Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 62128 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62128 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
“I will come for you in the morning, Raine, and you will have your reckoning in the Hall of Justice. Think about that before you open your mouth again.”
“You’re going to regret this,” I promise him. “There’s no fucking way this is going to go the way you think it is.”
“I could say the same to you.” He smiles through the bars.
He is so sure of himself, and so damn mean. Yes. Mean. That’s what he is. So I gave Sullivan a hard time. So what? Just because she accidentally fucked her way into being the alpha’s mate doesn’t mean she’s not the bane of my fucking existence. I don’t feel sorry for what I did. And I’m not going to be sorry tomorrow either. I absolutely refuse to be. He can do what he likes to me. I will remain true to the one thing I have left. Not my values. Not my morals. Just the absolute certainty that Sullivan deserves everything she gets.
“Get fucked.”
“Goodnight, Raine.”
He turns and walks away.
I restrain the urge to call out to him with some kind of apology or beg him to come back and not to leave me here in this cell. I’ve been in cells before, and I know that jailers are hardened. They don’t show mercy because you beg and whine. At his heart, Avel is a jailer.
I want to hate him right now. As much as I was starting to like him, this is not how I intend to let any male treat me. I don’t care how fucking hot it is when he… goddamn, I cannot think about sex right now. I cannot think about how sore I am, or how wet I am, or how much I wanted his cock inside me. He’s corrupted me with sex.
The next door shuts too, the one that leads from this little cluster of otherwise empty cells out to the reception area where the night guard practically peed himself when Avel walked in. The saurians who work under him worship him like a god. He must be so used to everybody he knows lying down and rolling over for him.
He’s not going to get that from me. Not ever. I refuse to fear him.
He’s going to learn that humans are able to rebel under even the harshest circumstances. It’s what we do. It’s one of our main strengths. We never give in, and we never surrender. Not even when it looks like we are actively surrendering. There’s just something about a human being that won’t ever allow us to truly give in to an oppressor. There will always be some corner of us fighting to be free.
I wonder if he understands that? Seems to me, saurians follow the law of the wild. The strongest wins. The most terrifying, cruelest, most unrelenting, dominant force is the one that prevails. And the rest of them seem to respect that. Even the outlaws.
I think back to when that poor young saurian got his ass whipped by Avel. I was so intimidated then. And turned on, if I’m to be honest with myself. But I don’t know if that trick is going to work twice. He wants to humiliate me publicly, but I served under Sullivan, and that meant being publicly humiliated more times than I can count.
A year or so ago…
Captain Sullivan is standing in front of me with a carbonated soft drink so large she has to hold it in both hands. Combined with her stature and wild, curling blonde hair, it makes her look like a child — which frankly, she mentally may be. I have been doubting her decision-making skills for some time now, but never more than in this moment.
We are surrounded by thousands of happy alien shoppers of all species. They rush and saunter by with various degrees of urgency, not a single one of them suspecting the infamy in their midst. We are technically on the run from the military and law enforcement forces of three separate planets. We shouldn’t be showing our faces anywhere in public. There’s every chance that the security cameras on these stores feed back into a bigger data center somewhere and that we are putting ourselves on the radar of one or maybe all of the people who currently want us.
But, as Sullivan has pointed out dozens of times now, the crew wanted ice cream.
There’s a fountain in the middle of the mall, a big, round behemoth with water pouring out of the mouths of what looks to humans like a bunch of monkeys with fish bodies. It’s one of a dozen fountains in the mall, which holds a thousand shops and has capacity for tens of thousands of standard-shaped alien lives. It also has its own private security forces who strut about in blue and silver uniforms, mostly harassing teenage locals who are trying to thieve from rich alien tourists.