Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 43557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Now this dickhead is trying to punish me? For making one single choice in the midst of choicelessness? Not going to happen. He might be massive, he might be a literal dragon alien, but I am not sorry, and he will not make me sorry.
I am the one who makes others sorry.
I wriggle at the last moment before he locks me in place over his lap, and I sink my teeth into the softer underside of his wrist, the one place he doesn’t have a lot of scaling.
He lets out a cry of what’s probably surprise and lets me go. I scramble away. This ship isn’t that big, but it doesn’t need to be. I just need enough space and something sharp.
“Little brat,” he growls.
“Fuck off,” I snarl. I am not playing. I have no intention of being in trouble. I am already being so many other things, like annoyed.
He reaches for me again. But it’s not that easy to grab someone who does not want to be grabbed. Especially when you can’t leave a mark on them. He has to be careful, but I don’t have to be careful at all.
“Try and grab me again, and I’m going to jump through that partition,” I say, indicating the clear probably-not-glass screen separating me from freedom into the next part of the cabin.
“Try and jump through that partition and you’ll either break something or cut something or both.”
“Exactly.”
It takes a second for him to work out what’s going on here, but recognition soon dawns on his handsome alien face, and then those otherworldly eyes.
“You little…” he growls and half-laughs. "You are going to be spanked so hard.”
“But am I, though? Because your job is to make me safe, and I’m telling you right now, I will do very unsafe things to avoid anything that looks or feels anything like punishment.”
“Absolute brat,” he repeats, more under his breath to himself than to me. He is thinking. Trying to decide how he’s going to get me to submit to this pain and humiliation that he thinks I deserve because I made a fucking decision.
“ZAYNE!”
Scowl’s voice suddenly reverberates through the room. I jump, thinking he’s somehow aboard, but it’s just a relatively small holographic representation of his head floating in midair.
“Two missed performances in the first week!?” He hisses the words like they’re “TWO MISSED PERFORMANCES!”
“She’s been asleep.”
“I don't care if she’s fucking dead, you get that corpse on stage, you rig it up, you…”
“Hey, Scowl. How’s it going?” I lean into the field of vision and wave with the smuggest possible expression on my face, because fuck this guy.
His upper lip draws back in a hiss. “You are fortunate that I am a million miles away, and that it is not possible to lunge through this holographic beam and tear your ungrateful throat out.”
“Yeah. I guess so, huh.”
“Are any of you prepared for the next show? Or am I going to go bankrupt refunding a third round of tickets, for which I swear I will hire interplanetary bounty hunters to kill you all.”
“I’ll be there,” I say. “I’m ready. Unless, of course, someone wants to waste a lot of my time by beating me pointlessly when I am supposed to be making us all rich.”
There’s a pause from the hologram. Scowl is thinking. No. Thinking is the wrong word. Scowl is calculating. I did notice that he’s not actually as angry now as he has been in the past. He’s playing at anger. He’s hissing and he’s snarling, and cursing, and threatening. But there’s something else going on behind those eyes. Something profitable.
“The good news is, the weirder the shit you do, and the more concerts you miss, the more people want to see you. Zayne, wake her up next time. Don’t let her sleep. This rebellious starlet act is working.”
“You hear that? The rebellious starlet act is working!” I smirk broadly, so very proud of myself. He’s not ever going to try to punish me again. Me being an asshole is entirely the point now. It’s part of his job to not only allow that, but facilitate it. I could not be fucking happier. Or smugger.
I grin my way through hair and makeup. This is actually working out in my favor. I’m actually getting away with things, and I’m becoming an even greater star than I imagined being.
Tonight’s concert is on a remote moon. I don’t know the place anymore. My geography was bad enough when I was expected to know where things were on Earth. Now there’s no way I’m going to be able to keep track of the entire universe.
All I know is that there is a crowd. A crowd that has come for me. A crowd that craves me, that cheers me on, that adores my every action and hangs on my every word. Even in the midst of their mass approval I can feel a weight backstage, a certain heaviness emanating from Zayne. He has not said a word since the holocall from Simon Scowl, but I feel his disapproval and I know that he is lying in wait for me somehow. Maybe that should scare me. Instead it gives me a bigger grin and fills me with even more excitement as I plan to give one of the best performances of my career.