Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
“Okay.” Penny nodded and tried not to wince at the idea of another painful sting. “I’ll let you know.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
And V’rex led the way out of the hollow tree trunk and into the jungle.
Eighty-One
They trekked through the jungle until they came to the NeverBreeders’ road and followed it carefully, keeping a sharp eye out for the little orange bastards either coming or going. To V’s relief, they saw no one, though the road seemed to stretch on and on forever.
Of course, he had been knocked out on his earlier trip between the landing pad and the Compound, and Penelope had only been awake for part of her own journey, so they had no idea how far they had to travel. V just hoped they could get to their destination before they died of thirst. The steamy humidity and heat of the jungle was merciless, making them sweat freely, which meant they were losing a lot of moisture without being able to replace it.
At least the second sting he’d given Penelope seemed to have protected her from the poisons. V’rex was glad about that—he didn’t know if he could bring himself to sting her again. Watching her recoil from his sting and seeing the tears of pain in her big brown eyes—tears he had put there—had been fucking awful.
And this time her emotions hadn’t been muddled so the pain he had caused her had come through loud and clear. It had been horrible to feel her agony and know that he had caused it—fucking unbearable.
No Kindred ever wants to hurt his mate, even by accident—it’s unthinkable. The way V’rex felt about causing the woman he loved pain was the same way a mother would feel about accidentally slamming her child’s hand in a car door. Even though the pain was inflicted by accident, it still caused a flood of shame and horror and distress—so much so that he could hardly concentrate on anything else.
So much so that he almost missed the NeverBreeders guards coming towards them with a cartload of new breeder males for the Compound.
At the last minute, his eye picked it up, though and he grabbed Penny’s arm and dragged her off the road.
“What? What is it?” she gasped as they hid themselves in the undergrowth.
“NeverBreeders with a fresh load of males for the Compound,” V’rex growled softly. “Comin’ our way.”
“They are?” She leaned forward and squinted at the road. “You must have amazing eyesight—I don’t see anything.”
“Kindred vision,” V said shortly. “Now listen—here’s what we’re gonna do…”
Eighty-Two
Drace struggled against the manacles that bound his wrists behind his back. They were made of some kind of unbreakable polymerized alloy he’d never encountered, but that didn’t stop him. He was a Havoc which meant he never gave up, no matter how hopeless the odds.
The little orange bastards who had kidnapped him were walking along beside the hover cart, which was winding its way through a jungle. It was fucking hot and Drace had a headache—a pounding in his skull which was probably the direct result of whatever knock-out drugs his kidnappers had used.
Nor was he their only prisoner. There were two other males in the cart with him—a huge two-headed Trollox who took up most of the available room in the cart on his own, and a squinty-eyed Turpine who had been trying to sell Drace on the idea of new ion thrusters for his ship before both of them had been drugged and abducted.
There were nine guards—nine little orange bastards walking around the cart—all of them with either blasters or pain-prods. Those actually wouldn’t have been bad odds if the three prisoners in the hover cart had been unbound, Drace speculated.
The Trollox alone could probably rip the heads off six of their abductors in a matter of seconds if given a chance. All four of his beady red eyes were glaring with anger at the little orange humanoids and red drool was running down his tusks. The side of the cart he sat on was listing downwards so that the bottom of the hover cart was nearly dragging in the dirt. He looked so menacing, that even their captors seemed to have doubts about him.
“I do not think that we should have captured the Trollox, Voone,” one of them was saying to another. “His potential for violence is vast and I do not know if he will be susceptible to the hypno-whispers.”
“But did you see the size of his maleness, Roone?” the other guard argued. “His fertility is extreme! He will be able to father many fetuses for our Glorious Leader.”
Drace wondered what in the Seven Hells they were going on about. Who was the Glorious Leader and what need did he have for a super-fertile Trollox? What kind of a fucked-up mess had he been dragged into, anyway?