Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 89162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
“I’m afraid not.” Commander Torus shook his head firmly. “I’ll be looking for your memo,” he added. Then he went into his office and closed the door behind him—a clear signal that he didn’t want to be bothered.
“Well!” Karen Geners exclaimed an angry pout pulling her pretty face into a frown. She flipped her long blonde hair over one shoulder and flounced away angrily, swaying on her stilt-like heels with every step.
Lana slapped a hand over her mouth to try and stifle her laughter.
“I guess he shut her down!” she whispered to Molly. “Honestly, she’s always throwing herself at him and he’s always ignoring her. You’d think she would get the message!”
Molly agreed with her friend, but Karen Geners was nothing if not persistent. She was constantly flirting with their boss and trying to get him alone—which he always avoided as much as possible.
I could never act that way—not even if I looked like her, she thought. She’d always been an introvert who hated being the center of attention. Well, except in a classroom setting. That was why she loved teaching Kindergarten and first grade—the kids were still so sweet at that age that Molly didn’t feel self-conscious.
She thought with longing of her last class. They’d had a million questions—they were so curious about the world, so bright and eager to learn. If only she could work with kids again. She didn’t mind answering calls and giving out information, but it didn’t really feed her heart the way teaching had.
All right, Molly, she lectured herself. You know why you can never teach again. Zach closed that door permanently so you might as well move on.
Sadly, it was true. She’d thought about applying to work at one of the schools or play-care centers aboard the Mother Ship but even up here, she didn’t want to risk it. So she might as well get to work and enjoy her new job as much as she could.
As if on cue, a light on her transparent screen lit up, signaling that she had her first call of the day. Sighing, Molly put on her headset and punched a button.
“Kindred Mother Ship,” she said. “How can I help you?”
As she listened to the voice on the other end asking questions, she told herself it was just another ordinary day aboard the Mother Ship—and that was a good thing. Her life on Earth had been chaotic and awful—it was nice to have normal and ordinary for a change.
She had no idea that her nice, normal, ordinary life was about to be turned upside down.
2
TORUS
Commander Torus settled himself in his desk chair with a sigh. The chair was specially built to hold his weight which was considerable since his 9 foot tall frame—or 3 meters, to use another form of Earth measurement—was mostly muscle. His desk was sized to match the chair, which was nice. Even aboard the Kindred Mother Ship where things were built for seven-foot-tall warriors, he often felt cramped.
Sometimes he wished he had never left the Jorgen Kindred Mother Ship to come looking for the other branches of the Kindred. But there weren’t enough females to go around and so a group of his fellow Jorgen had decided to strike out into space and try to find the others of their kind in hopes that they might have females suitable for mating.
They had been successful in finding the other Kindred—but not in finding mates. At least, not as far as Torus was concerned. Oh, the Earth women were willing enough to mate with the Jorgens—some were too willing, he thought with a grimace as he remembered the scene he’d just endured with Karen Geners. But they were simply too small—too fragile and delicate. How could a male let himself love a female he was afraid he might hurt when they got intimate?
No, Torus was sure he was never going to find a mate among the tiny people of Earth. Though there was one who stood out to him. Not because he wanted to mate with her though, he assured himself hastily. It was Molly Byrne his mind wandered to constantly, even when he tried to stop it.
The curvy little human was lovely, with her long, flame-red hair and those big hazel eyes that could look either blue or green, depending on the light. She was what the other Kindred called an “Elite”—a female the Goddess had blessed with extra lush curves—they made her look less breakable than the other skinny Earth women he knew. Only slightly though, he told himself.
But what Torus really liked about Molly was the unique skin coloration pattern she had. The tiny dots all over her body were what Kindred called “Goddess kisses.” The humans had another name for them though. Was it freekles? He frowned. Like all Kindred, he was adept at learning new languages but English was a tricky one. Freekles sounded right though.