Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 46314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
“I knew you were trouble,” a male voice says from the darkness. “I told Justice you’d be back.”
“So you set a web trap for me?” Sally is sassy. I have turned toward the speaker, and I am trying to make out what I am seeing, because it really doesn’t look right. The light must be doing something funny refracting off the webs and the shipping container. It’s a man. Or maybe it’s more like three men standing perfectly in a row so it looks like one man with a lot of arms.
“What the fuck?” I breathe the question softly to myself.
The guy, whoever he is, notices me for the first time. “You brought someone…” he pauses to let his observational derision set in. “Someone with a sick, small animal and a limp.”
“Fuck off,” I snap, immediately protective of Obigor. “He’s not sick. He’s just old.”
Another sigh answers my assertion, and the guy has the absolute nerve to complain. “Is every human in this city so rude?”
He talks like he’s from another planet. If he is, I am about to set him straight on some very local protocol.
“Listen, buddy, you can insult me all you want, but Obigor is perfect and beyond reproach. Got it?”
He starts to move toward me. He still has that weird shape, but I can’t make it out fully. Or maybe I can, and my mind just refuses to accept what my brain is seeing.
“What is wrong with your leg?”
“I was shot,” I say bluntly. He’s still cast in shadows, but not really. His face is now close enough to make out the details. Before I completely register what I’m seeing, I scream.
“HELP!”
I am grabbed by something with more arms than anything has the right to have. One hand lands over my mouth, cutting off my scream. I hold onto Obigor for my life and his as I am dragged off into the shadows.
The shock leaves me limp in the arms of the thing that has me. I can hear Sally shouting for someone to release me. She can’t do anything. She is stuck, and now so am I. I still can’t see what has me, though I know it is a what.
I am pulled between storage containers and into a… vintage living room? Obigor is plucked from my arms and placed on a teal blue seat. He looks around for a moment before putting his head down and going back to sleep. He’s not a guard dog.
Seeing him safe calms me down. Then I look down and see that far too many hands are emanating web around me, wrapping me tight, sliding around my ass and hips and then up between my thighs. It’s a snug caress of ephemeral fabric that nevertheless feels somehow sensual.
As the material tightens and I am wrapped securely, the feelings of panic start to subside into ones of acceptance and even serenity. It’s like being wrapped up in a weighted blanket. I am soothed by the way I am being handled with alacrity and professionalism.
My captor is walking around me. I am about to see who has taken me. He hasn’t spoken to me, not a word, and though he obviously wants me under control, he does not seem to wish me any harm.
He pauses at the the periphery of my vision before stepping in front of me. I want so badly to be brave, but I scream at the top of my lungs as I properly and fully see my abductor for the first time. He has eight eyes. Eight. Eyes. They are all rimmed with dark lashes and they are all piercing blue. It is uncannily like being looked at by four people who are actually one person all at once. I can’t help but notice that the two largest, the ones that are located where one would expect them to be located, look at me, while the others dart around seemingly at random.
“Quiet,” he says. “The shrieking is not going to change anything. You are very well secured.”
“Who… what are you?”
“You are an accomplice to the detective outside,” he says, not answering my question.
“I’m her partner.”
“How unfortunate for you,” he rasps.
That makes me laugh. It is obvious he’s had a run in with Sally before. She’s a damn good detective, and possibly the world’s worst diplomat.
He allows himself a little smirk. “Let me make you more comfortable,” he says, slipping an eight-lensed pair of mirrored sunglasses on, which means I am now seeing my own caramel freckled face eight times over. I don’t know if that’s less unsettling.
“I’d rather see your eyes.”
“Would you?” He props the glasses up so only the lower two are showing. He immediately looks, well, not normal per se. He still has six arms, three on each side. But his face conforms to a more traditional beauty standard, and it is at this moment that I discover he is hot. Really gorgeous. His bone structure is stark, and matches what appears to be a dour, stern temperament.