Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 55551 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55551 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
He’s waiting for me to answer, his eyes focused intensely on me under his brows. He fits this room, in stature and in style.
“I couldn’t tell you. I mean. I could. But won’t. Should, maybe? But shorn’t.”
“I can make you tell me, Suli. Or I can get my team to look into these things and discover what they’re about for myself.”
“I really, deeply, do not recommend that. What you’ve got there is enough to obliterate this entire city if you handle it wrong. Hell, I’m surprised you’re alive as it is. The suit doesn’t like being messed with. It’s not made to be handled by anyone beside its owner.”
“Similar to you, I imagine.”
He’s insinuating that I’m owned now. By him, presumably. I should correct him on that misapprehension before someone really gets hurt.
“I’m not one to be owned, my guy.”
He stare at me, deadpan. Waiting for me to be intimidated. If only such a thing were possible. He thinks he has all my tricks laid out in front of me but the greatest trick of all? That lies deep inside me, in a place he’ll never reach.
“Anyway, regardless, I’ve seen what happens to things you own. I have a tendency to break them.”
Thorn
She’s talking too much. I’d say she’s nervous, but it’s obvious she doesn’t get nervous. There’s something about her that suggests she’s almost incapable of those emotions, which is strange, because humans are traditionally universally regarded as being intensely neurotic and terrified, as any natural prey species should be.
“What’s wrong with you?”
She smiles broadly. “What isn’t wrong with me?”
She’s not going to tell me anything. She’s not going to cooperate in any way. Not unless I make her sore. I’m going to give her one last chance. Point out the position she is in. Hope she has some sense, though there is no evidence of that so far.
“You don’t have the suit for protection anymore. You don’t have anything left. You are my captive. You are my owned possession. You have no rights. You have no chance or hope of escape. And you are very close to screaming and crying for mercy you will not receive if you do not start talking to me.”
“Let’s do that part. Let’s do that right now.”
She stands up and opens her arms, not in a gesture that invites a hug, but in one that challenges me to do something. It is a very strange expression, one that invites damage of a kind she would not survive. This human is banking on my self-control, and she does not know me well enough to do that.
I extend a hand, which with my fingers spread, covers the entirety of her chest, and nudge her gently back into the chair.
“Sit down,” I growl at her.
“I thought you were going to make me scream and cry for mercy.”
“I am. But I don’t have to touch you to do that. I can tell you what the next years of your life are going to look like if you don’t give me what I want. You will be taken from this room, and you will be put into one of the interior cells. There is no natural light there, but you will adjust to the lower lighting that comes from the occasional torch or perhaps if nature blesses you, fireworm so you’ll be able to see time as it slips away from you.
You’ve lived a life among the stars, but I promise you, you will never see their glow again. You will end your days underground, far from adventure, with nothing in the way of excitement. You will not plunder anything. You will not cause chaos. You will not enjoy the company of others. You will sit and you will exist until there’s nothing but existence left. Until the hours turn into years, and you cannot tell the difference. Until you wither, and until finally, nothing is left but what was.”
She has been listening as I speak, her pretty human eyes locked on mine. They are so perfectly round, both her pupils and the green hue around the exterior of them. They give her a slightly innocent appearance, or a perpetual expression of surprise. I don’t think she’s either surprised or innocent. In fact, the corners of her lips are turning up as I finish speaking, almost as if I have amused her.
“I don’t believe you.”
That sentence takes me aback, though perhaps it shouldn’t. She is going to be difficult to discipline. Perhaps impossible. But I’ve dealt with much larger, much more intense, much more dangerous creatures than this one. She’s just a human. Just a small female human. I can handle her.
Why is she smiling?
She opens her mouth and begins her retort — and what a retort it is.
“I stole your bike. I know you like flashy things. I know you are a creature of status and of display. You want to own me just like you owned that bike. And that means you want others to see me. You want me out and about. I’m no good to you languishing in a dungeon getting old. You’ve captured Sullivan O’Shannassay: scourge of the skies. You’ve stripped me down and you’ve found all my little tools and toys. I don’t believe, for a second, that I will ever see the inside of one of your dungeons.”