Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 43912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
I am up and behind the wheel when a creature of flashing orange and black lands in front of the truck. It is Fury. The Monarch. And he is terrifying in the light of day. Fortunately, I am not alone. I have a several ton truck at my disposal, and I am not afraid to use it.
“Get out of the way,” I shout out the window. “I thought you fuckers slept all day.”
“You forget, I am a creature of the day,” he laughs. “You will not leave this place so easily.”
I put the truck in gear. “I am going to turn you into a smear on the windshield if you don’t get the absolute fuck out of my way.”
He cocks his head at me, and gives me a little mocking smile “How many of us are you going to kill, human?”
“It depends how many of you try to keep me from going home.”
“Justice begged us to allow you to come to this facility, sent message after message, and here you are, so ungrateful, desperate to leave.”
“Did he demand you allow me as a human to infiltrate your little lair? Did he tell you I killed Rage, but it didn’t matter because he’d already knocked me up? And did you let him bring me even though you didn’t want him to because you wanted those eggs too? Well, you got your fucking eggs. Now. Get out of my way.”
Fury laughs. “You are so badly disciplined. I know he has had little time with you, but surely he could have taught you some manners. You may be his, but in our world, you belong to all of us in some way.”
“Well, in my world, you’re all one large can of fly spray away from being irrelevant. Get the fuck out of my way and hope I don’t come back with a bug bomb.”
“And destroy your precious little ones?”
He’s talking about the eggs. I don’t want to think about them. They are a certain kind of strangeness I can’t wrap my mind around. I don’t feel about them the way I would feel about a baby, but then again I don’t have to feed them several times a night or teach them how to not shit themselves constantly. Eggs are easier, but they’re way less cute.
“Humans don’t get attached to eggs,” I tell him. “They’re nothing to me.”
“It is common for a young female to reject her first clutch,” he says. “But I’m telling you, if I let you drive out of here, you’ll be back, except instead of coming back to your mate and clutch, you’ll be coming back to trouble.”
“Oh, is that right?”
“It is,” he says, folding his arms over his chest. He’s a scary looking motherfucker. Taking advice from him is not easy but murdering him by running him over isn’t exactly in the cards either.
“Can you get the fuck out of my way?”
“Can you get out of the truck like a good little girl?”
I curse under my breath. This is getting fucking crazy. I rev the engine and blow the horn, which makes a hell of a noise, sending birds flying into the air for miles around.
Fury doesn’t move. He stands there, unimpressed.
“If you were mine, I’d wash your mouth out with soap and whip your hide until you begged for mercy. And you wouldn’t be getting such frequent breedings, either. I’d make sure you understood cock was a privilege.”
“If you were mine, I’d put you in a jar,” I snap back.
“Oh, yes, the insect jokes, very droll. Why don’t you come out here and tell one? See what I do to you, as you have abandoned your mate and clutch.”
“Fuck off.”
“You don’t want Justice, I’ll take you.”
“No, you fucking won’t.”
“Someone will. Something will. Or it won’t. Is that what you want? A life without your mate and clutch?”
“Dude! I was single last fucking week. It takes longer than that to bond with someone and want to raise human caterpillars with them. Are they are going to be caterpillars with baby faces Christ! Or something worse?! I do not need that in my life. I need to escape this freak show, before…”
“See. I knew it. Afraid of your clutch,” Fury says. “Very common. Modern women want live young. They’re obsessed with having living, squirming, crying, small humans emerge from their bodies in a painful orgy of blood and sometimes death.”
“What do you mean, modern women?” This conversation is absolutely insane, and that is saying a lot given all the conversations I have had in my lifetime. I can only imagine what Randy Carrot would make of this. “People have babies. It’s what they do.”
“It’s not what you did.”
“I’m not. This isn’t… Stand aside and let me go.”
“I told Justice I would keep watch while he slept, and I intend to do that. I do not think you are the murderer you appeared to be when you came here. I think you are a confused young woman with a destiny she wants to fight, because everybody always fights their destiny.”