Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 41511 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 166(@250wpm)___ 138(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41511 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 166(@250wpm)___ 138(@300wpm)
I ignore her babbling and point at the bathing area. “It will not turn on.”
She arches one of her petite little eyebrows at me. “I doubt that.”
She does nothing else. She simply remains standing there in the doorway.
It takes everything in me not to roar at her. Holding my fire in my belly, I tried to keep my voice calm. “Well, make it start,” I command.
She rolls her eyes again before saying, “Fine. I suppose you'll never start to smell better otherwise. But you could try asking nicely.”
She finally comes into the small bathing room and then leans over in front of me, all the while murmuring to herself, “Oh, Giselle, thank you for coming over here, I really appreciate it. Could you please show me how you turn on the shower? Thank you so much. I never would have figured that out on my own.”
She rolls one of the knobs and water starts to sprout from the nozzle, then rolls another. “Now, you control the hot water with this knob.” She points with her left hand, “and the cold water with this one.” She points to the right knob with her right hand. “Then, to turn on the shower…” She frowns as she reaches around, pulling on different parts of the apparatus until finally she tugs downwards on the faucet nozzle.
I jerk backward as the water stops pouring from the nozzle and then suddenly spurts in a spray out the top of the wall. I didn't even see the nozzle up there. Giselle pulls back just in time not to get sprayed by the water. “There you go. And then when you're done, just roll all the knobs back to the right. Righty tighty.”
She steps backward as if she means to leave, but I stop her with a hand on her wrist. She does not like this, I can tell by the way she glares up at me.
“Let go.” She yanks to get free and I let go of her wrist.
“Where are you going?”
“Where do you think? The other room.”
“You must help me bathe.”
Her mouth drops open. “Screw you.” She turns to leave again and I reach for her, but she cuts me with her glare. I pull my hand back.
“You wish me to wash, but then you leave. Make up your mind. Do you want me clean or not?”
“I’m not going to bathe you. You aren’t at the palace anymore, buddy.”
I cross my arms over my chest as I have seen her do many times. “My wings are large and I cannot reach them. If you wish me clean, I require assistance.”
She pauses, and then looks behind me. My wings have been folded and I wince as I try to unfold them, stumbling and only keeping myself on my feet at the last moment by sheer determination of will. I grit my teeth against the pain.
Giselle immediately leans forward, reaching out for my wing. I pull it away before she can make contact, even though I know she will have to touch them to cleanse me.
“Why didn't you tell me you were in pain?” she asks, sounding almost angry.
Moments before she could barely stand to be in the same room as me, but now she’s berating me? As if I am a child for not sharing about my pain?
“Draci warriors never complain of pain,” I sneer in contempt.
“Do Draci warriors also fall over and faint all the time?” she snaps, pulling back the plastic water curtain and urging me to turn around and sit on the edge of the bathtub with my wings facing the spraying water. Then she pulls off the silky covering she has been wearing the entire time she has been here, exposing her body, but for some small underclothes that cover her sex and teats, and steps inside the tub behind me where I can no longer see her.
I try to crane my neck to see her, but it pulls on the barely scabbed over scar on my neck where the animal bit into my flesh and I give up.
“Just face forward. Good God, are males really the same in every universe?”
I flick my tongue out, hoping for a scent of her to distract from the pain as she begins to unfurl my left wing.
Instead of the scent of Giselle, which I have come to know well, I am met by a pungent, mint smell.
“What is that abomination of a scent?” I spit.
“It’s the body wash they have on the shelf,” she says.
“Anything else. Is there anything else?” I ask.
“Hmm, lemme see. Okay, there’s some shampoo. It’s full and should work well enough to get you clean if you like the smell of it better.”
“Open it, let me scent it.”
She opens it and immediately her scent fills the air. Well, there is Giselle, but then there her scent combines with another—the stronger scent. It’s what she smelled like when I awoke to find her in my arms this morning—the peace of a quiet night after endless nightmares because I had her soft flesh curled against me, the scent of her deep within me.