Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 88010 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88010 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
I feel his grip tighten just a fraction.
“This is not a game, Melissa. This is more real than the world you left. The human realm is small, a little bauble hanging in space. It is limited in so many respects, run by petty small men with cruel intentions. It has limited natural resources, and it is choking on its own waste. You have been brought to a world that runs on entirely different systems. Where magic is real, where you have been chosen as the mate of the highest in the land, and you run off to murder innocent woodland creatures because you’ve been taught that’s what a human does? I will teach you again, little human. I will give you the lessons you needed to learn a long time ago, and I will make sure they stick. Let’s start with killing. If you want to kill cleanly, you have to practice. What kind of practice have you engaged in?”
“Well, I played the…” I’m scared to even say the word ‘game,’ since it seems to infuriate him so much.
“Oh, yes, you clicked a button and you thought it meant something. But it doesn’t, does it. It’s a hollow shell of reality. It diminishes it by tricking your mind into thinking something is being achieved when in reality, nothing is being achieved.”
I’ve heard all these arguments against games before, but they’re not actually arguments against games. They’re arguments against pretending real life is a game.
“What do you think I should do with you?”
“Me?” I squeak the word. “What do I think?”
“Yes. You told me not five minutes ago that you think you deserve death. I will always preserve your life at all costs. So tell me what else you think you deserve. Nothing so melodramatic as an execution, but something that will teach you what you need to learn.”
I look into his eyes and I know for sure he already has his intention set for me. He’s going to punish me, and I can either make it better or worse by saying the right thing.
“Tell me. What should happen to you?”
“I don’t know,” I whimper as his eyes bore into mine. “You’re scary.”
“Am I? Am I more frightening than an arrow between the shoulder blades? Or a rusty hatchet through the skull?”
“I know I fucked up. I get it.”
“I suspect you’ve said some variant of that a hundred times or more,” he says. “Don’t forget, I saw your permanent record.”
“You did? I didn’t know those were actually real. Permanent records, I mean.”
“I gathered all the records I could on you. You have been in trouble your whole life. You never got into serious trouble because you were shielded by people who thought they were doing you a favor, but instead led you down a path that very nearly saw you deprived of the degree you were deeply in debt for. Your life on Earth was going to become far darker than you can imagine.”
“I was going to work for my friend’s dad’s friend. Not that dark.”
“So naive. I was the one who took you. If someone else had? You would have…”
“What, ended up kidnapped and fucking him?” I snap back, finally giving back some of the attitude he’s giving me, acting like he is perfect and I am some sort of stray from a shitty planet. Maybe Earth isn’t great. Maybe humans are not great. I don’t think we ever pretended we were. Most of what we do is complain about how we all suck. He’s not telling me anything I don’t know. I could say much worse things about the world I am from that are much truer. The horrors he’s mentioning barely count considering some I could name.
He narrows his eyes at me.
“You think what I have done to you is cruel and wrong.”
“You’re not exactly the poster child for…”
“I am not here to argue with you. I am here because I needed to save your life, because you made it necessary to save it. You can’t tell me what should be done with you because you do not know what should be done with you. So let me tell you what is to be done.” He lets go of my chin and steps away from me quite deliberately.
“You are due another breeding,” he says. “And a thrashing.”
He reaches out and casually pushes a tree over. It falls slowly at first before crashing to the ground, spraying leaves and bits of bark in the process. “Bend over,” he orders. “Now.”
I hesitate.
He does not allow it.
He closes the distance between us, takes me by the back of the neck, and marches me over to the tree, yanking clothing away from my rear with his rough, clawed hand.
“Bend. Over.”
The thunderous tone of his voice combined with the absolute stillness of his body is intimidating. He glares at me with an intensity that finally makes me move. I bend over the tree, which is thick enough to lift my hips so far off the ground that my toes have some difficulty touching it.