Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 38865 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38865 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
“Come here,” Sithren says, tugging my hair to guide me up onto his lap. I do not want to be embraced, but what I want is not important. He handles me as though I am already broken, but I am far from ready to give up. There are still at least twenty-eight minutes.
I twist my head and pull away from his grasping hand. “Leave me be.”
“I will not leave you be. Not ever.”
“Then I will make your life a misery beyond comprehension.”
“And I will return the favor. Get. Up. Here. Now.”
He grips my hair so firmly I have no ability to resist and he drags me all the way up onto his lap. I squirm and resist. I was trying not to do that, but my tolerance is running low. I want to be dressed again. I want to be treated like someone who matters. I am not some simple fuck-toy to be handled casually. Yes, I let him bring me to orgasm. Twice. But I am done with being cooperative. There are twenty-five minutes left before I am either rescued or my life is over. Time to fight.
“Let me go,” I growl.
“No,” he says, keeping that firm grip. I try my best to wriggle off his lap, but it is easier said than done. All he has to do is wrap one arm around my waist and I am held firm.
“You think you can break me, but you’re wrong.”
I’m losing this battle. Once you start throwing out non-sequiturs like that, you're done. It shows the rising panic, and the slow apprehension that this battle might very well have been lost before it began. He’s ahead of me. Fighting now changes nothing. But not fighting is unthinkable. I can protect myself. I can be absolutely vicious when I have to be.
There are not many vulnerable places on one of his kind, so I just flail. Elbows, knees, teeth, I bring everything to bear. I catch his neck in my teeth, the scales are softer than I expected them to be, but not nearly soft enough to allow my teeth to make more than a faint indentation with even a harsh bite.
He laughs and laughs, thoroughly amused by my weak attempts to hurt him. He seems content to let me struggle, though, and to tire myself out fighting him while he does nothing besides hold me in place.
I was hoping to find a weak spot, somewhere he was vulnerable to simple attack, but it is as has been reported. The Dinavri are armored every second of every day. He’d have to remove the breastplate and torso to crotch armor to make himself vulnerable.
And to fuck me.
He can’t mate with me until he can trust me not to destroy him. Unless, of course, he ties me down and makes it impossible for me to move aggressively against him. He’ll do that too, the bastard. And he’ll find my helplessness amusing. Just like he does now.
Fifteen minutes.
There are only fifteen minutes left before we reach an invisible point of no return. I am beginning to lose hope, and that is a terrible thing.
“Now," he says as I start to still. “Settle down and behave yourself. You will only make this harder for yourself by struggling like a spoiled little brat.”
I would love to respond with some cutting comment, but my brain is not functioning as well as it should. Spies depend on being clandestine and staying undiscovered. Once we are unmasked, we are practically useless. Turtles without their shells. I stayed clear of the limelight my entire life, until this goddamn tour that should have been safe, that took me out of the darkness and put me in the spotlight. It was supposed to be my last job for the Authority. It might be the last thing I ever do.
“I was on my retirement tour. But you knew that. Didn't you.”
“I did know that. I had to take you before you slid away into obscurity and were forever out of reach.”
What he doesn't know is that the reason I was going to take retirement was that I was planning on using my Authority service allowance to undergo fertility treatments. I was going to be a mom. I was going to have a real life.
He hasn't just taken my freedom. He’s taken what was going to be my entire world. My bitterness and concern is deeper because I had so much hope not so long ago. I had begun to transition out of the mindset of a spy and into what I thought was the mindset of a normal person. I was starting to think about buying a cutlery set and a dining set with matching patterns. I was considering which constellations had the best schools. All of that is evaporating before me, and as time goes on, I know my chances become evermore slim.