Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 121146 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121146 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
“You can hold my hand if you’re nervous,” the Light Twin offered, holding out one catcher’s mitt-sized hand to her.
Fierce shot her a look.
“I’d offer mine too, but I need both hands for flying,” he remarked. “Not that you’d accept.”
“After that remark you made about me being pregnant? I don’t think so,” Celia said coolly, and she took Hold’s hand, letting him entwine their fingers—his were long and tapered and artistic looking, she noticed, which seemed right for a doctor.
“Fucking great,” Fierce muttered. And then he pushed the steering yoke forward and they plunged into the swirling mass of kaleidoscope colors.
13
CELIA
“Okay—I’m ready. Dios, this is tight,” Celia muttered, tugging at her warm suit as she came out of the small bathroom at the back of the ship.
Despite her anxiety about the wormhole, they had landed safely on Tranq Prime. None of them had been outside yet but the viewscreen showed a frozen wasteland where nothing grew. Celia wondered how anything could live on such a barren planet, but Hold assured her that most of the living went on underground, in the grottos.
They were docked right beside the entrance to the abandoned grotto where the jewel moss was, so all of them were getting ready to go. Celia had gone to the back of the ship to change into her warm suit but now she couldn’t help feeling exposed.
The warm suit looked more like a wet suit—the kind you scuba dive in—than any kind of parka or cold weather clothing she had ever seen. It was form- fitting and made of a thin material that hugged her curves. At least it was black, though—the color was slenderizing and went well with her long dark hair.
There were furry boots that looked like Uggs, fuzzy mittens, and a long, scarf made of special insulating material to wrap around her face to go with the form-fitting warm suit. All of these items were red, which went nicely with the black, Celia thought. Kat had let her choose the colors of all her garments and had whipped them up quickly on her Replicator—a kind of 3-D printer that made or copied anything you wanted.
“Now keep this on the whole time you’re on Tranq Prime,” she had instructed, as she handed the warm suit to Celia. “As long as you keep it dry, it will hold in your body heat and insulate you even from the most extreme cold.” She held up a finger. “But whatever you do, don’t get it wet!”
“Why?” Celia asked and laughed. “Will it turn into a cold suit then?”
“You laugh, but yes it will,” Kat said seriously. “This material is just as effective at holding in the cold as it is at holding in the heat. If you get it wet in those temperatures you’ll be in real danger of freezing solid—I mean it. So if you don’t want to be a human popsicle, stay dry.”
Celia had promised that she would be careful and stay dry, but she didn’t think it would be a problem. Despite the extreme cold, there didn’t seem to be much snow or ice on the ground. She’d read once that a tundra was basically a frozen desert with hardly any precipitation. So how could she possibly get wet?
“Hello, lelka. Don’t you look fucking gorgeous in that warm suit,” Fierce growled as she came back to the front of the ship. He was sitting in the pilot’s seat but he turned around to see her, his dark eyes raking her curves in the form-fitting outfit.
“It’s to keep me warm—not to make you drool,” Celia snapped. “Besides, it’s too tight—it makes me look fat!” She pulled at the stretchy black fabric in vain, wishing it was a little looser.
“It makes you look like an Elite—a female the Goddess has blessed with extra-full curves, that’s all,” Fierce remarked, completely unrepentant. “Twin Kindred love Elites,” he added. “I mean, all Kindred do but they’re definitely our ideal female.”
Celia had no idea what to say to that—it still seemed strange to her that the Kindred actually liked full-figured women. But she supposed each culture had their own particular favorite body types. She tried not to blush when she considered the fact that she was apparently the Twin Kindreds’ idea of a super model. It was odd—especially since her whole life she’d been trying, not always successfully, to lose weight.
“What does ‘lelka’ mean?” she asked, pretending not to notice the way the Dark Twin was still looking at her. “You keep calling me that—is it a word in your own language?”
“Yes, it is,” he growled. “But I’m not telling you what it means—it would only piss you off.”
Celia put a hand on her hip.
“What—is it derogatory? You better not be calling me something nasty in your own language, you big pendejo!”
“Oh, you mean like a name that means ‘stupid’ or ‘son of a bitch’ like you were calling me last night?” He raised an eyebrow at her.