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)
“I am sure you can find a mate to take you in hand,” I assure her.
She laughs inside my mind.
I have a flash of someone. Some… thing. It is very brief, and then it is completely gone.
“I think I should take her to a more human space,” I tell her. “It has been wonderful to see you all again, but humans need to be in meat space.”
Alara nods. “There is much work to be done,” she says. “I will see what I can find for you and your little animal.”
I hear the beginning of a growl in my pet’s throat. She had better get control of herself, or I will be forced to take even harsher measures. I do not want to, but I feel obliged.
* * *
Mara
Ow.
Ow. Fucking ow.
My butt hurts like hell. I feel like I have been branded damn near, spanked so thoroughly I won’t be able to sit down. It’s not fair. Just because I tried to… well, maybe it is fair.
Still doesn’t feel very good. I didn’t think he’d do that to me, but maybe that was naivety on my part. I am sure Freak is capable of all sorts of things besides the ones he just did to me. He is a monster, just like all of the others who are here, acting all fancy and being all terrifying.
I want to be home, but the home I want to be in doesn’t exist anymore. It stopped being my home years ago when my father disappeared. I used to have a place that felt like it was mine, a soft place furnished with loving memories. My mother died when I was a baby. He raised me. Treated me like a son in many ways. Always took me on his merchant trips, and then when we would return to the colony, there would be long, lazy weeks and months. He taught me to read. He taught me to shoot. He showed me how to hunt. And all the while the elders of the colony told me I should be prepared for marriage.
But he wouldn’t do that to me. He told them I was made to follow in his footsteps. And then one day, he took off without me. They said he had to. That the mission he went on was too sensitive, and too dangerous.
He never came back.
Months passed. I waited. I grew older. I became desirable. My father’s business became mine, but I was not permitted to run it.
And then, there was the offer of marriage. It came from the elders’ middle son. A dull man with a dull brain, fifteen years older than me and wanting me as a housemaid and broodmare.
I refused.
And then they gave me the option to go to the sun.
I took that instead.
My life these last few days has been desperation, survival at all costs, pretending that I love and am loved. And now the pain of the thrashing has broken through all my defenses and all I can do is cry.
Freak snugs me close and carries me away from the scene, away from the aliens he just punished me in front of.
“Breathe, pet,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry I had to do that, but an example had to be made, and you tried to bite our leader.”
I take in a deep breath. I don’t want to be crying either, but he got all the sadness out of me all at once, including the sadness about things I didn’t even know I was still sad about.
“I can feel it all inside you,” he says. I remember, then, that he knows a lot more than most men would. When I bring these sorrows to the fore of my mind, he can see them.
“You deserved better,” he murmurs against my ear. “The people who tried to turn you into a sacrifice so they could steal your father’s wealth are not men. They are monsters.”
I can feel his anger through his embrace, and I realize that I can experience his thoughts as well, just not in a magical sort of way.
“Why do you care?” I ask the question, looking up at him with real curiosity. There are still tears in my eyes, but for the most part they have stopped flowing. I should be mad at him for spanking me like that, but I guess I did try to attack the important woman, and he had to do something about it. Could have been worse, I guess.
“Yes,” he says. “It could have been worse. You’re lucky you’re not currently muzzled, you little animal.”
“Stop reading my mind,” I grumble.
“I’m not intentionally reading your mind,” he laughs. “It’s just how my mind works. I am sorry, pet. I know humans like to think of their private thoughts as being sacred. Unfortunately, you will never be able to hide from me, not even in the confines of your skull.”