Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 91775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
I put a hand out in the darkness, feeling above my face. I’m not in a pod. I’m just in some cold, dark room with a stone floor. I lower my hand and touch my clothing. Both my short skirt and breast band seem undisturbed, along with the goofy leather panties I made for myself. All right. No one touched me while I was asleep. That’s a good sign…I think.
“R’jaal?” I whisper into the darkness. “Are you here with me?”
Silence. Either he’s passed out or they didn’t place him in this strange room with me. Who’s kidnapped us and why? I rack my brain, trying to figure it out. No one from Croatoan would. No one from Icehome, either. Women get kidnapped, but usually for resonance reasons of some kind and they always return safe. R’jaal’s the only one that hasn’t resonated, though, and he was taken, too.
Metlaks? Did they finally get smart and organized enough? But then why steal people who have done nothing to them? I can’t figure any of it out, but if I was a betting person, I’d bet that whoever’s been stealing into the cave to snatch up all the fruit is behind this. If it’s whoever was stealing the fruit, then Ashtar and the others won’t know where I am, or who has taken me. Everyone was mystified by the scents, and the lack of scents, in the fruit cave.
No one’s coming to save me. I have to save myself, and possibly R’jaal.
Fuuuuuck. This is not how I imagined my return to Icehome Beach would be. Definitely should have stayed home in Croatoan.
Stacy was right. Trouble does come in threes. This is my number three, and I’m not going to let it defeat me.
I get to my feet, mentally testing my limbs. Other than my head feeling a little swimmy, I’m all right. Nothing hurts, and I have no injuries that I can feel. I put my hands out and shuffle forward on bare feet until my fingertips brush the wall.
A wall made of stone bricks.
Frowning, I trace my fingertips along the mortar seams between the bricks. When I find a section with an upraised carving, I realize why this seems so familiar. This is a hut just like the Ancestor huts back in Croatoan, the ones that were abandoned long ago.
Unless…unless I’m in Croatoan?
As soon as the idea crosses my mind, I dismiss it. I wouldn’t be discarded like this in Croatoan. I’d be tucked into a warm, comfortable bed full of furs and someone would have a fire—and some hot tea—waiting for me. Whoever is here, they’re strangers.
If this is a hut like the ones at Croatoan, then it has to be set up the same way. All of the huts in Croatoan are made the same. There’s a shelf along a small kitchen area, a door facing the “street” and a toilet (well, more like an outhouse, but it does the job) at the same corner in each hut.
If I can find the door, I can get out. I just need to orient myself.
Following the wall with small touches, I shuffle along, half expecting to run into the sleeping body of R’jaal. We were drugged, and he might still be out. But the floor I move along feels empty and cold. I find a corner and move along the next wall, and there my fingers encounter something different. A door, I decide after feeling around for a bit more. The texture is strange and spongy, like a rubbery sort of wood, but my questing hands find a pull-ring made of cold metal at chin height.
Success!
Before I can tug on it, the door pushes inward and light spills in. Someone’s entering.
Biting back a yelp, I skitter backward, until my back hits the wall. I don’t have a weapon. I don’t have anything with which to defend myself. I curl my hands into fists, ready to punch my way to freedom if I have to. I’m not letting these fuckers win.
A glowing tube of soft, luminescent light precedes them and lights up the darkness of my cell. An alien man enters, and I can see the shoulder of another standing guard just outside my strange hut.
The strange man stares at me, eyes wide with shock.
I stare back.
This particular alien doesn’t look like any other alien I’ve ever seen before. It’s strange, after over four years here on the ice planet, to realize that there might be people I haven’t met. It’s clear that whoever his people are, they live on this planet, too. He carries a spear, which means his people aren’t the space-faring type. Instead of wearing fur, he wears a strange mustard-colored fabric kilt and sandals on his feet.
He also has four arms, like the Strong Arm clan.
As my gaze travels upward, I notice thick fur on the lower extremities and a long, swishing, full tail. The stranger has a pelt of hair on his chest, and a thick, lion-like mane on his head that falls to the shoulders. He wears beads twisted in the thick tangle of reddish-gold mane. His eyes are khui blue and he has tall, skinny, arching horns that remind me of R’jaal’s. His facial features are regular, if carved with a heavy hand, and other than the four arms and tail (and okay, horns), he could be humanoid.