Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
“Look, I never said…” V shook his head. “I’m just worried about you being at the Marketplace, that’s all, sweetheart! I especially don’t like you being so close to the butcher shop!”
“Why, because Skrug works there?” The flash of anger was over and V felt a wave of hopelessness coming from her. “Don’t worry,” she said dully. “He’s promised he won’t rape me until the next Public Breeding. Which could be any…any time.” Her words ended in a sob and she dropped her eating utensil with a clatter and buried her face in her hands.
“He what?” V was so angry he wanted to go find the big blue bastard and rip his head off. How dare the big fucker threaten his bride? How dare he threaten to rape Penelope and scare her and make her cry? How fucking dare he?
V could feel the Rage rising in him—it was a dark red haze that threatened to roll over his vision and erase his reason in the relentless need to maim and kill whatever or whoever had threatened his female.
With difficulty, he got hold of himself. Giving in to the Rage and going to kill Skrug now would only get him either killed himself, or at the very least incapacitated by the pain square imbedded in his neck. Though part of him felt it would be absolutely worth it to die as long as he could kill the big blue asshole who had threatened his female first, V forced himself to remember that Skrug wasn’t the only threat.
As long as she worked in the Marketplace, any male could be a threat to Penelope and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it except try to be on the alert until they could get out of this fucked up place.
V took a deep, calming breath, trying to force the overwhelming Rage away. He had never felt this strongly for a female before so it was an unfamiliar emotion. Slowly, he succeeded. He didn’t need to kill Skrug—at least not right now. Right now, he had to comfort Penelope.
He wanted badly to gather her into his arms and hold her, just as he had when he was carrying her home from their Unification Ceremony. But the tense set of her shoulders and the way she had drawn in on herself, let V know this would not be well received.
Instead, he knelt in front of her and tugged gently at her hands, which were still covering her face.
“Penelope? Sweetheart?” he murmured gently.
Finally, she let him pry her hands away from her face. Her cheeks were flushed and her big brown eyes were suspiciously bright but somehow she was keeping herself from completely breaking down, V saw.
He wished she wouldn’t try so hard to hold back her emotions. He knew some males who hated it when females cried, but he wasn’t one of them. If she’d actually started sobbing, he would have felt like he could gather her into his arms and hold her, as he so badly wanted to do. But he didn’t feel free to do that when she was holding herself in so tightly.
“I’ll be all right,” she whispered, her eyes flicking up to his and then down again. “I’ll manage somehow.”
“No, we’ll manage,” V said, frowning. “We’re in this together, little girl—or did you forget?”
She glanced at him and then up at the ceiling, where the red light was still dark.
“I know we decided to, uh, work together to try and get away from here,” she said in a low voice. “But I didn’t think our, um…partnership extended any further than that. I mean, you don’t have to feel like you have to protect me or—”
“Of course I’m gonna protect you!” V looked at her intensely. “I swear by the Goddess, if that fucker Skrug gets anywhere near you, I’ll fucking kill him—that’s my promise to you, okay?” He lifted her chin gently with one finger so that she would look in his eyes again.
“That’s very sweet of you, V’rex,” she murmured. “But you don’t have to do that—don’t have to put yourself on the line for me.”
“Of course I do! You’re my bride—my mate—remember?” he reminded her.
She sniffed again.
“Only because stupid Colonel Sanders put us together.” Which was the name of the human male she’d said the “Glorious Leader” looked like, V remembered. The one who sold some kind of fried food that tasted good but was bad for you.
“He didn’t put us together,” V told her softly. “I asked for you.”
“What?” Penelope’s eyes flew up to his again. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean what I said,” V said simply. “When they figured out I was immune to their fucking hypno-whispers, the GL came in to talk to me and offered me a deal. He told me that if I stayed in the Compound for a little while—just long enough to leave some of my ‘genetic material’ as he put it—he’d let me have my pick of females.” He shrugged. “And I chose you.”