Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 149470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 598(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 598(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
The gray giant named Shadrack stood over me, panting.
“Don’t make me ruin your looks, girly,” he snarled down at me. “It’ll make your value go down at the Pet Auction.”
“Leave me alone!” I gasped, still trying to be strong. But the words tasted like blood in my mouth—probably because my lip was bleeding.
“Can’t—gotta put that control collar on you before you make me ruin the other side of your face, too. You’re too damn aggravating without it!”
He reached down and grabbed me by the arm. He yanked me to my feet with such force, I felt like my shoulder was being pulled out of its socket.
I let out a cry but he paid no attention. Instead, he reached for the golden collar Sir had put on me, pawing at my neck with his big, clammy hand. He got two fingers between the golden collar and my throat and began to twist, cutting off my airway.
“Just…gotta…snap it,” I heard him grumble to himself.
I choked and tried to push his hands away, but he was too strong. As my breathing was cut off entirely, I felt a sense of despair. My grand escape attempt had turned into a nightmare. I should probably have stayed with Sir—at least he hadn’t knocked me around and choked me!
But I’d had to take my shot, hadn’t I? I just should have been smarter about it. And now I would never get home—never see my mom and sister again.
The world was turning gray around me when I suddenly heard a familiar voice right outside the metal bars.
“How dare you, you LowBorn scum!” it rumbled. “Take your fucking hands off my pet or suffer the consequences!”
SEVENTEEN
ELLI
The two fingers twisting the golden collar and cutting off my air were suddenly withdrawn and I was dropped like a ragdoll onto the hard, dirty floor. Gasping and choking, I looked up to see Sir standing on the other side of the bars.
My Master was glaring daggers at Shadrack, who had an angry but defiant look on his lumpish features.
“She ain’t yours, HighBorn,” he snapped. “I scooped her up fair and square. She’s going to the Pet Auction back on Korrigon Four—you can bid on her there if you want to. Until then, she’s mine.”
“You fucking scum!”
The barely controlled rage in Sir’s deep voice was terrible to hear. I was alarmed to see that his full-black eyes had suddenly gone full-white, which was somehow even scarier than his usual horror-movie look. And then something started to happen.
It began with the metal gate across the narrow doorway rattling, even though Sir wasn’t touching it. The rattling became a shaking and then the metal bars of the cage began to move.
But they weren’t being pulled away from the door in the way I had been trying to get them open. No, they were compressing somehow. It looked like a giant, invisible hand was crunching them down, wadding them up the same way I might casually wad up a piece of paper.
I stared in amazement as the bars were squeezed into a metal ball about as big as my torso and then tossed to one side with an echoing clang! Had Sir done that with his mind? It was like something out of a science-fiction movie! What was the one with the guy who wore a helmet and had special powers over metal? I couldn’t remember but I couldn’t help staring at Sir. How had he managed that?
By this time, Shadrack was shaking in his size 27 green boots. As Sir entered the dark space, he fell to his knees and started blubbering.
“I’m sorry, my Lord!” he moaned. “She said you were an OverLord but I didn’t believe her! I didn’t know! I didn’t know!”
“It shouldn’t matter what I am—you have no right to hurt an inferior species like this or to trap primitive females and sell them as Sex Pets!” Sir thundered. “Your kind make me sick! I ought to do to your head what I did with that metal gate!”
He pointed at the other male and I saw the thick neck begin to compress, cutting off Shadrack’s airflow as surely as he had been cutting off mine when he tried to twist off my golden collar. Slowly, his big body began to float up into the air, almost as though an invisible hand had the big Korrigon by the throat and was lifting him.
“No, my Lord!” Shadrack gasped, his gray face beginning to turn blue. “No, please! I’m not here just for…for my own profit. I’m here on orders…orders from Sir Gra’multh, the OverLord of… of the Southern Continent.”
“How dare you lie to me?” Sir thundered.
Shadrack shook his head violently in negation and drew in a wheezing gasp. “His Lordship says…says this universe is ripe for…for the plucking. He sent me…me and other Pet Finders to look over the females and take the…the likeliest ones!”