Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 76857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Looking down at my own empty hand, I wondered what it might be like to have someone hold it. To know a man’s smile. To be treated like a female and not a vorec killing machine.
I envied enough to find myself unhappy and cut off such thoughts before they might serve as a distraction. Perhaps sitting at a restaurant and eating real food would be lovely. But I wanted the fog, and no mate would ever allow it.
Distractions or desires, I’d had years to learn to squash them into mental dust. All I required to live my life on my terms was one willing man, for however long it might take him to put himself inside me and end my obligation to the academy.
Yet, it seemed I was not the only one romanticizing the view.
Voice dreamy, Maeve dared whisper, “Can you imagine what it must be like to go there? To sit by the water and feel the wind on your face?”
It was a dangerous fantasy. “It’s all couples. You’d have to be mated.”
Her lip curled at the thought. Like me, Maeve had no interest in wasting time bound to a man. “There must be places for women. This is just one small section of a massive city.”
A confusing city with labyrinth-like streets that made no sense and led in circles. Getting back to the academy would be far more difficult than getting to that manmade lake. “Over there. Do you see that hybrid male walking alone? I think we should follow him.”
Follow him, we did.
Past a small park of trees, down a street of shops closed up for the day, into a quieter neighborhood less tidy than the pretty reservoir circle.
His destination? A bar aptly named The Fog. It boasted the only working illumination on the street, seemed populated but not crowded, and there were many vantage points for us to run surveillance while we came up with a plan.
First, I had to get in unseen.
Next, I had to find a man willing to have sex with me.
Should all go well, I would be ruined by the end of the night.
11
“God, it stinks in here.” Hand to her nose, Maeve stayed within the shadows, the pair of us having waited hours to make our approach.
Getting inside had not been complicated. The bar, after all, was not the prison of the academy. The business desired patrons, boasted windows and back doors, with zero security beyond a simple lock easily picked with a hairpin.
With the burgundy-papered wall to our back—as far from the majority of The Fog’s strictly hybrid patrons as possible—Maeve and I watched hybrid men in their native habitat.
They do stink.
I could not say it was necessarily one bad odor, but the blend of them… the commingling of so much scent was nauseating. The spicy, the sweet, the peppery, the musk.
Boys at the academy didn’t boast a smell I would describe as thick, not that they always smelled pleasant. But the air in The Fog was eye-watering.
Even if each breath was disgusting, all other factors seemed to play in our favor. Lights were low. Poor acoustics roughed up friendly banter, drowning our whispers beneath a noisy drone.
The space itself was not leaning toward cozy but utilitarian, peppered with amusements and random worn posters on the walls. A game of darts, some recreation involving a large table and two sticks used to hit small balls into six evenly spaced holes.
There were jovial spirits and cheerfulness while hazy beverages were sipped. Comradery and excitement when another friend might come through the door.
I had never seen males relaxed, had never heard them share in genial conversation. It made them far less intimidating than expected. In fact, they were not much different than the females in our dorm after the vault was sealed.
A good sign we had found the right place to move forward with our plan.
Men of all sizes were on display, out of uniform and laughing with compatriots, some loud, some quietly listening. Everyone enjoying themselves.
Even we began to relax, leaning against the wall to marvel and observe.
It did not take long for one to notice me.
Our eyes met, and a look of confusion crossed the stranger’s face.
I could only imagine his thoughts. A female in a male space who dared hold eye contact in a way that would have seen both of us beaten at the academy. Well, I would have been beaten. He might have been hanged.
Was I perceived as a dangerous intruder half-hidden by shadows?
Should I smile or wave to show him my intentions were good?
Awkward and unsure, I did nothing but watch him watching me.
Yet, without hesitation, he approached all the same and did so in such a way that it attracted no attention from his peers. One moment, he was part of the group; the next, he flowed to my side.