Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 43557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
I think better of that thought process, though. If someone is as evil as Simon, they don’t need a reason to do evil. They do it regardless. If I’d been better, I might even have been hurt earlier. My unpredictability might even be what has kept me alive.
“Lyric!”
Zayne calls out to me from the forest some time later. I am glad I haven’t had to shoot anyone. I put the gun down already, but I pick it up as he comes closer because I want him to think I was obeying him.
Zayne has a dead furred creature over his shoulders. Something that contains a good amount of meat. It is about the size of a small sheep and boasts a bright red pelt that probably got it caught. I feel a brief rush of pity for it before my growling stomach reminds me that I am also an animal that needs to eat.
“Wow. Look at that! You caught something!”
Zayne grins at my exclamation. “Yes,” he says. “It has been some time since I last hunted, but I appear to remember how.”
He lays the animal down next to the fire he made earlier, and I watch as he skins the beast, butchers the meat, and sets about both cooking and storing what he can.
Zayne is a survivor. He is made for what is happening right now. I am no longer certain that I am the same. I thought I was tougher than most of the starlets because I’ve lived a real life, but my real life didn’t do anything to prepare me for this.
“I had time to think,” Zayne says as he turns meat on makeshift spits over the fire. “I know what we are going to do.”
“What are we going to do?” I take a sliver of freshly cooked meat from his fingers and eat it gratefully. I don’t remember being hungry in a long time. Since I signed my contract with Simon, I have been kept in almost perfect stasis. I haven’t known simple needs like hunger or thirst or sleepiness. The team has kept me nourished and hydrated and entirely rested. Being flung into the woods is like being returned to my old, simple, animal self. I am suddenly very aware of all the things I have to take care of.
“I know what we are going to do,” he says when we have both eaten our fill. “We are going to find Simon Scowl, we are going to force him to release my family’s lands, and we are going to go home.”
“Home?”
“I am going to take you to my home world, once I have freed it. It is what I should have done in the beginning, instead of submitting to his employment and pretending that he would one day have the goodness to honor his agreement and free my people.”
“And if he still will not agree to any of that?”
“Then I will kill him.”
“Which he would deserve,” I agree. “But I have to wonder, what’s the point? Would him dying transfer the deeds to you?”
“It would once I stole them.”
“I see.” There’s more than a little dubiousness in my tone, because I do not think that this is going to be easy. Simon Scowl has been around a very long time and I am sure many people want him dead, yet he remains robustly alive. The two of us coming for him seems unlikely to succeed. As fearsome and incredible as Zayne is, he is just one Thrakin. And I am useless. I am a singer, and sure, a climber, and yeah, I’ve had jobs, but none of them were as an assassin.
Zayne looks at me ferociously. “I am done, Lyric. I am tired of doing what is right, following the rules, playing his games. We’ll never win against Simon, because he doesn’t even play by his own rules. He does whatever he has to do at the time he has to do it.”
“So we get the deeds to your lands, we free your people, and then we move to your world?”
“Exactly. You will be my mate there, in a world I belong, and in a place you will be cherished.”
His words make me melt, though I have to admit to myself, the idea of moving to his planet is a little intense. From what I have heard of Thrace, it is a harsh land, harsher even than this forest. I do not know how well I would do there in a society of dominant Thrakins. I have a feeling I would constantly be the odd one out, and probably be in constant trouble. But that’s a theoretical problem for a day that may yet not come.
This is all happening so quickly. I am suddenly entirely dependent on Zayne for everything, for my food, and for my shelter, and for basic protection. I have lost all sense of self-determination. I am scared.