Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
The general had been down here again, a little less patient, his annoyance a lot less hidden. He tried the cards again at first, but when I didn’t respond to any of the images he showed me, he switched to giving me different foods through the bars. Because yes, today I was kept in my cage all day, behind the silver bars. I’ve been trying to figure out why, what had changed between yesterday and today that he seemed to feel more threatened by me? Or was it that his own plans for me had changed and he needed me caged for them?
I’d carefully tried some of the foods the general brought down. First, the round bright ball that I watched him peel in front of me. I figured he couldn’t have done anything to it with that protective layer of porous flesh around it. I found it much too sour, though. I bit into a circular food with a stem at the top, and quite liked that one. The general nodded and smiled as he handed me a long root-like offering with leaves sticking out of the top and I hurried to take that. Something that had clearly come from the ground, the land. I bit into it, and at first bite it tasted good enough. However, like the air during the brief time I was outside this house, there’s a certain wrongness to the aftertaste.
Something I can’t quite place.
Clearly pleased that I had taken something from him, the general again began asking me questions, as if there had been an exchange I had not agreed to. His food for information. I didn’t need his food, not yet, anyway, and I certainly wouldn’t be giving him any information.
Why have you come to Earth?
What are your intentions on this planet?
Are more like you coming?
On and on he asked, but when I remained silent question after question, his patience once again grew thin and he got up from his chair with angry movements, straightening his jacket as he glared at me.
“The New Order will not be challenged. I am treating you like a welcome guest, but that can quickly change to me treating you like an unwelcome invader.”
Those were his last words before he left. I was glad to see him go. Then, I could be left alone with my thoughts. Left alone with … her. Because that’s what all my thoughts eventually turned back around to today. The general and his foods and questions didn’t matter when the options were to think of him or my mate. Except to wonder if she had any relation to him, as that was another thing I’d been pondering over. She obviously lives here to have been so familiar with the library, but is she his daughter, a niece, or just someone in his care? I have no idea about the familial or societal structures here to even begin to unravel that one.
What I am certain of, though, is that I will not leave this planet without her. I don’t even know when my people will arrive, or how I will convince her to leave all that she knows behind, but I must find a way. I was afraid I’d see fear in her beautiful eyes yesterday, but there was none. I can only hope that means she will come back down, and that somehow, even though it seems quite impossible right now, that I can make her feel safe with me. Make her want to leave this place. Make her want to be mine.
I lay on the combined cots only because I want to close my eyes against the blazing lights they left on after leaving the last time, but the small size makes fitting myself on it difficult. I do manage. Rest is a variable thing back home. Something that doesn’t have to happen prone on one’s back in darkness, but even, cradled into the arm of a tree branch under a canopy of leaves. That’s the place I want to be, hearing wildness living just beneath me while my mate rests beside me. It’s an easy fantasy to slip into, despite my surroundings, so I let myself go there.
If only for a bit …
*
Tap … Tap …Tap.
The unusual—and new—noise pulls me from sleep instantly. Assuming it’s the human males back for another round of watching me beyond the glass, and not even sure how much time passed since I first shut my eyes, I’m not slow about opening them now. I instantly lift my head in the direction of the sound.
The tap-tap-tapping stops instantly.
The very second I find her.
It takes me more than a few seconds to believe what I’m seeing. I don’t blink quite the same way she does, because that would mean brief moments of not seeing her at all, and I can’t stand the thought of that. She tucks a strand of hair, dark as night like mine, behind her ear and waves her fingers once she knows I see her.