Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 47265 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47265 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
“That’s, uh, not what I meant.”
She looked at him more closely. Being near him made all the hair on the back of her neck stand up, not in a horror sort of way, but in a strange Van De Graaff generator sort of way. She was almost certain that if she put her hands on him, every single bit of hair on her body would start floating from the sheer electricity.
His costume was really good. Definitely movie quality. And now that she really looked at it, it had to be bespoke. Maybe even homemade.
“How long have you been doing cosplay?” She tried to change the subject. Not because she wasn’t interested, but because she was. Because she was trying to get a sense of whether or not this guy was a secret serial killer. Netflix specials had taught her that you had to be careful about that. Also, people with tiger zoos.
“Cosplay?”
“Dressing up like this. Looking like you do.” She gestured at his wings. “All of this. A lot of hours must have gone into it.”
“Oh yes, a very great many.” He looked around and nodded, as if he had come to a conclusion. “It is time we went, human. What do you call yourself?”
“Katie.”
“Kay-tee,” he repeated. “In my language, that refers to somebody with a very large… never mind.”
He lifted his hand and snapped his fingers. Time slowed and then stopped. Birds hovered in the air, people paused mid-step, a jogger hovered an inch or so above the pavement.
“What the…”
“Come,” he said, taking her hand in his. “Leave this petty little world behind. Do not concern yourself with your job, or whatever an apartment might be. It sounds small.”
“It is,” she mumbled, staring about herself in amazement. “How did you do that? How did you stop everything?”
With the world standing still, she was suddenly able to perceive a myriad of details which would have otherwise been lost to her. Everybody she had gone out of her way to ignore, those who had been nothing but a general mash of humanity, they now seemed individually fascinating.
“I didn’t. I stopped perception of time in a very limited radius. We should go. Things tend to explode if you don’t…
BOOM!
Somewhere in the distance, something turned orange and began to billow very slowly and strangely into the sky.
“Yes, you see. We’re stressing space. Time to go.”
“Okay, sure, dude.”
She couldn’t imagine how they were going to go. There was nowhere to go. Just an incredible stillness all around, and a warmth radiating from above. It felt like the sun, but more personal.
When she looked up, she saw a light so bright and so warm that she couldn't help but look up at it. She felt completely safe, and utterly loved. She felt as though she knew the answer to every question she had ever asked, and many others besides.
The stranger’s arms wrapped around her, his wings extended and together they rose above the stalled streetscape, leaving it behind as if it were nothing more than a glitch in time.
2 A Pet Is For Life
“Dominax, what are you doing with that human?”
Darma was always asking difficult questions. It was almost as if his job was to spend all day thinking of difficult questions, and then ask them. As the younger brother of the king, Darma was what the humans would have called Dominax’s right hand man. He was also trouble of the kind Dominax liked to keep close out of necessity.
“She’s my new pet.”
“Ah,” Darma said. “Just a pet, then. Not a mate. Not a queen. Just a pet.”
“What are you getting at?”
Darma was grinning broadly. He was just trying to start something. As usual.
“I’m saying you’ve taken an alien of unknown temperament and you’ve decided to make her a pet because she has a compatible hole for your cock, just because King Archon has one?”
“Thank you for the summary,” Dominax growled. “Now please, leave us. If she wakes up she doesn’t need the two of us looming over her.”
“Right, because that could frighten her.”
“Exactly.”
“But being dragged to our planet, that’s going to be like a vacation for her.”
“Darma. Enough,” Dominax growled. “Get out of here.”
“Would be pleased to. Would be pleased to never be dragged along on any of these fuck hunting trips again, actually.”
So that’s what this was about. His younger brother was not on board his ship because Dominax needed his help. He was on board his ship because Dominax did not feel like leaving the rogue prince to roam their home world without supervision.
“Maybe you should start conducting yourself in a royal fashion,” Dominax suggested. “Maybe, instead of taking your band of winged bastards into the Golden City and terrorizing the locals, you could stay in the palace and learn to defend the planet.”
“It was one time, Dominax. One time. Bronco had just graduated the royal academy, and we were celebrating.”