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)
7 CONFRONTING CONSEQUENCES
Wrath
I take a small shuttle up to the Mare, which has not bothered to hide itself since the barrage on Grave City. They were careful up until this point, but it is safe to say that they are now reckless beyond the point of good sense. Lettie has no fear of us. Or perhaps it is not Lettie behind the attacks.
I have my own theories. I suspect it is Shan who is leading the charge against me. He betrayed me once before, and there is no reason to think that he has softened toward me. I suspect it is Shan, not Lettie, who is wielding this ship like a weapon against me. The only attacks have been on my underground locations.
If it was Lettie, as my little mate insists, then surely the alpha’s home would be targeted. If she wanted her shipmates back, there are other places to target. The primal skeleton for instance, or the palace of bones where Avel reigns in cruelty.
I am thinking about everything other than the fact that I am in a flying machine right now. We don’t use these on our world. The port is reserved for alien traffic only. Thorn has always wanted to keep saurian life simple, and on a planet where there’s only one city, we don’t have much need for air transport.
So, suffice to say, I have never been in a ship before. I have always kept my feet on the ground, or under it. I am surprised to discover I don’t entirely hate the experience. It is like a vehicle that travels on a road or across the ground, except it is capable of traversing the air. Saurians are more than aware of the potential of space flight, but we like to avoid it. It’s not part of the culture. We have clung to the old ways where we can, because the old ways are sustainable.
Fortunately it does not take long. The shuttle is taken in by the larger ship, just as the humans said it would be. Thorn’s mate, Sullivan, has been very helpful. She wants this to come to an end. We all want this to come to an end. The human ship may have come here by accident, but I do not believe in accidents, and frankly it does not matter. The women are here now, and they are breeding with us. The course of saurian history has been forever changed.
The door of the ship opens into the interior of the Mare. Nobody meets me immediately, so I follow the halls of the ship until finally a door opens into what I have to assume is the main control area of the vessel.
I expected more brushed bare metal and basic fixtures, but the first thing to confront me is a big yellow-gold couch sitting on a large purple rug. A little table to the left holds a cheerful lamp.
“I’ve been decorating,” a soft female human voice says. “Do you like it?”
“Very homey,” I reply, turning to face her.
Lettie looks much like she did last time I saw her, when I gave her to Shan to keep. She is a cute human. She has cut her hair short, and her brown eyes hold a certain solemnity. She is wearing a space suit with a red stripe down the center and holding a weapon.
“You were brave to come here,” she says. “I thought you would keep hiding.”
“I had to come. The city cannot fall because one little girl wants to throw a tantrum.”
Her face creases with annoyance. “This isn’t a tantrum. This is vengeance.”
“Ah yes. Vengeance for what, exactly?”
The human female looks at me with a malicious expression. “You abandoned us in the wild. You forced me to give birth in a dirt fucking hut. You deserve to die.”
“Your fate was tied to the fate of your mate. I should have killed the father of your baby,” I tell her. “He was unfaithful, disloyal, and a traitor. Where is he?”
“This isn’t about him,” she says quickly. A little too quickly.
“Where is he?” I repeat the question, my tone a little deeper. She has the audacity to look somewhat sheepish as she answers.
“I had to distract him when I unleashed the weapons. He didn’t like the idea.”
“Distract him? Where is he?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Where is your baby?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She is more agitated the second time she tells me it doesn’t matter. I notice that she’s more or less in constant motion. When I first came off my shuttle, she held the weapon pointed at me. Now it is down by her side, and she is pacing back and forth, her free hand up to her head, tapping it as if she is trying to force the thoughts to move.
This young woman is not quite in her right mind. That much is apparent. I can see a certain desperation in her eyes, a madness that I have seen set in for some of my own before. She is quite possibly the most dangerous creature on the planet at this point in time.