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)
If Phenix Wrathelder, patriarch of the Wrathelder clan is surprised to see us all on camera, he does not show it. He is a smug, evil bastard, and that kind of creature does not need to get ready. It stays ready.
“The Voros boys,” he greets us. “Are you calling to speak to your mother? You’ve missed several birthdays, I’m afraid.”
Arkan lets him have the truth directly. “One of your ships is heavily damaged and adrift in deep space. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the other has been overrun by armed humans who are piloting it back to their planet. Within the next few hours to days, humanity may have unfettered access to our collective technology.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Every single soldier you deployed is dead,” I say. “This is why you do not transport humans en masse. They are incredibly effective group hunters.”
His gaze shifts to me and narrows. “You should be in prison.”
“You should listen to what we are telling you. We are jointly about to create more human suffering than humans have suffered in millennia. And you are about to be the guy who let humans capture a war freighter and accelerated their technologies by thousands of years. If they get your ship, we could be dealing with a human invasion within a hundred years or less.”
Phenix is beginning to look worried now.
“If this is a trap, I will have you all captured, skinned, and…”
“We’re asking you to come armed, idiot,” I interject impatiently. “If we were going to draw you into a trap, we’d have to find someone’s mom for you to sleep with.”
“You should speak about your mother with more respect. She’s a highly intelligent woman who made…”
“Meet us at these co-ords as fast as you can and follow our trail. We are going in pursuit.”
Arkan terminates the conversation.
“He is such an asshole. I want to punch him again,” Jennifer declares. “I want to punch him so hard he cries.”
“We need to focus our attention on recapturing the humans,” I say. “Phenix is irrelevant for the moment. Our mother doesn’t matter. What matters is preventing a complete and total disaster.”
I have never been so serious about anything in my life. I have always been aggressive and reckless, but I will have to temper at least some of those urges in order to recover Emily safely.
Arkan and Kahn might very well be worrying about the fate of humanity itself, not to mention the many possible consequences of giving a species of intelligent simian descendants advanced alien technology, but all I care about is Emily.
I thought she would never leave. She never showed any sign of unhappiness. But perhaps Jennifer is right. Talking about humans as if they are products in front of the humans is probably bad protocol at the very least. I didn’t think about that. I haven’t thought about a lot of her emotional needs. I’ve taken her as mine and I’ve used her body to pleasure mine, and she has been a sweet, devoted thing right up until the moment she turned rebel.
This is my fault and my problem, and I am going to fix it.
8
Emily
He was going to sell us. Maybe not me, but definitely us. Zain doesn’t understand what it’s like to be born in a community like this, how important loyalty is. Or maybe he does. He seems to love his family. I think he loved me. I know I love him. But I can’t be with an alien who sells people like stock.
“It’s going to be alright, dear,” Mrs Hamm says. “I’m sorry your beau turned out to be a human trafficker, but we all have a story about the bad boy we dated before we found the right one. Yours just happened to be an alien. One day, long from now, you will tell this story with pride.”
I know she means well, but I don’t think I will. My heart feels like it is breaking a little more with every breath I take. I had to run. I had to save my people. There was literally no choice. But there’s still a part of me that wishes I had stayed behind — even though that would have been wrong too. He might have punished me for helping them escape.
I had to go to make sure they got out. And I have to stay with them because these are my people. Men, of any species, will come and go, but my village has existed in one form or another for thousands of years.
I know where my loyalties lie, even if following them kills me.
Besides, he lied to me. He told me he had hidden away on the alien ship to save me, to save us all. But all he really wanted — all any of those aliens really want is to use us in various ways.