Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 51862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
In spite of the humbleness of this space, I feel at home in a way I have never felt at home before. This is a good place. For good people. I do not strictly belong, and Wrathelder certainly do not.
I was instantly protective of Emily, and now that protection is extending itself to her home, and to the people who live around her. Any harm coming to them is an insult to me, and I will no longer tolerate insults.
Emily places a stack of what I imagine must be pancakes in front of me. The plate is shaped with ceramic inlays and painted with bright pink berries in the corners. They might have been red once, but years of washing have mellowed their color to what I think must be a more pleasing hue. There is nothing new here. Everything has withstood the gauntlet of use over time.
She hands me a fork and looks at me expectantly.
“I’m afraid we don’t have syrup,” she says. “But I’ve melted butter and honey over the stack. It should still be good.”
“It will be perfect,” I assure her. I already know that these pancakes will be the best food I have ever tasted in my life.
I sink my fork into them and feel it passing through light and fluffy cakes, each of which absorbs more of the butter honey as they part. I bring the forkful to my mouth. The scent should have prepared me for how delicious it is, but when the cakes touch my tongue and fill my mouth, it is an experience like no other. I feel as though I am eating for the very first time. A thousand bug-infested prison gruel meals are erased in that bite.
A sound emerges from me like no other, a deep, guttural groan of pure pleasure and comfort and love. I look into her hopeful eyes as she watches me with an expression of care, and I fall deeply, completely, entirely in love with her. I would already have done anything for her. Now I swear I will do everything for her.
“Is it good?”
I reach out, pull her into my lap and plant a kiss on her cheek. “Pet. It is perfect.”
She squirms and lets out a high pitched, happy laugh. I see her flush pink with pleasure. She is so pleased to have pleased me. It is the absolute sweetest thing.
“Why do you call me pet?” She asks the question as I finish the plate.
“I am going to need more eggs,” she adds.
“I call you pet because that is what you are. You are mine.”
“Yours.”
“Yes, on my world, I would own you. You would belong to me as any property.”
“So it’s like marriage on Earth used to be. A man would own a woman like any property. I don’t know that I like the word own.”
She is adorable as she tries to tell me she is not interested in being a thing, but my ownership does not make her a thing.
“You are not an object to me. You are the person I would defend to the ends of the universe.”
“Well, when you say that, it sounds sweet.”
“It is sweet,” I promise her. “And yes, I will expect obedience from you, but you are such an obliging little thing. You will not give me any trouble, will you?”
She gives me a slight sideways glance. “Obedience? You want me to obey you?”
“I insist upon it,” I say.
“What sort of things will you tell me to do? And what will happen if I do not?”
“You will need to do whatever it is I tell you to do. And if you do not, I will have to discipline you. I cannot have a disobedient pet.”
There is a slightly husky tone to her voice, and I smell a brief flush of the same scent I smelled before we mated in Wrathelder’s ship. It takes me a moment to put these slightly contradictory responses and signals into a context that makes sense.
The realization comes suddenly. She likes the idea of being told what to do. She really likes the idea of being disciplined too. The flush of fresh pheromones came at the moment I said I cannot have a disobedient pet. That means she reacts more to potential discipline than she does to obedience. That means no matter how sweet she is, or how obliging she seems to be, there is a little rebel lying beneath her exterior. I wonder if I will see that side of her, or if it will remain hidden as it seems to have for a very long time.
“I never married,” she says. “They’ve been trying to get me to marry for years, but I always refused.”
I am slightly confused by the apparent change in conversational topic. It is hard to follow spoken conversations. Telepathic communication flows in a way words never can, because words have to pick at the surface of thought and can only ever express part of it at any given time.