Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 66904 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66904 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
“What did you call it?” Casey pokes a finger lightly into my baby’s tummy. That is a dangerous game. My daughter’s teeth are sharp and she could easily remove a tip of a digit if you weren’t careful.
“Oh. Uhm. Well. I call her Baby, mostly.”
“You called your baby, Baby?”
The door is closing behind us and the Mare is humming with the power it takes to achieve liftoff from land.
“She is a baby,” I say in my defense. “I’m just trying to get to know her before I name her. It’s not like it mattered when there were only three of us in the woods. You only need names when there’s so many people to refer to you have to be specific.”
“I guess so,” Casey says. “Well anyway. Nice to have you on board. Lizard guy…”
“His name is Shan.”
“Shan,” she says. “We’re going to need you to be cool. Excessively cool. You’re going to need to be the chillest dude any of us ever met, okay? If we get even a hint of the idea you’re going to try to capture us, or take us into sex slavery, or even fucking worse, be in charge of us, you’re going to have a really fucking bad day.”
“I don’t appreciate being threatened,” he growls.
Casey smiles a very polite, very attractive smile. “You’re not being threatened. You’re being warned. The Mare is a matriarchy. We don’t allow ourselves to be bossed around by men of any kind. You’re here as a guest, and you’re under our protection. Do you understand?”
I find myself holding my breath as I wait for him to respond.
“Of course,” he says.
I breathe out. I shouldn’t have worried. Shan’s not the type to walk into a new environment and start throwing his weight around. He’s a much more subtle operator. He’s a double agent. Fuck. That’s right. He’s a double agent.
“Shan, these people matter to me more than anybody besides you and Baby,” I say. “So please, tell me you won’t do anything to put them in danger or get them captured.”
“You have my word,” he says. “If it is true that Wrath was coming for the baby, at this stage, our fortunes are tied to the fortunes of this ship.”
“Oh, no,” Sasha says. “It wasn’t Wrath coming for the baby.”
“Who was it?”
“Thorn,” she says. “The alpha of Grave City.”
Shan
My blood runs cold at the mention of Thorn’s name. “That cannot be true.”
Even as I speak the words, I already suspect that it is in fact, true. Wrath abandoned my mate and I in the wilderness, but I expected Thorn to come for us. When he did not, I imagined either there were some political machinations at play in the city, or we had simply been abandoned. I tried not to think of that angle overly much. I wanted to keep believing that the alpha who rescued me as a runaway did truly care for me. I still want to believe it.
“Sure it can. We’ve been running surveillance on the alpha’s place since the captain was taken hostage there. We hear a lot of what they say. Do you want to hear it?”
I don’t know the name of the human woman speaking to me. Introductions have not been properly made. She is small and she has knitwear that gives her what I believe to be a misleadingly soft appearance. I think she is about to tear my world apart.
“Let’s go to the bridge,” the tall woman with one eye says.
“Lettie?”
“Hmm?” Lettie swings around to me.
“Mind telling me who these people are?”
“Oh! Yes! Sorry! I forget you don’t know everything and everyone I know,” she grins. “This is Sasha,” she says, gesturing to knitwear. “Then this is Casey,” she says, waving her hand at the tall one. “And the one with all the hardware strapped to her face is Cadence.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say. It is the polite thing to say.
I am of course, very curious about the ship. I can see how much technology is in it. Every square inch of the place hums with power. I have never set food in a flying beast like this before. It is very impressive, but I did not expect it to be so… messy?
“Are the red cups with the white interiors structural?” I ask the question as I kick through a pile of stacked plastic cups that have partially blocked the path.
“Oh no,” Lettie laughs. “That’s for an old Earth game called beer pong. They must have been playing it a lot while stuck in orbit. It’s fun! I’ll show you how to play later.”
There is an instant lightness to my mate that I have not seen before. I have always known her in my environment, but now I see her in her own. She walks these halls cluttered with clothing and books and bits of machinery strewn with what seem to be food wrappers with an ease and a comfort that makes her even more beautiful.