Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 62128 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62128 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
My captor lands and carries me into the depths of his home. Or at least, I assume this is his home. It’s certainly not a typical cell. It doesn’t have any bars or even really much in the way of doors. And it’s pretty homely, really, with what must be handmade tapestries hanging on the walls. I don’t have time to appreciate the art. I have to pay attention to the massive creature whose clawed hands are wrapped around my limbs.
Squirming doesn’t do much in the way of getting him to let me go. He is not holding me tight enough to hurt, but he is certainly holding me tightly enough to keep me in place. I find myself half-dangling down his body, like a cat that has been picked up awkwardly by a small child. But there is nothing small about this creature. He makes me small instead, and his grip is intentional, I am sure of that.
He puts me down in the same chamber my little adventure started, a place where I can still hear the wind whistling outside. I do not know if today is a particularly windy day, or if this is just the status quo for this place. I can imagine for winged creatures, these constant gusts and eddies must be both thrilling and useful. I still have adrenaline pumping through me, and the sound of the wind seems to call me, speaking in a very old language. It’s the same tongue that children speak to nature in. Something wordless and primal. An understanding between the elements and woman. I’ve missed those conversations. I feel more alive now than I have in a long time, and for once the rush I am experiencing has nothing to do with inflicting cruelty on anybody else. It’s a very pure feeling, and I am rather enjoying it.
“Are you out of what passes for a mind?”
The saurian begins to lecture me, much as I might lecture one of the crew who had made the tactical error of crossing me.
“I thought a ten-thousand-foot drop into a tectonically active canyon would be enough to keep a sane human where she should be,” he says. “But both you and your captain…”
“She’s not my captain,” I snap. “She’s a fool, and she’s the reason I’ve been captured. Don’t you dare ever insinuate she has any power over me.”
I see a deep purple brow quirk slightly. “She claims she is a captain, and you came off her ship, did you not?”
“She was a captain. Then I was.”
He cocks his head, making his dark hair fall in a judgmental, shining skein over one side of his head and shoulder, his eyes gleaming with a particularly ardent displeasure. “So in addition to everything, you are also a mutineer.”
“I don’t need your judgement.”
He leans down, closing the distance created by our height disparity. “My judgment is all that matters to you now. My judgement is what separates you from comfort or pain. You will answer my questions with respect and care, because if you do not, you will be disciplined until you do.”
Goddamn. I need to take some notes, because what he just said made every hair on the back of my neck stand upright.
There’s a part of me that respects this approach. I know what it’s like to try to take control of people. You’ve got to be harsh enough to get their attention and make them take you seriously. I take a moment before snapping something smart back at him, and just look at him.
He is a very tall, very broad-shouldered, purple-scaled alien with powerful wings now tucked up behind what has to be one of the most muscular backs I’ve ever borne witness to. The strength it must take to beat those wings and fly the way he does is beyond anything a human could ever hope to experience.
He has thick raven hair that falls to his shoulders and gleaming, slitted eyes that flash with a gold and green hue depending on the shifting of the light. His features are hard and alien, but also rather humanoid. Certainly human enough for me to be able to read his expression — which is wildly unimpressed.
“Who the hell are you?” I find the question rising to my lips. I know he’s not officially the alpha, because that’s the predatory saurian who has Sullivan in his custody — and I get the feeling these creatures don’t do double alphas. Saurians like hierarchy. But looking at this creature, I truly cannot understand how he would be second in command of anything. There’s something about him I recognize, a natural dominance, a comfort with control. I know I have similar energy sometimes — though I guess that never made me alpha either. Not until I rose up against Captain Sullivan and yet still somehow ended up on a mad mission to save her ass.