Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 79927 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79927 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
“C—c’mon, b—boy,” she said, her teeth chattering as she shut off the spray and recoiled the hose. “Let’s get inside before we f—f—freeze!”
She took him out of the washing shed–which she often used on the larger animals if they got dirty or needed flea or tick treatments–and brought him around to the side of her house–her “home-dome” as she called it.
Her home-dome was a large, rounded, half—spherical structure that reminded her a little bit of an igloo–if an igloo was big enough to stand in and sectioned into several rooms inside. It had a sliding door that was activated by her handprint alone–no one else could come in or out, which was why she felt safe at night, even as a woman alone on a strange planet.
Kiera pressed her hand to the door and watched as her palm and fingers were outlined in green light. A soft, sexless voice murmured,
“Entry granted. Welcome home, Kiera.”
And then the silver panel of the door whooshed open, allowing them inside.
Kiera stepped in quickly and the wolf was right on her heels. The minute she got past the narrow entryway and into the main living area, she said,
“Firewall high!”
At once, the crystalline wall opposite the large, overstuffed couch flared to life, and blue, gold, green, and purple flames began dancing. The wolf, standing beside her gave a startled, “Whuff!” and jumped back.
“It’s all right, boy,” Kiera told him quickly, putting a hand on his still—wet head. “This is just to warm us up a little bit. It gets really cold here at night and the flames are behind the wall. See? They can’t hurt you.”
She waved her hand in front of the flame wall, showing that she wasn’t getting burned or injured.
The wolf cocked his head to one side, studying her actions intensely. He looked like someone trying to grasp an important concept, Kiera thought. He also looked bedraggled and completely adorable.
“Come with me,” she said to him. “We can look at the fire later. Right now, I want a more thorough bath–let’s get into the bathing pool.”
The Monstrum, like their more humanoid Kindred brethren, believed in having huge soaking tubs in all their domiciles. Accordingly, when they had built Kiera’s home-dome, they had added a huge, luxurious bathing suite that included a bathing pool big enough to swim in. The water was continuously cycled so Kiera wasn’t worried about having fur floating in her bathwater–it should be safe to take her new pet in with her as long as he wanted to go.
“Come on,” she said to him again. “Do you like to swim? I mean in clean water–not that slimy algae stuff,” she added.
She didn’t know why she was talking to him like he was a person. Usually she baby—talked all her animals, including her ancient, elderly cat, Rufus, who was probably hiding right now because he smelled a new animal in the house. But with the wolf, it just felt better to talk to him in a regular tone of voice.
And it seemed to work, since he appeared to understand what she was saying. He nodded his huge head and made a soft chuffing sound that sounded affirmative.
“Good, so you do like to swim. Well, let’s go swimming and get all cleaned up,” Kiera told him.
She led the way into the bathing suite–which had a fitted paving stone floor that was heated from underneath by the same hot water that flowed through the bathing pool. It meant she never had cold feet in the morning, which was nice–especially since the temperature dipped so sharply during the nights here.
The bathing pool was inset into the floor and had a shimmering, nearly invisible cover over it so you couldn’t accidentally fall in. Kiera tapped it with her toes and the shining cover slid into the small crack in the floor where it was stored when she was bathing.
The water appeared to be deep purple, thanks to the smooth stones that lined the bottom, and the surface rippled gently with the motion of circulation and filtration. All around the edge of the pool, vegetation was growing. There were several trees with long, willowy branches covered in beautiful pink and purple flowers that trailed in the water as well as beautiful tall grasses that smelled like night—blooming jasmine.
There were even some very strange—looking flowers that Iyanna had put there just for her when she was helping to design this part of the home-dome. These plants or “pleasure blooms” as they were sometimes called, grew smooth, cylindrical flowers in varying sizes.
“What in the world are those?” Kiera had demanded, when she first saw the waxy cylinders. “Dildo plants?”
Because that was what they looked like, honestly–long, waxy dildos in different sizes.
Iyanna had burst out laughing.
“Basically, yes,” she’d said. She went on to explain that the Monstrum used these plants for “self—pleasure.” There were also broad red blooms that sucked as well as the dildo blooms which were good at thrusting. Most of the Monstrum warriors used the sucking blooms, because there were almost no Monstrum females, except for a few elderly priestesses who lived in their Sacred Grove aboard the Monstrum Mother Ship.