Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 42969 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 215(@200wpm)___ 172(@250wpm)___ 143(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 42969 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 215(@200wpm)___ 172(@250wpm)___ 143(@300wpm)
“What…what happened to her? She refused to eat her meal?” she asked in a low voice.
“Refused for days and days. She was washing it down the sink or the toilet—trying to starve herself to death,” Hertha answered.
“Not that we blame her—Dr. Barbarous killed her fiancé when he captured their ship,” Shredda, the third goat-woman murmured.
“None of us said anything, but somehow Barbie found out,” Hertha said grimly. “And then he punished her.”
“Punished her how?” Sylvie demanded in a whisper. She wanted to know what kind of treatment she might receive herself for refusing to allow the collector to take samples from between her legs.
“He gave her to the treetures for breeding—all of them at once,” Hersha said and shivered. “They’re all male you know. He keeps trying to make a female one, but he can’t seem to get the formula right. So he lets them have one of us if we’re disobedient.”
“He what?” Sylvie felt all the blood drain out of her face. “You’re kidding!”
“Wish I was.” Hersha shrugged. “Bet you’re wishing you’d let the collector take those samples now, aren’t you?” she added, raising an eyebrow at Sylvie.
“Hush, Hersha—don’t be unkind,” Lorna said, frowning.
“So he just…gave her to them? All of them?” Sylvie remembered the huge member swinging between Manlow the moss-man’s legs and felt sick. To be used by a creature like that—something that wasn’t even fully humanoid…and not only one but all of them at the same time…
“He’s a sadistic bastard,” Hersha said angrily. “He claims to be ‘asexual’ and thinks he’s above it all just because he doesn’t assault us himself. But he loves to watch. Fucking creepy perverted asshole!”
“Hersha, be quiet! What if he’s listening through the screen?” Lorna hissed. “You don’t want to be chosen out of turn, do you?”
“Chosen out of turn? What does that mean?” Sylvie asked anxiously.
Hersha sighed.
“Every night one of us has to go service one of the treetures. Barbie mixes and matches us, hoping that one of us will get pregnant by his plant-based monstrosities. So far two of us have but both times we miscarried.”
“It happened to me,” Lorna said in a small voice. “The thing in me…it didn’t look humanoid at all. It was just a ball of bloody roots!”
Sylvie had been about to force herself to take another bite of the protein mush but she put her spoon back down in her bowl and winced.
“I’m so sorry—that’s horrible.”
“He keeps tweaking their DNA, trying to make changes so they can get us pregnant,” Shredda whispered. “He wants a plant-humanoid baby he can experiment on.”
“That’s why he went out of his way to capture me,” Clemina spoke up for the first time, sounding more subdued than usual. “My people already have plant DNA in us,” she added, nodding at the tiny clusters of flowers growing from her knees. “But I don’t think I’m compatible with the treetures at all—my people’s heritage has been millennia in the making. His tree-men are artificially constructed—the two of us just don’t mix.” She sighed unhappily. “But that doesn’t stop him from trying.”
“I think he’s onto something new lately,” Hersha said darkly. “Maybe something even worse. I heard him saying something about a ‘personalized aphrodisiac’ last time he had me in the lab room. Something that would make a woman ‘unable to resist a male’s advances.’”
Sylvie couldn’t think of many things worse than being raped by a tree-man in order to make a half-plant/half-humanoid baby but there were other things she was worried about.
“What…what do you think he’ll do to Kross? To my protector?” she asked in a small voice. She’d told the other women about Kross and how the two of them had both been captured, but that the big Kindred had been dragged away to a separate room.
“Dunno.” Hersha shrugged.
“I hate to make you feel bad, but Barbarous killed Grolla’s fiancé,” Lorna said apologetically. “He said he had ‘no use for male specimens.’ Whatever that means.”
Sylvie felt her stomach clench. Surely the mad scientist wouldn’t just kill Kross out of hand, would he? Then she remembered what Barbarous had said.
“Wait—but he told his two uh, tree-men to lock Kross in the ‘new specimen room,’” she said. “He said he wanted to start working on him immediately.”
“Huh—well then, at least he’s probably still alive,” Hersha said. “Though I wouldn’t want to guess what’s happening to him.”
Sylvie wanted to cry.
“This is all my fault,” she whispered. Looking down, she stirred her protein mush aimlessly with her spoon. “I’m the one who insisted on coming to this horrible planet to look for the tangeline vine! Kross tried to warn me it was dangerous but I wouldn’t listen to him! If he is still alive, he probably hates me right now and I don’t blame him!”
“Oh now, you can’t—” Lorna began but just then the door to their prison opened once more.