And your mate, Avel, is fortunate to have merely been expelled from this space.”
Thorn steps between us. “I think some separate spaces are a good idea,” he says. “Why don’t you go through that door,” he says, indicating one of the doors on the west wall. “It’s a private bedroom. We can all calm down and think about what we are going to say to one another. And perhaps, anybody who makes matters worse, rather than better, can be handled.”
His tone is reproachful of Avel, not me. I can easily imagine Raine having caused issues before now. I bet Thorn is ready to see that wench whipped until she cries. I would certainly appreciate the sight.
Allie
I get swept up and away into a nice private suite with Wrath, rescued from a horror of a social situation. To say I am grateful is an understatement.
Aside from the day Sullivan pulled me aboard the ship, I have never had anybody defend me this way before. Wrath does not tolerate any cruelty toward me, under any circumstances.
I feel warmth of a kind that settles in my belly and then spreads outward, outward all the way to my fingertips. His words make me feel enveloped in a protective layer I’ve never had before, and his actions… they make me want to get on my knees for him.