Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 63580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
“A human. That’s an actual human,” she says. “I thought it was perhaps an artifact of your previous place, but that… that’s actually a human female.”
“Yes,” Freak-slash-Tasin says quite proudly.
“Really, Tasin,” she lectures him, speaking to him in a tone that would be more appropriate if I were a plague-riddled rat as she recoils from the pair of us, drawing her gleaming robes tighter about herself as if they might protect her from me. “A human. Here. In our realm. How is she even capable of perceiving this place?”
He shrugs. “Maybe humans have more capacity for realm walking than we previously thought.”
“Keep her with you,” the woman says, giving me a disapproving stare that goes right through me. I feel as though every single cell in my body is being found wanting. The very DNA in my cells is upsetting to her, I think.
Fair, I guess.
Now I know how ratty little stray dogs feel when they get rescued and taken home to the dismay of the homeowner. I feel like I need to be bathed and given a flea treatment, which is ridiculous because there haven’t been fleas on our colony ever.
“Let me get the two of you settled before you go before the council, Tasin,” she says. “Come along.”
We follow her through the gleaming halls to a room where there is a large white bed beneath a sparkling arched ceiling. It is beautiful, and I know I am seeing something humans were never meant to see. It makes my mind feel like it is being stretched from the inside out. Strange sensation, but not entirely unpleasant.
“I am going to spread the good news that you have arrived,” she says. “The council will be so pleased to know that you were not, in fact, lost to us.”
“I almost was,” he says. “The DC have developed prisons for our bodies and minds alike. It is not as safe as it used to be.”
I listen with my ears pricked. He has been so cagey about what happened to him. I don’t know who the DC are, but I am guessing they are the bad guys. Maybe they’re on the other side of the war. That would make a lot of sense.
“I am sorry, Tasin,” she says. “That must have been very unpleasant for you.”
He nods. “Thank you.”
“That’s it?” I exclaim. “He was tortured, for years! They hurt him over and over, and all you can say, after sitting here in your little dreamy sand realm, is oh, that must have been very unpleasant?”
She gives me a look that is more puzzled than offended, like I’m a talking parrot that somehow made a coherent sentence, or maybe one of those dogs that can talk with the buttons.
“Easy,” Freak says, rubbing my back in soothing circles. “It’s okay, pet. We have different ways of communicating here.”
“Are they bad and stupid and awful and kind of generally disinterested? Because that would make a lot of sense,” I say.
I look up at him, and see how hard he is trying not to find this interaction amusing.
“I will see if I can find appropriate confines for the animal before we debrief,” Alara says. “We won’t be able to hear ourselves think over all that yapping otherwise.”
“Oh, that’s rich,” I say. “Make a few good points and suddenly I’m yapping?”
I am being pretty combative, but it feels to me like my mate deserves a much warmer and more apologetic welcome home than he is currently getting. He survived something that would have broken most of these pretty psychic aliens, I bet. He’s big and strong and brave, and…
“She’s very fond of you,” Alara says.
In a flash, I realize that she read my thoughts.
“Get out of my mind!”
“I’d love to, but your mind is currently louder than a, how does your species describe these things? Freight train?”
“Archaic reference,” Freak says. “They haven’t had trains in millennia.”
“Pity,” the matriarch says. “I always liked trains.”
Before the meeting can get any more tense, someone decides to interrupt, and I could not be gladder for it.
“Tasin!” Another one of his kind bursts into the room. This one is younger, male, and entirely exuberant. His hair is longish and his face is broad, and he is wearing robes much like Greek or Roman ones, and they do nothing to stop me from seeing his rippling alien musculature. Whatever these creatures are, they are universally hot.
“Miko!” Freak responds in kind. He puts me down for a moment, which confuses me, but then the newcomer physically rushes him and slams his chest into Freak’s, and I realize that I’ve just been saved serious rough contact.
“Easy,” Freak laughs. “You’re frightening my pet.”
I don’t think Miko even saw me until Freak pointed to me and confirmed that I exist. His eyes widen as he looks at me too, but in pleasure, not horror the way the woman’s did.