Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 88048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
“You stay and guard this place,” she’d told him, patting his round, golden body. “I’ll bring you back to the main tower when I can, all right?”
“Beelie will guard,” the robot assured her in his hollow voice. “Beelie will be sure all is safe if Mistress Mirabella wishes to return.”
“Thank you, Beelie.” Impulsively, Miri had flung her arms as far as she could around him. She knew it was foolish to care so much about a robot, but Beelie had been her savior and her only companion for a long time—it was hard letting him go.
Now she was ready to leave though, so she nodded at Saxon, who was still partially-Shifted. She thought it was interesting that in this form both he and Lynx seemed to have fur everywhere but their faces. It made them both seem like big, muscular teddy bears. They seemed to prefer to be partially in their animal forms and she rather liked the way they looked—and the way it felt when they brushed against her with their velvety fur.
“All right, my Lady—we’ll be moving fast,” Lynx murmured in her ear. “Just stay between us like Saxon told you. Hopefully we won’t have any trouble.”
Miri nodded again and the three of them stepped out of the door.
The alley was quiet…and littered with the corpses of the Cast-offs Saxon and Lynx had killed in their quest to get to her. Miri shivered as she stepped over a body with its head blown off.
“Don’t look, my Lady,” Lynx murmured from behind her. “Battle is an ugly thing, but necessary. All these males stood between you and us—we had to kill them to get to you.”
“I know. And I’ve seen worse,” Miri said, thinking of the horrible way the killer who had been stalking her had mutilated his victims. “It’s just…I don’t think I could ever get used to it.”
“We wouldn’t want you to have to—that’s our job,” Saxon growled from ahead of her. The Lykan Shifter had reached the mouth of the alley and was scanning in both directions. “Coast is clear,” he said to Lynx. “Let’s head out.”
They took a sharp left and hurried quickly down the dirty street lined with abandoned buildings and littered with trash. The reek of garbage left to rot made Miri’s nose wrinkle but at least they didn’t run into any Cast-offs.
“There it is—our ship!” Lynx said in her ear, pointing to an intersection up ahead.
Miri looked and saw a sleek golden spaceship gleaming in the weak sunlight.
“Oh—how did you dare to leave it out in the open like that?” she asked. “Weren’t you afraid the Cast-offs would strip it for parts?”
“Not with our security system,” Saxon said with grim satisfaction. “It’ll shock the fuck out of anyone who tries to even touch it—let alone strip it.”
But just before they were about to reach the golden ship, a group of males stepped out from an alley ahead of them, blocking their way.
Miri stopped short, her breath catching in her throat. The four males standing there were huge—even bigger than her two Monstrum. They had grotesquely bulging muscles with huge, purple veins popping out all over their skin. All four were wearing metal armor over their barrel chests and impossibly thick thighs and all of them had weapons in their hands.
“What the fuck?” Saxon growled, stopping short. Lynx came at once to stand beside his Bond-Brother, both of them shielding Miri with their big bodies.
“Who are you and what do you want?” Lynx had his own blaster out and pointed at the weirdly muscular soldiers. Their thighs were so swollen they must rub together with every step and their shoulders were so built up they hardly had any necks at all, Miri thought, staring out from between Lynx and Saxon. Also, their biceps were bigger than their heads which looked really odd.
“Now, now—there’s no need to be defensive.” One of the monstrous males lumbered forward, holding up his thick-fingered hands in a gesture of peace. “I am Furx, Captain of the Special Guard of Mistress Bloodmuch. I was sent by my Mistress to escort Mistress Mirabella to the Leadership Meeting tonight.”
“The hell you will!” Saxon suddenly Shifted, his human face elongating into a wolf’s muzzle as his ears became pointed and moved to the top of his head. His fur became thicker—turning into a shaggy black pelt tipped with silver and his lips pulled back in a snarl to show long, sharp fangs.
At the same time, Lynx was Shifting too, Miri saw. His own visage became that of a big cat—in fact, she thought he looked like his name—a lynx from Earth with tufted ears, wide golden eyes, and long, sensitive whiskers. He too bared his fangs in warning.
“You will not take our Lady from us—you’ll die if you try!” he snarled.
“Whoa…hey…” The leader of the men sent to take Miri took a step back, his muddy brown eyes growing wide. “I had no idea Mistress Mirabella was being guarded by Beast-men!”