Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 56021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 280(@200wpm)___ 224(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 280(@200wpm)___ 224(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
This is the best outcome I could have hoped for. Somehow, I’ve fallen on my feet, and I am being offered protection, food, and shelter.
It almost feels too good to be true.
3 TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE
Isleep near the hearth that night, curled up in the warmth of stones that I suspect never lose their heat. I am given a sack for bedding and an actual pillow complete with lumps. It’s pure luxury, and with my belly full, and my brain and body exhausted from a very long day, it does not take me long to drift off.
I am woken in the middle of the night by two voices arguing with one another. They’re trying to be quiet, but they’re only succeeding in being the kind of loud that immediately gets people’s attentions.
“We should take her to Wrath,” Vendis mutters to Vulcan.
They seem to think they are out of earshot, or that I am too deeply asleep to hear them. They’re wrong, obviously. I am used to skulking about and being ignored and overhearing all sorts of things. It’s not spying like Lettie used to do. It’s more just being beneath notice.
“Adaine would never allow that, and she’d never survive it. She’s a weak little thing. She has no strength physically, or mentally,” Vulcan says.
Hearing my temperament and physical form described in those ways feels accurate and yet still insulting. I am so sick of being pathetic and weak, and nothing more than a servant. I wish I could be brave, but it’s not that easy. Captain Sullivan is the bravest person I ever met and even she has been held captive on this planet. And Raine? Her second-in-command who then became captain? She was so brave too. And she’s as captive as Sullivan. So what hope do I have?
I sit up.
Fuck it. This all appears to be inevitable. Let’s just get it over.
“Take me to Wrath,” I say. “Just fucking do it. Every idiot on this planet and above it seems to think that’s a good idea.”
Vulcan looks at me with a guilty expression in his gleaming, vertical slitted eyes. I can tell he doesn’t like this plan as much as Vendis does, but the fact that he’s here at all means he’s probably going to go along with it.
“You were nice enough to feed me and give me something to wear, why not sell me off to a criminal now? Seems fair.”
“I don’t like this at all,” Vulcan says. “Adaine wants her under our protection.”
“Adaine’s been bossing us around for too long. We said we were going to be free of her rules. This is how we do it. We strike up an alliance with Wrath.”
Oh. I see what’s happening. Men are ruining everything. Makes sense.
At this point, I decide to see if I can sneak away. They’re arguing with one another, and if I can get to Adaine, I can tell her what her shitty little brothers are up to. She might be grateful to me for that. It might save me from being fucked and forced to lay an egg.
I sidle slowly away, hoping to make a dash for it, but saurians sense movement keenly and next thing I know, Vendis has snatched me up by my leg and is holding me aloft, like a prize fish.
“Don’t waste time talking to the human. It doesn’t matter what she says. Wrath will want her. And he’ll want her fresh. You know what he did when the others brought him one they’d already used.”
I am swung back and forth upside down in a way that makes me very dizzy.
“Don’t hold her like that!” Vulcan growls. “We have to be careful with them, remember? They’re weak. They break easy. Their limbs can come off if you’re not careful. Or their heads. And they don’t go back on. And they don’t regenerate.”
I am snatched from the first pair of hands by a second pair of hands and swung up into strong arms before being shoved head-first into a big sacking bag for transport. I don’t make any sounds of complaint, because I know better than to complain.
I could scream, but they’d probably beat the hell out of me if I did that, and I don’t want to know what a fracture feels like. I’ve seen the crew of the Mare come back from various crimes with injuries that look nasty, and I know that human women break easily under inexpert alien handling. Sometimes it’s not even intentional. They hurt us without realizing it.
Oh well.
It was nice to know what comfort was for a little bit, even if it was just to have it ripped away from me again.
Snugly inside my rough cloth prison, I am bundled through what feels like an endless series of halls and passages. I hear the occasional conversation as the brothers talk their way into a criminal organization. Every now and then, the neck of the sack is opened and some vicious alien looks in at me to ensure I am the thing they said I am.