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)
She picked her way through the crowd, trying to get a look behind the crowded bar. Where was the bartender Granny Two-two had told her to speak to? The bald, silver-skinned guy called Grunge? Where…
And that was when her eyes met the golden gaze of a man so big he could only be a Kindred…or in this case, a Kindred Hybrid.
Oh my God, is that him? Is that the guy Kat was warning me about? Penny asked herself as the Hybrid’s pale gold eyes roamed over her body. The gold and black tattoos seemed to answer her question—he must be V’rex, the pirate Kat and Sylvan had told her about—the one they suspected was responsible for the sudden rash of abductions and disappearances over the past six months.
And he was looking at her.
Oh my God! How had she ended up not only in the exact spaceport she’d been told to avoid, but also in the same room with the exact man she’d been told to stay away from at all costs?
How bad could her luck be?
As the man with the golden eyes stared straight at her, she had a bad feeling that she was about to find out.
Her heart started hammering and she clutched the black and white toupee so tightly her knuckles turned white. Kat’s words about girls being kidnapped and sold as sex slaves, so easily dismissed on the Mother Ship, now came back to haunt her.
She’d thought at the time, that nobody would want to add plus-size Penny to their sexy space harem. But despite the form-fitting warm-skin which clung to her overlarge hips and ass, V’rex—if he really was V’rex—was staring at her like she was a delicious dessert and he was starving to death. His golden eyes half-lidded with desire, he got off his stool, clearly meaning to head in her direction.
Penny felt her entire body clench with fear. She had to get out of here—get away from him before he came for her!
She ducked through the crowd, heading for the back of the bar. Maybe there would be a ladies room back there—or its alien equivalent—that she could hide out in until he left.
As she pushed past bar patrons and obvious prostitutes, Penny looked desperately for a door to duck into—any door would do! A broom closet, a bathroom—just someplace to hide where the huge, menacing V’rex couldn’t find her.
The first one she came to was a swinging silver door with some alien markings on it. Penny didn’t stop to try and puzzle them out, she pushed through the door and found herself in a huge, echoing room…
A room that seemed to be entirely filled with long, purple tentacles.
Fourteen
“What in the world?” Penny gasped, looking around in confusion. She started to back out the way she’d come, but she found a long, thick, purple tentacle was blocking her way. Quickly, she skittered to one side, trying to avoid it, only to find another one reaching for her.
With a little scream, she tried to back away but before she could do anything, the seeking tentacle was grabbing at her. It caught the black and white skunk-looking toupee and ripped it out of her hands.
“Hey, wait—I need that!” Penny blurted.
But it was too late—the tentacle which had taken the precious toupee had already handed it off to another set of tentacles on the other side of the room.
As Penny watched, one of the tentacles took a sharp cleaver and began to dice the toupee into tiny, hairy fragments. A third tentacle swept up some of the black and white hair and sprinkled it like a garnish over a steaming plate filled with black and purple lumps. Then a fourth tentacle pushed the plate through a low window and rang a bell.
Penny heard someone yell, “Order up!” and a set of hands appeared at the window and snatched the plate away.
It was exactly like a restaurant, Penny thought, feeling dazed. Looking around, she saw that the tentacles—there seemed to be about fifty of them in different sizes and lengths—were all engaged in some kind of chopping or cooking or stirring.
To one side of her a tentacle was stirring a huge bubbling pot of bright blue sludge while two other tentacles dumped ingredients into it. Another group of five or six tentacles were working on some kind of grill, turning chunks of green meat or vegetables—Penny really couldn’t tell which—over an open flame. Further on, two muscular tentacles were kneading what appeared to be a huge lump of pink dough.
As she stared at the scene around her, Penny at last began to understand what was going on in this room—it was a kitchen. And somehow the owner of the purple tentacles was the chef.
She looked to the center of the room and saw a purple lump, about as big as a large man. There were three tiny eyes in the middle of the lump, though she didn’t see any nose or mouth. The eyes looked sleepy and stupid, which surprised her, considering all the complicated tasks the purple octopus looking creature was doing at one time with its many tentacles.