Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Other times the dream shifted, curdled, and he was back in the public square outside the Halls of Justice. Lexi was locked in the heavy wooden stocks again—but this time, when he ran toward her, he was too late. She hung limp, head bowed, her body utterly still.
Dead.
Brandt woke from those nightmares gasping, her name raw on his tongue and sweat running down his temples. He would try to get back to sleep but sleep wouldn’t come—only thoughts of her in his arms, breathing his name as he held her tight.
She’s taken me over, he thought bleakly. Alexandra has stolen my soul, and I can’t do a damn thing about it.
Not that he really wanted to. What he wanted was to go to her—to admit his love and beg her to forgive him. Which of course was the one thing he couldn’t do.
Brandt dropped his head into his hands, his eyes gritty and burning from lack of sleep. He had never felt so wretched—so torn apart—not even in the rawest days after his wife’s death. Because Lexi was alive, she was out there walking around…but she was lost to him all the same.
The only thing he could hold on to was the thin thread of knowing he would see her again at the end of the week, when she returned for her scheduled session. On Friday night, he would see her sweet face and curvy body again. He wouldn’t be able to Claim her, but at least he would see her.
Until then, he would live in torment.
45
LEXI
The first thing Lexi did when she got home was check her bank account.
All thirty-six thousand dollars were there. Neat, black numbers glowing on the little screen.
It felt like blood money. She had earned it with emotional pain and torment and she felt hollow inside, just looking at the numbers on the screen. What did any of it matter when her heart was shattered and there was no repairing it?
Still…Uncle Herbert was safe now. That was something.
That first night back, after Aunt Helen had gone to bed, she found her uncle in the living room, slouched in his recliner with the TV buzzing low.
“I’ve got it,” she told him. Her throat was tight, but she forced herself to hold out her tablet so he could see the number glowing on the screen. “The money. All of it. I already transferred twenty thousand into your account. You can pay Butcher off.”
Uncle Herbert sat up straighter, his eyes going wide behind his glasses.
“But, Lexi-girl—how did you ever earn all this in a week?”
Her heart squeezed.
What would he say if I told him the truth? Well, Uncle Herbert, I went to an alien planet—Bio-Terius Centra—and let a Beast Kindred scientist hook me to a milking machine and fuck me with an alien dildo until my breasts squirted nectar. Then, after I fell in love with him, he dropped me like a sack of garbage. That’s how I earned it.
But she couldn’t tell him that. The very thought made her squirm inside.
Instead, she forced a smile that felt brittle on her lips.
“I did some work for the Kindred while I was visiting Natalie. You know how well they pay. So don’t worry—it’s fine. I told you I’d get the money and I did. Now just hurry and pay off that horrible Butcher guy and never, ever borrow money from him again.”
His eyes shone with sudden tears. He got up and hugged her, his arms trembling around her shoulders.
“Thank you, Lexi-girl. You saved me and your aunt both—and the house. I’ve got a meeting with Butcher Friday night. I’ll pay him everything I owe him then.”
Lexi hugged him back, guilt clawing at her throat. She’d saved her uncle and aunt and their house, but who was going to save her from the aching pain still filling her?
No one, that was who. She was just going to have to get over it. And in the meantime, it was back to work.
Spring Break was over, and reality crashed back over her like a tidal wave.
The middle school hallways where she taught smelled of bleach and cafeteria pizza. Sneakers squeaked on the floors and lockers slamming filled her ears. Her classroom was the same—rows of scratched desks, curling posters on the walls—but Lexi wasn’t.
She felt dead inside.
The trip to Bio-Terius Centra already seemed like a fever dream. The lavender-scented air…the four-eyed merchants…the humiliation and the aching sweetness of letting herself be milked…it seemed impossible that it had all been real. And of course Brandt—the big Kindred was the most improbable part of the whole experience. His golden eyes when they darkened with need…the way his deep voice rumbled through her when he called her little Lexi…the feeling of his big hands on her body when he touched her and tasted her and made her come for him…