Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 64359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
“I would not have thought a tasty little morsel like you would land amid our feeding frenzy.” The vampire smiles at me, revealing a maw still unpleasantly replete with blood. “Have you no self-preservation?”
I have to wonder the same thing. I was so convinced that this time I’d be safe. Why do I keep thinking that? There’s absolutely no evidence for that being true. I have no safety at all, no matter where I go. I travel from one mess to another, weaving an interstellar web of fuckery from which I am now starting to fear there is no return.
This thing is a stranger to me, but I am not a stranger to it. It knows me for what I am: prey.
“What have you there, Aristo?”
One of its companions shouts out, and I find myself hoisted aloft by the back of my neck in a way that should kill me and yet does not.
“A human female!”
That cry draws dozens of them from their feeding places. They crawl out from underneath slabs of rock, moving with an elegance that belies their ghoulish actions. They are all beautiful and they are all grotesque. They are all high cheek bones and blazing eyes. They are hunger and they are fangs made to sate that hunger.
I make a yowling, choking sound, loud enough to encourage the one who has me to put me down. Thoughts are starting to fight their way through my brain. They are looking at me now, but they will not look for long. They will strip me and they will take me apart and they will drink from my very arteries. I will be gone too soon, none of them getting more than a fleeting taste of me.
My frightened eyes roam predatory faces. I know them well, because they share great kinship with the terrible Emrys. I feel as though I can see his lineage in them, though perhaps I am drawing too great a comparison.
There is a sadness inside me of a kind I have not felt before. I am witnessing the end of something beautiful. I am present at the end of a native town, and I am here at my very own end as well. The hand on the back of my neck keeps flexing against my nape, sharp, clawed nails digging into my skin.
I should have felt this vulnerable with Atlas, but in his monstrous grip I was protected. There is no protection in this grasp. I am nothing but a snack here. I am a creature to be consumed.
I have walked straight into the middle of a valker alien vampire nest, and I am going to pay the price. With every passing moment, I see another of them sneaking toward me. Their numbers are greater than I imagined at first. I thought there were a handful, then perhaps a dozen. Now I imagine there may very well be a hundred or more. Each and every one of them is looking at me with voracious eyes.
I feel the alien gripping me flex his fingers again, feeling my vertebrae. I know exactly what he is doing. He is trying to find the right spot to snap and crack me, breaking my neck so I cannot fight back once they start to tear me to pieces. He will immobilize me and then I will be consumed.
Unless…
“I am owned,” I say, knowing that is the only way to stop a feeding frenzy.
“Owned?” The vampire alien laughs. “I do not care for your human rituals.”
“I am owned by one of your kind.”
It is hard to speak audibly while in this much fear, but I force the words out between my chattering teeth. The others are drawing closer, closer. I know that at any moment they will fall upon me and the chance to save myself will be eternally gone.
“Who owns you?”
“Emrys of Clan Coldblood.”
They hiss and draw back, as if his name alone is forceful enough to make them retreat. That gives me a good amount of reassurance. I can see carcasses all around me from less fortunate creatures who did not have a vampire protector to call on.
“How does meat like you know a name like that?”
“Because I am owned by him. Marked by him. He will be coming for me, and if he finds me touched in any way, his fury will be terrible. I am to be his mate bound.”
The grip on my neck loosens slightly, but not entirely.
“You are lying.”
“Why would I lie? Why would I land here, in the midst of your frenzy? I would have to be a complete fool to come here without scanning the landing area. There’s blood and flesh everywhere. How would I possibly miss that? The very air stinks of death. You have turned the volcanic breezes of this world into gusts of gut and bile. Believe me when I say I am here because Emrys wants me here. There is no other reason in the universe that would compel me to come.”