Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 130081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
She longed to go to the human she kept dreaming of—to rescue him—but there was no way to reach him, not with the current situation. The Scourge had dug in deep and had total control of the Earth—the AllFather visited regularly and he wouldn’t have done so unless it was completely secure.
In her mind’s eye, Nate’s appearance was clear. He was big for a human—well over two meters tall and extremely muscular. He had long, shaggy golden-brown hair which he wore tied in a club at the back of his neck. His eyes were blue and filled with uncontrollable rage.
The Scourge feared him for good reason—he had killed more of them than any other human male since their invasion had begun. And yet, there were always more and more and more…innumerable soulless soldiers climbing from the Flesh Vats to swell the ranks of the enemy—driving Nate on, forcing him to kill, robbing him of his reason and his sanity as he fought a losing battle to save his home world.
He had been in some branch of the human military before the Scourge had come—Lan’ara was able to glean that much from her dreams. He had been working with seals for the human Navy—was that it? Lan’ara thought so, anyway. A seal was an aquatic Earth mammal—or it had been, before most of the animals on the planet had been killed by the Scourge—some harvested as a protein source for their Flesh Vats and others simply eradicated for the sheer pleasure of destruction. The AllFather loved to despoil and destroy.
Lan’ara had been having the dreams for weeks—she’d been trying to get to Nate, but the Scourge had put an energy net around the Earth which made extraction of the humans still trapped there extremely difficult. Kindred warriors had to wait for certain times when the net was down—mostly only when the Scourge were selling a new shipment of human slaves—to get to the small blue and white planet. Many humans had been rescued, but the Kindred weren’t always in time to save everyone.
“What do you mean your human is not on Earth?” Commander Sylvania asked sharply. “What happened to him?”
“From what I could see in my dream, Nate was taken on a Saurian slave ship after…after the AllFather fed on him.” Lan’ara rubbed her temples. “I came to ask you if we could try and trace all the exhaust signatures of any ships that have left the planet in the past twelve standard hours—I don’t think it was that long ago that he was taken since I just dreamed it last night.”
“Of course we can.” Sylvania nodded quickly.
They had been fighting this war with the Scourge, trying to liberate the small blue planet, for many solar months now and she was always sympathetic to any of her warriors who started Dream-sharing with a human. Maybe because she herself had found her own mate that way. The human male named Simon—or just Simon for short—was devoted to his new bride. Sylvania had dreamed of him for weeks before meeting him—he was the twin brother of Oliver, the mate of her half-sister, Bairdida.
Both men had been rescued in the same mission and, following the Claiming Period, there had been a double Bonding Ceremony. It had been beautiful to behold, but Lan’ara couldn’t help thinking wistfully of her own human male—caught in the clutches of the Scourge. Her need to get to him—to soothe his distress and heal him—was growing daily. She’d almost been ready to ask for permission to do a single woman run down to the planet the next time the energy net was down. She knew it would be suicide, but at least she would get to hold him in her arms before she died…
“We’ll find him.” Commander Sylvania’s soothing voice cut into her bleak thoughts. “I promise you, Lan’ara—we will find the male the Goddess promised to you.”
“Thank you so much.” Lan’ara ran a hand through her long, silky black hair and rubbed at the delicate circular ridges at her temples again. These “receptor ridges” as they were called, were common to the Empath Kindred—as were her delicate lavender skin tones. Her exotically tilted eyes, which were a deep purple several shades darker than her skin, also proclaimed her heritage.
“I know it’s hard to wait.” Commander Sylvania squeezed her shoulder. “When I was Dream-sharing with Simon, I was half crazy with worry for him.”
Lan’ara let out a shaky laugh.
“That’s exactly how I feel. It’s almost like Nate’s emotions are driving my own.” She looked up at her commander. “And I fear the time he spent with the AllFather, when that evil creature was feeding on his pain has made him wild. It might even have stripped his sanity away.”
“You’ll be able to heal him,” Sylvania said firmly. “The Goddess wouldn’t have linked the two of you if you weren’t able to.”