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)
Black-eyed and dusty, Shan emerges from beneath shattered panels. The baby is in his arms, waving its own limbs and making exhortations of various incoherent kinds.
I am struck by how adorable it is. The existence of this baby is proof of concept. Humans and saurians can mate, and produce round faced, sweet little children with cute scales.
My plan, at one stage, was to breed all the humans and create a new sub-species that would undermine the machinations of our society. Anything disruptive has to be good, or so I thought at the time. Now I am beginning to question the wisdom of my actions - and not because the baby isn’t perfect, but because I am starting to believe that humans are absolutely uncontrollable. It is madness to imagine that their offspring would be any easier to handle. The baby already looks like trouble, if I am to be honest.
“Shan!”
Lettie, who has indeed regained consciousness, unfortunately for us all, runs to Shan. She throws her arms around him and the baby, apparently forgetting she was the one who locked him away, and she was the one who crashed the ship and damn near killed her entire bloodline in the process.
He wraps his free arm around her and pulls her up against his body, kissing her with surprising forgiveness. It is concerning, the way saurian males seem to be so willing to tolerate the madness of their human women. I hope I am never such a pushover - and I hope Allie never behaves so recklessly.
“You do realize she is the reason we are in this situation,” I growl. “That human woman is a criminal, a murderess, and she just finished nearly killing us all. Sweet kisses aren’t what she deserves. A public whipping would be more appropriate.”
The little family regards me with various levels of interest or lack thereof. The baby stuffs its fist into its mouth, while its mother makes a much ruder gesture at me.
“Lettie is the mother of my child,” Shan says, his dark eyes giving nothing away. I know for a fact he is not typically capable of loyalty, but perhaps he has bonded with the insane human in a way he never did to anybody else.
“What’s the matter, Wrath?’ Lettie taunts me. “Don’t like finding yourself abandoned in the middle of nowhere? Well too bad!Now you’re stuck here with us. They’re not going to find us.”
Lettie laughs at me, pulling away from Shan so she can better put her entire body into giving me attitude. “How do you like that? A taste of your own medicine? You stranded me once, and now you’re stranded too. Ha!”
The woman’s smugness crosses deep into unhinged territory. I know she is not well, but there is something about what a terrible person she is being that makes me not care very much about that.
She has, however, forgotten that I am not the only wrongdoer here. And she has forgotten she is not the only human woman with a temper and a capacity for violence.
Allie comes flying through the air, almost as efficiently as if she had wings, and tackles Lettie into the wreckage. Bits of hull bend and warp beneath their bodies as Allie grips Lettie by the lapels of her suit and slams her down against the ship’s exterior.
“You sent me down to the planet in a fucking g-string to be fucked whether I wanted it or not,” she yells. “You’re a psycho, and you’ve crashed the Mare. You’ve taken our chances of escape and ruined them. You’ve made it so we’ll never be able to be free ever again. I hate you!”
“Get the hell off me, you psychotic!”
Lettie’s argument is not as strong as Allie’s, that much is certain.
Shan hands the baby to the blonde women and wades into the fray to retrieve his mate. I do the same, though truth be told I would happily let Allie beat Lettie for as long as she liked.
For a brief moment, he and I are eye to eye. He is a traitor, and he knows it. His wife is a madwoman, and we all know it.
“This baby seems chill,” one of the women says, bouncing it on her hip.
The baby may indeed be chill for now, but with parents like these, I doubt the creature has much hope at all. I hoist my mate up under my arm, carrying her like a sack of any vegetable you might care to name.
“There is no point in fighting. We need to set up shelter,” I say as Allie glowers at Lettie, who is now hiding behind Shan. “We are exposed. We need to take what we can from the ship, and make shelter as nearby as possible. It’s likely search parties will come.”
“They’re not coming! We’re hundreds of thousands of miles away! We probably did a half-orbit of the planet before we crashed! Besides, why do you think they’re going to come for us? Us crashing and never coming back solves all their problems,” Lettie snarks at me from behind Shan’s shoulder. “It leaves Grave City to Thorn, it means all the humans there will remain forever under control, and it gets rid of all the troublemakers, including our half-bred baby. Why would they rescue any of us?”