Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 90404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 452(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 452(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
But he just approaches, reaches down into my bathwater, and plucks out the plug holding the water in.
“Hey!” I protest.
“No time to waste,” is all he says. “Let’s go, little pink consort.”
I look down at myself, flushed with embarrassment and furious at him for making me feel this way. I cover my breasts with one arm and my pussy with the other as I stand up confidently. It’s obvious he’s not going to be gentlemanly and wait outside. And my clothes are in the other room anyway. Well… what’s left of them.
I grab for the towel, but the monster-man is quicker. He yanks it away faster than I can reach for it. Again, with that smile that borders on a smirk.
He approaches, his hand full of a towel. Okay. So it’s clear he wants to be the one to dry me. My first instinct is to push him away.
Yes, I let him fuck me last night but that is just part of the gig, right? Sexual favors in return for my healing.
But this doesn’t seem to have anything at all to do with the deal we made, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.
When he approaches with the towel and slowly begins to wipe down the water droplets, though, it makes my head a little dizzy.
I want to pull away or tense at his ministrations, but instead my whole body relaxes.
For all this bulk, he can be surprisingly gentle.
So gentle, in fact, as he dries me off, that, like a fool, I let my eyes close.
I hear the tinkle-tinkle-clank far too late to do anything else but jerk back to the present right as I feel the cold kiss of metal close around my neck.
“Hey!’”
But he’s already gotten the heavy iron collar around my neck, with attached medieval chain, and he locks it into place.
I grasp hold of it, and it’s so thick, my thin little fingers barely make it around the thick metal band. What I wouldn’t give for a fresh set of bolt-cutters right now.
“Are you kidding!” I cry. I hate being constrained. It’s one of the reasons I’ve always hated my body so much. For someone who’s always go-go-go, it’s infuriating to have a body that’s so often kept me inside and still, away from the adventures I’ve always dreamed of.
“Why are you doing this?” I hate my voice when it trembles.
He just stares uncomprehendingly at me with his cat’s eyes. “Because you are my consort, and you will behave as one.”
He starts to back away to the bedroom, the long chain trailing behind him, stretching between us…
But he jerks me forward when I don’t move.
I stumble forward, disoriented after being torn from the warm bath back into the cold. And hello? I’m still completely naked!
But the monster doesn’t slow for me. He obviously knows where he’s going as he drags me back through the bedroom and then drags open the other door through which he strides.
My thoughts are chaotic and random. If he has this place, why in hell was he squatting in that filthy mountain cave back in Alaska? Why has he waited until this morning to collar me?
He jerks me forward by the chain when apparently, I’ve been dithering too long—pulling me toward the bedroom’s second door, other than the one leading to the bathroom.
Oh God, what have I gotten myself into?
Is it any solace that as I stumble after him, it’s on sturdy, steady feet?
The sensation is still so new, I still can barely believe it.
“Where are we going?” I gasp as I’m pulled through the door into a hallway.
All I get back in return is a growl.
A freaking growl. Ever the reminder I’m not dealing with a human man.
First, we head down a long, claustrophobic stone hallway. Where to, God knows. My mind whirs non-stop as I wonder what’s next, when we reach a steep, curling staircase.
The monster’s huge wings flop and flutter ahead of me as he stomps.
I’m a Taurus and have been stubborn since the moment I was born, or so my mother says. I came out of the womb kicking and screaming.
I was a wild child before the bounds of my illness tamed me. And since I got sick when I was so young, I didn’t appreciate the wild years when I had them.
I kept trying to do everything the other kids did. Climbing on the playground. When a boy taunted me in junior high for sitting out during recess, I challenged him to a race.
Naturally, I lost dismally, of course—I’d just got my arm-crutches then, and I wasn’t very good at using them yet. But I still raced around that track as quickly as I could stumble.
“What were you like as a little kid?” I ask suddenly as we start to head down the staircase. Try to humanize yourself in captor situations, isn’t that what they always say?