Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 51862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
“What is wrong, pet?”
Zain keeps holding me as he walks in some direction or other. I don’t care where we are going as long as he is still giving me the warmest, tightest cuddle.
“Nothing,” I sniff as tears start to flow down my face.
“Did she say something to you? Do something to you? What did she do?” I can hear a certain tension in his voice that indicates he will do something about it.
“She didn’t do anything,” I whimper. “I’m just.. I don’t know what I am.”
I am tired and I am scared and I am overwhelmed. Zain seems to understand this and takes me to what I suppose must be his rooms. They’re larger than my entire house, and surprisingly full of things. I always thought of spaceships as being sparse, frightening places.
“I practically grew up on this ship,” he says. “It was a home away from home.”
He slowly and carefully strips all my clothes off me down to my underwear and settles me into a big, soft bed. It is more than double the size of the beds I am used to, and I am dwarfed by the comforters and pillows that festoon it. It is the most comfortable and contained I have ever been, and I immediately feel better.
“You look pale and tired, pet. I am going to get you something to eat. Don’t go anywhere.”
Of course I am not going to go anywhere. I don’t want to leave this bed. It smells like him, a faint but old scent. He said this room had been his for a long time. I imagine he has slept in this bed for many hundreds of nights. It feels like an extension of him as I pull the coverlet around me and allow myself to feel a deep sense of comfort.
Zain always looks after me. I know that no matter what happens Zain is going to be there for me. Even though I am the most tedious, boring, vanilla, pointless human being that ever fucking existed — he loves me anyway. Not everybody has to be hot and interesting. There's got to be somebody for average people as well.
He leaves the room for a little bit, but not long enough for the panic to return. When he comes back, he has a tray absolutely laden with food in his hands. It smells delicious and homey. Almost like something my grandmother used to make. I don’t know how he managed to create it so quickly, but I know I am suddenly absolutely starving.
“Soup,” he says. “Chicken soup.”
This massive, green scaled and tusked alien perches on his bed and feeds me spoonful after spoonful of the most deliciously wholesome soup.
“Thank you,” I say when I’ve had my fill. “You make everything better.”
A broad smile appears on his face. “I always want to make everything better for you, pet.”
“When I met Arkan’s… pet…” It still feels weird to say that word in reference to a human. “She’s so much better than me. I don’t know why you chose me when you could have had some sassy city human.”
“You have your own sass,” Zain says. “And I chose you because you fit me, and because I want you. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else, Emily. You’re incomparable.”
I have to make a confession.
“I’m scared of going to your planet. I miss home. I miss my house.”
“I know,” he says. “But I am going to make you a new home. I am going to make you happy, pet. You might not be able to imagine that right now, but I promise it is true.”
“Aren’t you at war with your family’s enemies?”
“That is also happening,” he admits. “But I am going to keep you safe.”
We almost died very recently. There’s only so safe he can make me, no matter how much he tries. This is a dangerous universe, and we are two very small beings in it. Even Zain, being huge, is small. But he’s bigger than me, and that’s all that matters.
I snuggle down into the blankets and I keep my eyes on him. I drink him in, and I feel myself becoming hopelessly, utterly, entirely connected to and dependent on him.
“Sleep, pet,” he murmurs. “You will feel better when you wake.”
Zain
Once Emily has fallen asleep and is safely locked away in my room, I respond to the summons of my brother. Kahn has always been the officious one. When we were very young, he would create paperwork for the games we would play. He was always the bookkeeper, and of course he cannot resist the urge to catalog our entire human cargo. He does not understand that these villagers are not quite the simple proposition he imagines. Or at least, he didn’t.
I meet him outside the cargo bay where most of the villagers are being kept. They are quite happy to share space for the most part and have turned it into quite a cozy area with their various belongings, furniture and whatnot. They’re even cooking their own food, which is making the ship’s fume extraction system work overtime, but it’s good for them to get settled.