Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 52915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
“They can look all they like,” he says. “They will not find me or you. You still don’t understand what I am telling you, even though it is painfully simple. You are a princess. I am a king. I am taking you from this world where you are a forgotten irrelevance, and I intend to elevate you to the position of the highest in the land. All you need do in return is obey me.”
“Oh, is that all?” I roll my eyes, and somehow earn an even harsher slap, which feels unfair, because there is no way he can see the expression on my face.
I am starting to feel a little petulant, sulky even, and that’s kind of crazy because it means I’m buying into his paradigm. This man is defining the world for me, and in his world, I’m not a girl with every right to be trying to escape his grasp. Instead, I’m a badly behaved, spoiled princess being chastised by her royal ruler. It’s not a bad fantasy as fantasies go. It’s actually pretty hot. But it’s not real. None of this is. None of this can be. I’m being kidnapped by a crazy man in a van.
“When we are married, you will give all of yourself to me. There will be no part of you that you hold back, and there will be absolutely no disobedience tolerated. Do you understand?”
“No!” I wail the word. I do not understand, and I will not be giving myself to him, with all the carnal filth that phrase implies.
There’s a jolt to the van, like we’ve started driving. Oh fucking no. He has an accomplice. Someone is actually helping this crazy bastard. When they get me wherever they’re taking me, there’s going to be two of them. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I’d started to maybe settle down a little, but now I am back in full fight mode.
“Stop it!” he growls. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“You’re already hurting me!”
“I’m disciplining you, there’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
“You are skilled in the care of the young, shouldn’t you know?”
“We don’t hit! It’s barbaric, and it’s wrong.”
He leans down and growls into my ear. “Then I am barbaric and wrong.”
Fuck. Me. The way that statement sends chills of what I can’t even pretend isn’t excitement right through me is so damn intense. I don’t know what he has in store for me, but I know that it is going to change me forever. Even if I somehow manage to live through this, I am absolutely never going to be the same.
I decide to try to work out where I’m being taken. I think we’re heading down Elm Street, which means… I suddenly realize I don’t feel the tires rumbling beneath us anymore. And there’s a moment of weightlessness I’ve felt before, that floating upsy downsy sensation you get when a plane takes off.
“The fuck!”
I utter an exclamation of surprise, as terror turns to more simple confusion. The flying van is not the only oddness we are encountering.
My abductor lets me go, and I stand up, rubbing my ass. I can’t make a dash for the back doors anymore, because they are no longer there.
The van is shifting around us, morphing and changing until it is not a van anymore. Instead it is a much larger space, a suite. Rich red carpet covers the floor, and gold brocade hangings adorn the windows, outside which space is flying by in a dashing procession of stars. The tarps and ropes become chaises and overstuffed seats, covered in fancy upholstery.
I turn my eyes to my abductor and see that the man who was wearing a hoodie and jeans is now wearing a white silk doublet open to his abdominal plane and fancy black leather pants that I guess might be best described as breeches. Tall black leather boots rise above his knee and are emblazoned on each outside plane with a royal seal.
But that is not what immediately arrests my attention. What immediately arrests my attention is that this man is no man at all. He is green, and his body bears intense scaling, almost like a lizard, but much sexier.
“What is happening? Who are you…”
He smiles, glad that I am able to perceive him for what he is to himself. “You know who I am. You described me very eloquently this very evening.”
I’m so confused. I shake my head, stammering as I find myself in the suddenly very imposing and very clearly royal presence of a goddamn alien. “I made up a story for the kid I was babysitting. That’s all.”
“No. You told a story. You plucked the thread of it and you spoke it into reality, and in doing so you summoned me. I heard you as you invoked me. I came as soon as I could, crossing galaxies to find you. You have no idea how long I have waited for you, or how far I would go for you, Emmaline.”