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)
Mistress Labadoddle, Mistress Pink-R-stink, Mistress Jumbalia, Mistress Tootaloo, Mistress Fuzzypatch—they all ran together after a while and Miri was beginning to wonder how she could possibly pick one to take her place when she couldn’t even remember all their names properly!
And then they came to a tall, thin woman with bright red lips and sparkling black eyes. She was wearing a deep purple gown and a headdress of fluffy purple plumes that rose at least a meter in the air above her head and swished gracefully whenever she moved.
“And this is Mistress Bloodmuch,” Mistress Hottalot said, introducing the tall, thin woman. “She’s particularly interested in taking the Ruling Member spot because she has some exciting ideas regarding land development.”
“Land development?” Miri asked, frowning up at the tall, thin woman. Mistress Bloodmuch’s scarlet lips were twisted upward at the corners in the approximation of a smile which didn’t quite reach her glittering black eyes.
“My dear Mistress Mirabella, how very lovely to finally meet you in person at last,” she said smoothly. “And yes, I have some excellent ideas on how best to use the land of Yonnie Six and turn a handsome profit with it.”
“Do tell?” Miri said coldly but politely. She hadn’t forgotten how Mistress Bloodmuch had sent her goons and basically tried to kidnap her when she and Saxon and Lynx were trying to get to their ship.
“I’d be happy to. You see, while we’ve mined much of the Dream Gas from the area all around Opulex, my surveying team has found a vast new deposit.”
“Oh?” Miri raised an eyebrow.
“Yes—and this deposit is located on the other side of the world, just outside a little town called Veribox.”
“Veribox?” Miri felt the pit of her stomach go cold. “But…that’s my hometown!”
Mistress Bloodmuch’s cold smile widened.
“So much the better! Think of the industry and money and jobs such an operation could bring to your town!”
“Think of the noise and stink and pollution your operation would bring!” Miri snapped back. “My hometown might not be as rich as Opulex but it’s a lovely little place. You think I want to turn it into an open pit with Dream Gas vapors leaking into the air and mining sludge and residue polluting the water supply?”
The smile on Mistress Bloodmuch’s crimson lips slipped a notch.
“It’s extremely short-sighted of you to think of it that way. Why, that little town is sitting on a queen’s ransom of untapped Dream Gas!”
“And it’s going to stay that way,” Miri said firmly. “There’s no way I’d let my hometown be strip mined!”
“I’m so sorry you feel that way,” Mistress Bloodmuch said coolly. “Do have a drink and calm yourself. Maybe you’ll think differently later.”
As she spoke Captain Furx, her bodyslave with the enormously swollen muscles lined with thick purple veins, thrust a tray of drinks in front of Miri’s face. They all seemed to have something going on—one was bright green and had smoke floating out of it, another was a vivid purple with tiny blue balls floating in it. The third was pink and fizzy, making an audile crackling sound as it popped and fizzed to itself.
“Try the pink one,” Mistress Bloodmuch said smoothly. “It’s made of attar of Frethian roses—so delicious.”
Miri automatically picked up the stem of the fizzing pink drink and was about to take a sip of it when a huge hand seized her by the wrist and Saxon growled,
“Stop!”
“Oh—what is it?” Miri looked up at the big Monstrum with wide eyes.
“Let me smell it.”
Without ceremony, Saxon leaned down and sniffed the floral-scented drink, which did smell very strongly of the pink alien roses.
“What? What is it?” Miri asked.
The Lykan Shifter didn’t answer. Instead, he suddenly Shifted, his head becoming that of a huge wolf as his body sprouted a shaggy black and silver pelt.
“Oh!” Mistress Hottalot exclaimed.
Mistress Bloodmuch’s black eyes grew wide but she didn’t say anything. Captain Furx, who had seen both Saxon and Lynx shift before, was likewise silent.
Saxon thrust his long wolf’s muzzle into the glass, inhaling deeply. Then he lifted his head and growled,
“Poison. Or some other kind of substance—it’s drugged.”
“What? Preposterous!” Mistress Bloodmuch declared.
“Let me see.” Lynx, who had retained his humanoid form and face, removed something from a pocket of his tight black leather bodyslave trousers and waved it over the fizzing pink drink.
It was a slim silver wand with a long window embedded in its side, Miri saw. As he waved it over the drink, the tip of the wand went from green to yellow to an ominous orange.
Lynx turned the wand so he could see the small window on its side.
“It’s belicane,” he announced. “A mind-altering substance which makes the user extremely susceptible to suggestion.” He looked at Miri. “My Lady, if you had taken even a sip of that drink, you would have been helpless to resist anything anyone suggested to you.”