Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 40729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 204(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 204(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
“I think you’ll find one,” Whisper croaks.
“Thank you,” I start and then nearly drop my thermablaster replica. “Whisper?”
I dart my eyes to hers, expecting to see them closed. Instead, bright blue eyes like the crystal waters in the underground wells bore into me. I’m snared in her gaze.
“You’re awake.”
“I, uh, I have been for some time.” She bites on her bottom lip, her brows furling together. “I needed to make sure you wouldn’t hurt me.”
The thought of hurting her makes my guts twist.
“You overheard what Galen and I were talking about?”
She swallows and nods. “I hear everything. Or at least I have for several days. I was pretending to sleep because I was scared.”
I set my contraption down to take her tiny hand in my greasy, calloused ones that are littered with cuts from the zuta-metal constantly snagging my skin. “So you know the humans are adored here then? That we’d never hurt you, Whisper?”
“I’m Quinn,” she says. “And from what I’ve gathered, you guys are a lot nicer than the ones we came from.”
I don’t let go of her hand that feels right in my grasp. She’s not my mate, but she’s my something. I’ve felt it for a while now, drawn to the Medical Bay where she sleeps—or in her case, has been pretending for several solars.
“Ozias,” I tell her. “Oz for short. We are not Kevins. We are Kevin killers.”
She scrunches her nose up in confusion. Rekk if my cock doesn’t react. “Kevins?”
“Julie calls them guards. Aria calls them rapists. Zoe calls them assholes. Molly calls them pigs.”
“Ahh, human men.”
“Correct, mat—” I cut my word off mid-sentence. I almost called her mate. I’m in serious trouble. “Quinn.”
“Are they coming for us?” she whispers, giving life to the name I gave her.
I give her hand a small squeeze. “They are, but we’ll be rekking ready for them.” I help her sit up, admiring the dark brown ringlets of her hair that bounce from the movement. “Tell me, sleepy alien, what do you know about the sun?”
A slow smile curves her plump lips up. My cock is hard in my minnasuit as I imagine horribly inappropriate things to do with her mouth—ideas that rekking Jareth implanted in my nog.
“Only everything,” she breathes. “Well, space too. Oh, and arachnids. I love arachnids.”
I narrow my eyes. “Are you a scientist like Grace?”
She shakes her nog, her curls bouncing wildly. “Better.”
Of course my mate would be better than Jareth’s and Sawyer’s. I can’t wait to rub that one in Jareth’s ugly face.
Wait…not my mate.
“Better?”
“I’m a librarian.”
I don’t know what a librarian is, but the way she says the word in a breathless whisper has a power over me that I cannot describe.
“Definitely better,” I agree, my voice husky. “Let’s go build a thermablaster and save the world, Whisper.”
She stares at me as if I’m the most interesting thing she’s ever seen in her life. It makes me want to bare my double fangs at her to show her mine are the sharpest of any mort, even Jareth’s. Males do the strangest things for their mates.
Not my mate.
“Let’s do it, Oz.”
Oh, we’re going to do it.
That and a lot more things.
Even if all we have are thirteen measly solars.
I’m a clever mort. I can do a lot in thirteen solars.
A whole rekking lot.
1
Quinn
He’s here again.
Or at least, I think he is.
My glasses must not have made it with me to wherever it is I’ve landed, so I can barely see the small window in front of me, let alone anything on the other side. At first, I was terrified. I mean, who wouldn’t be? The last good memory I had before the pod was staying late at the library sorting through a new shipment of books. It was arguably the happiest moment of my life.
All I’ve ever wanted is to spend my life surrounded by books. To hold them, arrange them, share them with other people who recognize their special magic. Obtaining the position as my town’s librarian…there aren’t words to describe what it meant to me. And I’d like to think I have plenty of words in my repertoire.
I’d only been working there for three months. Three months of heaven.
Until I woke up in hell.
Then I heard his voice.
I thought I was dreaming at first, one of my fanciful romantic dreams. I used to have them during college when the loneliness felt like a tangible entity. I let it lull me away from the growing panic to a place of peace. I was in and out of it the first few days, brought to consciousness by the sound of his voice. There were others around, I’m not sure how many, but it was his I recognized instantly. An intelligent voice, maybe a little bit of a rascal considering how often he butts up against the others.