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)
My ass is burning, and that makes it a little harder to take his point on board, but he does make a good point. My father should be looking for me. Would be looking for me.
So maybe he’s right. If my father could have found me, he would have done so. He wouldn’t be walking aimlessly around a fight in an alien fairground. Not unless he’d had a lobotomy or something like that.
“Do you understand? Or do I need to spank you again?” The way Freak asks it is affectionate, so it doesn’t feel as bad as it might otherwise.
“I guess,” I say, which is deliberately not a promise. I am not going to give up on looking for my family. And if I get a chance to see him again, I’m going to take it.
Freak sighs. “You are going to stay here in our room,” he says. “You’re grounded.”
“What? Why?”
“You know why. I can’t trust you off this ship, so you won’t be getting off the ship,” he says.
“But you’re going to get off the ship. What’s going to stop me from just doing it once you’re gone?”
“Fear of being punished,” he growls at me. “If you disobey me for a second time today, I will plug your ass, spank your pussy, and then fuck that naughty hole of yours. Understand?”
My body understands that tone as much as it understands the various specifics of that very detailed threat. His teeth flash and his eyes narrow and I know that now that he’s said those things, he’s probably think about doing them.
He scruffs the hair on the back of my head and pulls me close, bending down to dominate me.
“And regardless, when I get back, you will answer to me, pet.”
“Thought I already did,” I squeak.
“I haven’t even begun,” he promises, flashing a broad and dangerous grin.
CHAPTER 7
Mara
And so life goes for the next number of indeterminable days.
I forget that I am on a small fighter ship. I am too busy being mated by Freak, and coming to enjoy the strangeness of his comrades when I get the chance to see them all interacting. The ship isn’t really big enough to have a lot of separation, so I am able to overhear much of their interactions.
They are more normal, for want of a better term, than I expected them to be when I first met them. The home realm made every single one of them seem super calm and uptight, but it is obvious that being in the real universe changes them. I don’t think beings of peace, calm, and light can remain that way when they have to interact with the worlds as they are. There’s probably something deeply philosophical in there.
The days, such as they are, are filled with us flying about and acting, as far as I can tell, like the space police. There’s a war on, I’m told. There’s always a war on somewhere. A lot of planets have several wars happening, and then you get into the wars between worlds and they start getting numerous very quickly.
I’m familiar with some, and not with others. We are traveling outside the space my father used to take me now. I can also tell that some wars are personal. The aliens who took Freak are enemy number one, and their allies are not considered as being much better.
I listen to what is being said and I try to stay out of the way. I want to hear as much as I can hear, and understand as much as I can.
One day, without warning, our war starts, and everything changes forever.
“We’ve got incoming,” Fidas says. “Three units of Baktari fighters on their way to hijack a peace envoy. It’s against the timeline.”
“Eliminate them,” Freak says.
He shifts from tender and sweet to absolutely ruthless and remorseless in a moment. I see him become the captain of this vessel, and I watch as the other three fall in with him. Every one of them knows their jobs. They have their own stations and consoles, and they operate them with a smoothness that I wouldn’t have imagined when I first met them in their home realm.
“Do we have missiles loaded?”
“Yes,” Drak says. “Bays one through twelve all locked and loaded.”
“Open a channel,” Freak says.
“Open,” Aric confirms.
“Baktari vessels, your current actions are against the timeline. Retreat immediately or face quantum devastation.”
Something comes back. It sounds garbled to me, but the Psyons seem to understand it without trouble.
“Drak, launch one missile. Take out the lead ship. With any luck those bringing up the rear will think better of this plan.” Freak gives the orders smoothly and almost clinically.
He seems like a different creature than the one I have had hot trysts with. This is an alien who wields power so easily it feels natural. If I had to make a decision like that, I’d be sick to my stomach. He holds power over life and death, and he makes calls about them like I order off a menu. One missile, over easy.