Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 51862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
I put my hand to my throat and feel the collar he made encircling my neck. It is more intimate than a wedding ring and feels much more solid.
I cannot imagine a thin band of metal around my finger meaning anything more than this. The alien has welded this around me in the aftermath of a climax so intense I am still shaking. I might never stop trembling. I might always be this way when I am with him, and he does seem to intend to keep me.
His arms encircle me, powerful, strong, and loving. He picks me up, sweeping me off my feet so I do not have to cross the pile of bodies or the puddle of blood. He carries me so easily, as if I weigh nothing at all. Too often I have felt heavy, lumpen even, but in Zain’s arms I am just a little pet to be cosseted.
He carries me back through the alien halls, murmuring sweet nothings in my ear as he holds me right up on his chest. Zain is the nicest, kindest, sweetest… He reaches down, snaps a knife from the belt around his waist, and plunges it into the throat of a guard coming out of a side passage.
“I am going to need to kill some others,” he says. “I want you to stay behind me, nice and close on my heels, pet.”
He puts me down behind him, and I do just as he says. I do not want to be more than a few inches away from him. This is a dangerous vessel and we are far from out of the woods.
He leads me through the strange vascular corridors of the ship, all the way to what I imagine must be the main office, the place the ship is flown from. He reaches behind himself and pushes me back into the nook made by the door frame as it opens, but he does not go far enough into the room to make it close. I can see around him at what appears to be a small contingent of very fancy enemy aliens.
“Voros!”
They greet him with that name that sounds like a curse. Is that his last name? Is his full name Zain Voros? Would that mean my name would be Emily Voros if we were to be married?
It is a strange time to be thinking of these things, but the conditioned response to think about marriage once one has been absolutely ravaged near senseless by the sexiest creature in the universe really can’t be overstated. I’ve never wanted to be married in my life. Now I’m practically humming the wedding march under my breath as I watch him face what I hope is the last batch of enemies.
“You should never have come to this planet. Never launched these ships. You should never have thought to lay a single finger on a single human in the entirety of time, Wrathelder.”
Zain speaks with aggressive, gravelly authority that makes me feel all tingly in my knees. Part of me wants him to growl at me with that much feral authority. He is imposing his will on others who far outnumber him — a fact he does not seem to care about. They stare at him with a sort of stupid, half-jaw open, gormless set of expressions, as if he is the very last thing they ever expected to see on their ship.
Zain continues.
“I will kill your father. I will kill my traitorous bitch mother. I will wipe your lineage from the face of existence. I will undo generations of blood and breeding. I will make it as if you never existed. I am not only your death, Wrathelder. I am the extinction of your line.”
I don’t know what happened between these warring aliens, but I do know a bad ass speech when I hear one. Without any context whatsoever, I find myself stirred to, well, not action, but at the very least cheerleading.
“Yeah!”
I don’t have much more to say than that, but I say it with all the enthusiasm I can muster, which is a lot. I also manage a little jump and an air punch, which I imagine must look a little silly, my fist simply appearing behind Zain’s shoulder for a brief second before I drop back down behind his massive bulk.
Now it is the head of the bad aliens’ turn to make a little speech. There’s something quite civilized about this part of the proceedings.
“You will pay for this with your life, Voros. Once a filthy, dishonorable criminal, always a filthy, dishonorable criminal. My father was too strong for you, and I will prove to be the same.”
“I didn’t try to kill your father,” Zain says. “If I had tried to kill him, he would be dead. I’m only telling you this because you will never have the chance to tell anybody else, because I am going to kill you. Now.”