Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79603 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79603 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
At first he wondered why he was so comfortable. The concrete sleeping tube he’d been assigned in the hole was rough and dank and dirty, but he was lying on a soft, giving surface that cradled and cushioned his entire body.
And speaking of bodies, a female one was cupped in the curve of his own. But that must be a dream—he was never destined to have his own female—not here on Yonnie Six. No matter what old Mother Hownow had said.
Opening his eyes, he looked down and saw that it wasn’t a dream after all. The girl in his arms was lying on her side, sleeping deeply. She had creamy brown skin and long black eyelashes that curled on her high cheekbones. She had luscious curves too, he saw with approval—he’d never liked a female without something to hold on to.
The girl looked familiar somehow and he had the feeling he’d seen her somewhere before. Maybe in his dreams when he’d been buried in the hole?
But that whole experience seemed like a bad dream to him now. How long had he been in there? How long had his feral side had free rein? A week? A month? Three months? A year?
J’are couldn’t remember. It was all just a dark, nightmarish blur of beatings and starvation and fighting for his life. In a situation like that, it was easier to let his feral side take over—it was much better at keeping him alive than his fully-functioning cognitive mind.
Then she had come.
He looked down again at the girl in his arms. Seeing her in the courtroom had been like seeing a candle in the darkness—a candle glowing just for him. J’are had known she was his savior from the moment she Claimed him as her own.
Wait—had she Claimed him? Or had that been another dream? A misunderstanding by his feral side?
He frowned, his forehead wrinkling as he tried to remember. He could only get vague flashes of the night before…
The Goddess damned Horvath guards using pain prods on him and chaining him up so they could drag him into the courtroom…a judge with blue hair…seeing that yellow-haired bitch, Mistress Bittlebum, who had locked him in a pain collar and then sold him to Lady Zangelo, who was even worse.
She had used the pain collar and the pain prod on him over and over again and then he woke up, covered in her blood and they said he’d killed her. But had he? J’are couldn’t remember it if he had, he only knew that he’d been thrown down into the hole with all the other killers and scum, waiting his turn to be executed…
Wait…J’are shook his head. He was losing his train of thought here. Everything was a big muddled mess. He was trying to reconstruct what had happened to him last night from the confusing images supplied by his feral half—it was like looking through a series of bright, jumbled vid-pics played in rapid succession and trying to make a coherent story out of them.
So he had been dragged back into the court and then the lovely girl he was somehow sleeping with had Claimed him. Or at least, she had convinced the Yonnites to free him and she had taken him back with her to this place—wherever it was. He had vague memories of her putting him in the tub and scrubbing something off of him—oh right—the black synther paint he’d used to hide his k’dra markings so they wouldn’t give him away in the darkness of the hole. And then—
The girl in his arms stirred and opened her eyes.
“J’are?” she mumbled, looking up at him. “You all right?”
J’are felt his heart start to pound as he looked down into her lovely dark eyes. Maybe she had Claimed him, after all.
“I’m sorry,” he said to her. “But I don’t know your name. Could you tell me who you are and how I got here?”
Eighteen
“What?” Imani stiffened in the big Kindred’s arms. “What do you mean you don’t know my name? I told you when I came to get you—I’m Imani—the attorney, er, Defender—the Kindred of the Mother Ship sent to represent you in court.”
He frowned.
“If you’re my legal Councilor, why are we sleeping together like this?”
“I…you…you mean you don’t remember that either?” Imani felt her cheeks getting hot. “And how come you’re not talking like a caveman anymore?” she demanded.
“A what?” His frown deepened. “You want me to talk like I came from a cave?”
“No, no—that’s not…” It was really uncomfortable talking to him about all this when she was still wrapped in his arms and he was looming over her.
Quickly, Imani disentangled herself and sat up in bed, facing him.
“Last night,” she said, trying to make sense of everything. “You were different. I think maybe you were in your, uh, feral state?” She wasn’t sure if that was offensive to say or not but she didn’t see how else she could put it.