Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 42969 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 215(@200wpm)___ 172(@250wpm)___ 143(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 42969 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 215(@200wpm)___ 172(@250wpm)___ 143(@300wpm)
She braced herself for the blow…but it never came. Instead, Kross leaned down and swung her up over one of his broad shoulders. Carrying her like a sack of grain, he splashed out of the swamp while Sylvie beat on his muscular back with her fists and shouted for him to let her down.
“Hey, stop it! Where are you taking me? Let me go!” she was still shouting when he abruptly set her on her feet. They were right in front of their long-range shuttle, she saw—but why had he taken her back to the ship?
Kross opened the main hatch.
“Come on,” he growled, taking her by the arm and steering her into the interior of the shuttle.
“Hey, what are you doing? Stop it—I don’t care how mad you are, this mission isn’t over yet!” Sylvie exclaimed, though she was helpless not to follow him into the ship—he was dragging her along and he was much too strong to resist. “It’s not over until I find my slugs!”
“You found them, Princess,” Kross said shortly. He marched her to the tiny first-aid area in the back of the living quarters. It was no more than a bench to sit on and a cabinet full of medical supplies but it also had a brilliant overhead light—the better to see wounds or injuries. Kross flipped it on now, making Sylvie blink.
“Hey, why did you do that?” she muttered, shading her eyes with her hands. Outside in the swamp it had been a foggy, overcast day so the bright luminescence really hurt her eyes!
“Look down at yourself,” Kross demanded, looming over her. “At your nipples—really look at them this time. Don’t just fucking assume I’m a ‘pervert,’ as you humans say.”
Warily, Sylvie looked down. At first, she didn’t see anything except that her shirt now seemed to be practically see-through right over her nipples. Her pink points were standing out like two exclamation marks—probably because she was cold from being dunked in the water. It almost looked like she had cut two holes in her t-shirt to show them off—how embarrassing! She just…
The thought died as a new realization hit her. Her shirt looked like there were two holes in it because there were two holes—they had been made by the see-through, nearly invisible leeches that were attached to her—one to each of her nipples! They must have been drawn to her sensitive points because they were prominent and had good blood flow.
Sylvie normally didn’t get upset during her scientific missions—she prided herself on being nearly unflappable. But seeing two slippery, pulsating, alien leeches attached to such a sensitive part of her anatomy brought a shriek to her lips.
“Ah! Oh my God—get them off me! Get them off!” she cried, brushing frantically at the front of her t-shirt. But her brushing was in vain—the leeches wouldn’t be moved and now she could see faint reddish trails appearing in their nearly see-through bodies, like long red ribbons.
That’s my blood, she realized, staring at them in horror. They’re drinking my blood! Oh my God, I’m going to be sick!
“Don’t get sick!” Kross commanded, almost as though he could read her mind. “If you throw up all over yourself, it’s just going to make getting them off even harder.”
Sylvie swallowed hard and took a deep breath. Somehow she managed to hang on to the contents of her stomach—which luckily, wasn’t much. She’d had a very light breakfast and they hadn’t had lunch yet, for which she was profoundly grateful.
“They…they’re drinking my blood,” she said faintly.
“I know, Princess. Don’t look,” Kross ordered firmly.
He collected a few things from the cabinet filled with medical supplies and crouched down in front of her.
“What…what are you going to do?” Sylvie asked, doing her best not to look down at her chest.
“Going to get these little fuckers off you,” he growled. He was holding a small collecting basin in one hand and a long pair of silver tweezers in the other, she saw.
“Wait!” she begged, as he started to reach for the leech attached to her right nipple. “What if they…what if they bite when you pull on them? What they bite…bite my nipples off?”
“Do they feel like they’re biting hard enough to do that?” Kross asked, arching one silvery eyebrow.
“I don’t know—I just feel numb,” Sylvie admitted. “I guess that numbing agent they generate when they, uh, feed really is effective,” she added faintly and her eyes started to close as a feeling of lightheadedness swept over her.
“Hey—wake up! Come on, Sylvia.” Kross’s voice was worried but she could have told he was anxious about her even if it wasn’t—he never called her by her first name unless things went seriously sideways.
He patted her cheeks until Sylvie opened her eyes and looked at him.
“Listen—you’re the Scientist,” he told her. “I’m just the grunt who protects you. You’ve been studying these little bastards—what can we do to make them drop off on their own?”