Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 66405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
“My, my—you must have been thirsty!” Lx Sambla was staring at her with wide eyes. “I’ve never seen a lady drink so much gupcha in one sitting.”
“It’s really good,” Addie said, though she had no idea if the liquor was actually good or not. Her tongue and throat were still on fire and it felt like someone had set off a bomb in her stomach. She certainly hoped the rest of the feast was better than this!
Unfortunately, it wasn't. The second course arrived and it was a salad made of fresh purple, green, and orange leaves. That would have been fine but it was drizzled with a bright red, blood salad dressing. Addie did her best to pick around it, but each leaf was pretty well coated in the stuff and when she did manage to get a bite without blood on it, she found that the alien lettuce was extremely bitter and peppery.
Ugh—like arugula on steroids! she thought, pushing the blood-soaked leaves around her plate while pretending to eat them. This is almost worse than the blood cubes!
Next came a rare cut of some kind of steak which had been masterfully shaped into the animal it came from. It looked a little like a cross between a sheep and a horse, Addie decided as she examined it, since it had the squat body and short legs of a sheep and the long neck and face of a horse.
She might have tried it but she really didn’t like rare meat—she always asked for her steak medium well and barely pink in the middle. The strange sheep-horse steak was so rare it was bleeding all over the plate. In fact, Addie didn’t think it had been cooked at all—not even a tiny fraction.
She made small talk with Lx Sambla and drank more of the gupcha as she dismembered the steak beast with her knife and fork and hoped that the next course would be nicer.
It wasn’t. The next course was a palate cleanser—a small, dense, icy ball of blood sorbet. Addie stirred it morosely and watched as it melted into a bloody, icy puddle in the charming crystal cup it was served in.
Next came a blood soup which was served at a tepid temperature to keep the main ingredient from cooking too much. Even so, there were tiny grayish chunks of cooked blood floating in the dark red broth that Addie found nauseating. Still, she forged ahead, swirling her “toonsil” through the bloody mess and bringing it to her lips every so often to pretend to sip, followed by more of the fiery gupcha.
By now she was really beginning to feel the alcohol—her limbs felt loose and she was slightly dizzy. She told herself she ought to stop drinking on an empty stomach but the server kept pouring her more and at least it looked like she was eating dinner.
But her pretense wasn’t fooling Lx Sambla.
“But my lovely one, you’re not eating!” He looked at her anxiously. “Is our native Vargan cuisine not to your liking?”
“Oh no—it’s de…delicious!” Addie exclaimed quickly, not wanting to offend. Her words were coming out a bit slurry, but she hoped he wouldn’t notice. “It’s jusht, I mean just that I had a really big meal before coming here,” she added weakly. “I’m so shorry. I mean sorry—I don’t mean to give offense. I didn’t know we’d be going to a feasht. A feast, I mean.”
“No, of course not. Please don’t give it another thought,” Sambla said smoothly. “But even though you haven’t had much for dinner, I’m sure you’re going to love dessert! Look, here come the servers now.”
Addie turned to look over her shoulder, hoping against hope that there would be a least one menu item that was not based on blood in any way. She really needed to put something solid in her stomach to soak up all the alcohol she’d been drinking!
Sadly, she was disappointed—though she didn't know it at first. When the server placed a gorgeous little pie, complete with a crispy, golden crust sprinkled with sparkly sugar crystals in front of her, she clapped her hands in delight.
“Oh good—this looks delicious!” She smiled at Sambla and eagerly dug in, breaking the perfect crust with the tines of her fork-like instrument.
But as the crust cracked, blood began to well up out of it and drip gruesomely onto the white plate the pie had been placed on.
Addie could barely contain her disappointment.
“Oh, no!” she sighed unhappily, putting down her knife and fork. It seemed so unfair that she was being fed a totally blood-based diet. The Kindred had never imposed such weird dietary standards on Lx Sambla when he visited the Mother Ship!
Speaking of Sambla, he was looking at her anxiously.
“What is it, lovely one?” he asked. “Is the blood pie not to your liking?”