Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Mainly, my mate.
“Talk?” I ask her.
Selina swallows audibly as she twists her fingers together nervously at her middle. “We can always talk, Bothaki.”
I hold my hand out for hers the same way I did earlier, but this time, I place my thumb to the square on my chest to deactivate my security suit off. She watches me do so, and the comprehension dawns in her eyes.
“Talk,” I repeat to her, knowing this time she’ll understand that I mean. We’ll communicate our way, so no one can see or hear but us. The memories we share but don’t speak will always be safe between us.
The hesitance from my mate, and the fact I believe our every move and word is being watched, makes me try again with a softer tone as I reach my hand for hers again. She wants to reach back. I can feel it.
“Talk,” I say, “yes questions.”
“You’ll answer questions if we talk?”
I nod, choosing to lie for the first and only time to my mate because I have zero intention of answering any question that comes from General Lockett. Even if he is trying to ask said questions through my mate. There isn’t a need, and as he has yet to do anything to or against me that would force a different response from me, I can’t see it changing soon. But if the lie eases the situation in this moment, and for my mate, it can’t possibly hurt. If it were her needing to lie to me for the same reasons, I would try to understand.
“Bey,” I confirm to Selina.
She takes the deal and reaches back for me. Her palm is up, facing mine that points down, and her hand slides under mine until I feel her fingers graze my skin at the same time my fingertips find the soft skin of her wrist. The memories I choose to show her are instant. Flashes of important information she needs to know before she decides to offer me the same respect.
I race through my missing items, and the increasingly troubled behavior of her father and his guards. Gone is the time when the general actually conversed with me like I existed in the same space. Now, he just orders whichever male is closest with the biggest gun to point and demand I listen while they attempt to discover the reason for my seemingly missing and ambiguous genitalia. Meanwhile, the general gets angrier every time they can’t or when he fails to collect yet another sample for one jar or another.
They are closer to figuring out my suit.
Selina’s hand flexes in surprise beneath mine, and I grab her wrist without warning to keep her rooted to the spot with me when her memories start the second mine come to an end.
There’s nothing very good for me to find in the flashes of her threatening father and stifled existence. We are the pawns, and it makes me appreciate how dangerous this situation is for both of us. How exactly would the general react to understanding how important Selina is to me? He’s clearly already taken note of my willingness to interact with her when I won’t so much as spit at him, and as such, used it against me.
Not that I mind on that front.
Much.
The memories of how my mate has been treated each time she left me down here by the male who apparently helped to give her life on this planet tightens my grip viciously around her arm until she lets out a little whimper. I let go out of fear I hurt her, and it breaks the connection of the memories between us.
It doesn’t matter.
I’m positive we both got more than enough.
Are they already analyzing us? Every word between us, each look or touch? What awaits her from her father or his soldiers when she leaves this time?
It’s all too much.
Selina stands to walk over to the paper I previously crumpled up and tossed aside. Once she retrieves it, she glances back over her shoulder at me. “The questions now, okay?”
I almost forgot about those.
Not how I still won’t be answering them, though.
I get up to walk over and grab Selina’s wrist, yanking her back towards me before she can get too far away. This time when we touch, there is no exchange of memories, just my fingers flexing around her wrist as our eyes meet so she can watch as I shake my head.
“No,” I tell her simply.
“Bothaki,” she tries.
I understand that she wants to protect me as much as I do her. Maybe not from exactly the same thing, but our interests overlap in the ways that matter the most. She’ll do just enough of her father’s bidding that it gives her access to me, but I won’t allow her to suffer for it, either. We both have to make out of this alive, after all.