Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 66904 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66904 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
“ENOUGH!” He roars the word and the burrow falls silent.
The effect of his one word is impressive. He may not be an obviously high ranking outlaw, but I am starting to wonder, for none dared challenge him for me. Even Wrath himself did not try to taste me. We have gathered from our surveillance that Wrath is equally powerful, if not more so, as Alpha Thorn. Thorn has the might of the law on his side, but Wrath seems to have practically everything and everyone else. A schism runs deep in saurian society, and I have just fallen into it.
Seems to me that the main pastimes of these outlaws are fighting, carousing, and imbibing mind-altering substances. It’s actually very much like a lot of pirate places. I would almost feel at home, were I not being held captive in the arms of a devastatingly handsome and frighteningly silent saurian outlaw.
A heavy metal door swings closed with the kind of CLANG that creates instant existential dread in career criminals like me. I find myself enclosed in a room that is little more than a cell. The blindfold is pulled from my eyes, and I finally get to see what I have gotten myself into.
It’s an irregularly shaped room on account of being carved from rock. I imagine the location of the walls is determined by the location of other structures in the outlaw warren, and probably various kinds of dirt and rock and… I’m overthinking the room. The walls are all bare, aside from a bed, a big, heavy metal box, and a wardrobe.
Shan swings me down onto my feet and lets me look at what little there is to look at. If there is a secret way out of this room, it is either through that metal box, the wardrobe, or under the bed. There are no other avenues of potential hidden escape. I always look for non-obvious ways out of a place. I imagine there must be some down here, otherwise every single saurian outlaw could be taken out if they plugged the exits and just ran a bit of toxic gas through the place. It’s a dark thought, but we live in a dark universe. Everyone has to have an escape plan. That goes double for outlaws.
The bed is simple. It looks like it’s basically a single bed for a saurian. You could fit probably four people in it, top and tail, but just one massive horned creature. There’s one pillow on it, and a blanket that looks like it has the texture of steel wool. It’s basically one very small step up from a bed of nails. Nothing in this room looks comfortable. That tells me comfort isn’t very high on Shan’s priorities. And that really doesn’t bode well for me.
He turns and locks the door, then reaches for a thick steel beam which he runs across the door and through loops secured into the wall on either side of the door. I watch him barricade us in from across the room where I have scrambled for a semblance of freedom, my back against the wall with a simple instinct for survival. I push my hands into my pants, looking for something that might help the situation.
I find something small and round in the first pocket. It’s not a lot, but it might help. Pulling it out of my pocket, I make a move to dash it on the floor. But before I can throw my little smoke grenade, Shan is on me. He moves like fucking lightning, his big saurian hand wrapped around my human wrist, holding my arm up above my head as he pins me back against the wall.
I am stuck between rock and a scaled place, very much embarrassed at having been caught so quickly and so easily. It makes me feel amateurish. If you’d asked me yesterday if I was good at my job, I would have said yes. Now I am not so sure. What kind of a rogue gets caught in the underbrush almost immediately and can’t even get a distracting smoke grenade off? Every single one of my movements seems so obvious and so telegraphed to him.
Shan hasn’t said a word to me yet. Not a single one. He is inspecting me with a quiet, intelligent gaze. Most of the saurians have lizard type eyes with dark slits set in bright, colorful orbs. His eyes are dark, two solid black holes. It is much harder to read emotion in them — if he has any.
“Sorry,” I squeak. “I had to try.”
“Let go.”
His tone is very cool, very calm, very collected. He doesn’t seem upset that I tried to pull some shit. He certainly doesn’t seem surprised. He just wants me to do as I’m told, and so I do. That’s not only the easiest thing to do right now, it’s the only thing to do right now.