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)
Shurla came forward eagerly, flipping her bright pink hair with an excited little toss of her head as she stood in front of Mother Toone and Guard Spoone.
“Now, in order to show your obedience to your mate and your blind trust in the will of the Shining Star, you must be bound and blindfolded on the way to the ceremony,” Mother Toone explained, as Guard Spoone tied a bright red handkerchief around Shurla’s eyes and a bright blue one around her wrists. “Plus, it adds to the excitement—don’t you think?”
“I’m so, so, so excited!” Shurla gushed and giggled as she allowed herself to be bound and tied with no resistance at all. “But when do we get to see our Forever Mates, Mother Toone? When?”
“At the point in the ceremony when our Glorious Leader has given you formally to your Forever Mate, he will remove your blindfold and you will see him for the first time.” Mother Toone smiled indulgently. “All right now—who’s next?”
Penny felt her heart sink as she watched the other women go up and hold out their wrists eagerly to be bound. How could she possibly escape if she was blindfolded and had her hands tied? Her plan to run the minute no one was looking was impossible if she couldn’t see where she was going.
What was she going to do now?
I’ll tell you what you’re going to do now, whispered a cynical little voice in her head that sounded a lot like Claudette. You’re going to get married and bred and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.
Penny tried to push the little voice away, but she was terribly afraid it was right.
Twenty-Nine
V didn’t like the fucking grass skirt thing they were making him wear but the pain square stuck to the side of his neck ensured that he didn’t complain. He and the rest of the males who were supposed to meet their “Forever Mates,” were waiting at the bottom of the Amphitheater for the Unification Ceremony to begin.
The Compound’s public meeting place was like a giant bowl someone had carved out of the ground. Rows of tiered, gray stone benches rose up all around them like round bleachers. They were already beginning to fill with the longtime residents of the Compound—both the breeders and NeverBreeders.
Down where V and the six other males were standing, there were several NeverBreeder guards with pain prods to make sure everyone stayed in order. Not a surprising precaution, V thought, since every last one of them was horny out of his fucking mind—V himself included.
It was something in the air here, he thought, as he caught another whiff of the warm, spicy breeze circulating down at the bottom of the Amphitheater. Maybe the Spice the “Glorious Leader” had mentioned during their first meeting. It made you fucking crazy. He hadn’t felt so constantly sexually needy since adolescence.
V, like the rest of the males who had been housed in his dormitory, had been beating off regularly to ease the tension. Then, about a week ago, they’d been moved out of the dorm and each of them had been given their own “Love Hut” which was the fucking stupid name given to the little white cottages that made up the breeder residences in the Compound. They’d also been assigned their jobs—(V’s was in the fucking hothouse, of all places, tending the fruit trees.)
The idea, he supposed, was for all of them to get used to the rhythm of everyday life here in the Compound by the time the Unification Ceremony finally rolled around. But there was one thing he couldn’t get used to—the non-con bracelets they’d all been fitted with before they left the dorm.
“These will keep you from touching yourselves in a sexual way while you live in the Compound,” the “Glorious Leader” had explained almost primly, when some of the males had complained. All of them but V might be under the sway of the hypno-whispers, but they were still red-blooded males who needed a release from time to time.
“If I can’t beat my meat, how’m I gonna get relief?” one male—a huge Karsian with a hunched back and a dick that unfurled almost down to the ground—demanded. His name was “Skrug” and he was nearly as stupid as he looked, in V’s opinion.
“Yeah—I need to get off! Somethin’ about this place makes me fuckin’ horny!” declared another male—a Jonquin with green skin and three horns sprouting from his forehead like a strange kind of crown.
“We’re asking you to keep mostly chaste for the solar week leading up to your Unification Ceremony so that your seed will be extra strong for breeding when you finally meet your beautiful Forever Mates,” the “Glorious Leader” explained.
“Does that mean you’ll take the non-cons off after our Joining Night?” V had asked, raising an eyebrow.