Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
“How do you know so much about it?” Liv demanded.
“I helped one of our attorneys prepare a case for some clients of my firm. We had this young woman’s family try to sue when she got called up,” Kat said matter-of-factly.
“What were the grounds?” Sophie asked.
“That she was a virgin and wasn’t prepared to be with, uh, such a large guy.” Kat snickered. “But all I have to say is, sitting there, listening to what this huge masculine alien could and couldn’t do to you sexually and what you could and couldn’t to do to him with your parents listening in had to be at least as bad as actually doing it.”
“How embarrassing!” Sophie shuddered. “I’d rather die.”
“Did they win the case?” Liv asked, taking a sip of juice.
Kat shook her head. “Not on your life. The court threw it out almost before her lawyer finished talking. Everybody knows we have to keep the Kindred happy. The Scourge is still out there somewhere and if throwing the big guys a bone by boning them is the only way to keep them on our side, well then, so be it. So if you get drafted you better develop a taste for alien nookie pretty quick.”
“You know the thing that really freaks me out?” Sophie dropped the blueberries into the batter, stirring as she talked. “The fact that nobody ever decides to leave and go back to their old life after that initial thirty day period is up. You can’t tell me the Kindred always know exactly which woman is going to be their soul mate for life when they pick a bride.”
Kat shrugged and started cracking eggs into a large mixing bowl. “Maybe they brainwash you once you get up to their ship. Maybe it’s filled with all kinds of sex toys and pleasure rooms and it’s so good you just can’t say no.”
“Or maybe they trick you into having sex in the first place—like they slip you a roofie,” Sophie said darkly. “And when you wake up it’s like, ‘Oh, sorry—we did the deed and now you’re mine for life. Hope you don’t mind moving to a galaxy far, far away and having sixteen pound alien babies the rest of your natural.”
Liv gripped her glass full of OJ tightly. This certainly wasn’t the first time they’d speculated about the Kindred when they got together on a girls’ day but for some reason her nerves were so on edge she felt like she might scream if she had to listen to another word. Just then the doorbell chimed faintly and she breathed a sigh of relief—finally a distraction.
“I’ll get it!” She was already halfway to the door when Sophia objected.
“Liv, you’re hardly decent! That outfit almost shows your panties.”
“I’m fine,” Liv called back, pulling the short black lace robe that went with her baby doll nighty more tightly around her. “It’s probably just Mrs. Jensen from next door. She’s always wanting to borrow something—eggs, sugar, you name it.”
She threw open the door expecting to see the kind and wrinkled face of her next door neighbor and instead was treated to the sight of two perfectly huge males in black uniforms.
“I…I…Who are you?” Liv gasped, barely able to get the words out.
“H/K officers Trex and Locan at your service,” the one on the right rumbled and both of them made stiff, abbreviated bows. “We’re here for Miss Olivia Lauren Waterhouse.” He held up a digital picture and Liv recognized her own face staring back from the holo sheet. “This is you—correct?”
“I…yes, that’s me,” she said weakly, meaning both the picture and the name.
“And can you sign this document, verifying that it is so?” He held out a thick sheaf of papers with legal looking words on them along with a pen. Liv signed automatically where he indicated.
“All right, but I—” she began as the guard snatched back the papers and stuffed them into his uniform pocket.
“Excellent. Subject confirms identity,” said the one on the left, as though he was making some kind of official report. “Preparing to escort subject to the HKR building at once.” As one, both huge officers stepped forward and each took one of her elbows. The glass full of orange juice dropped from her fingers and shattered on the tile of the foyer like a bomb, spraying glass shards and sticky juice everywhere. One shard pierced her heel when she took a step back but Liv barely noticed the sharp little pain.
“Now wait just a minute,” she protested, aware that both Sophia and Kat had crowded into the doorway behind her. “What are you saying? Where are you taking me? And can’t I change first?”
“Negative. Flight risk is incurred if the subject is allowed to linger on the premises for any reason,” barked the one on the right.
“But I haven’t done anything. Let me go!” Liv struggled against them but it was like she was being held in pincers of iron on either side.