Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 88265 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88265 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
When I don’t move, the Phaelix grabs my shirt and tears it down the middle. There’s a flash of claws, and then I’m naked too.
Maeva is the first one to be manhandled onto the stage. Strangely enough, she’s not crying but only staring vacantly in front of her.
The other women are shivering on the wet sand, looking on with terrified expressions. Karl stands helplessly, his jaw bunched in powerless anger. My turn is next. I stumble, nearly going down onto my knees. I sway on my feet in the center of the stage, barely hanging on to consciousness. I don’t want to pass out now. Who knows what these fuckers are going to do to me? If only my power would return… Unfortunately, I’m as powerless as the day I arrived on Zerra.
Someone calls out something from the audience. I turn my face toward the sound.
What the…?
I blink twice to make sure I’m seeing right.
Shit.
Not all Phaelix look alike, after all. The one who’s standing, pointing a flabby arm adorned with shiny bangles at me, is enormous. His head is the size of a yoga ball, and his red glowing eyes are bulging out of his head. The folds under his chin wobble as he says something.
The Phaelix on the stage, who’s digging his claws into my arm, calls something back. The Phaelix in the audience laughs so hard his big stomach shakes. He lifts the folds that hide his groin in both hands to reveal a red tongue-shaped dick with a forked end snaking from somewhere. With all those scaly layers, it’s impossible to tell where it’s attached to his body. He makes a vulgar thrusting gesture with his hips, causing raucous laughter to break out in the crowd.
I can only imagine what he’s saying, but I’m not staying to find out. Concussion or not, one look at that dick dripping with sticky, green goo is enough to propel me into action.
I jam an elbow into the ribs of the Phaelix holding me, catching him by surprise. He lets my wrist go and utters a cry of pain. I kick him between the legs for good measure, taking no small satisfaction in how his eyes cross as he cups his groin and goes down on his knees.
My best bet is the water. I’m sprinting for the side of the stage, knowing that with my head injury, the jump has a good chance of killing me, but I’d rather die with my face in the sand than between that Phaelix’s legs. Or worse, with that red dick down my throat.
I’m almost at the edge when my run is broken violently. A claw locks around my ankle, plucking my feet from under me. My wind is knocked out when I hit the wooden surface.
For a moment, I can’t breathe. All I see are fireflies. They’re everywhere—on the beach, in the sky, and behind my eyelids. I’m blinking through the fog, trying to clear my head when the big Phaelix drops the folds around his middle and raises his arm triumphantly in the air.
A chorus of cheers rises among the Phaelix.
Oh, fuck.
I think I’ve just been sold.
Chapter 3
Aruan
“Find her,” I command my mother through clenched teeth as I pace in front of the window in her quarters.
Sweat beads on her brow. “I’m trying.”
“She’s too weak.” My father hands her a cup of wine. “The Phaelix attack drained what little strength she’d recovered.”
“Gaia!” I call loud enough to be heard in all the corners of the palace.
My father’s tone is stern, but the look he gives me is wary. “Calm down, Aruan.”
Because losing control means unleashing my power, and we’ve all seen how that turns out.
My mother collapses on a chair. “I can’t carry on. I have to stop for a while.”
I pause in front of the window and grip the ledge hard. Elsie vanished not minutes ago, and already, it feels like forever. Too long.
I left her in my quarters to confront my mother, and the next moment, a dragon landed on my balcony and carried away my mate. I saw it happen through this very window, and I was powerless to stop them. Elsie flew away on the dragon before I had time to portal myself there.
It wasn’t just any dragon, either. I recognized the tear in its wing. It was the dragon Elsie begged me not to kill at the lake, the one she called Betty. Since that encounter, we discovered that my mate has control over the mind of not only that dragon but also of small insects like water dragons and all the pets in the palace. I have no doubt Elsie summoned Betty so she could escape, something she’d wanted to do from the moment her feet had touched the ground in Lona.
Who knows where she’s headed? She couldn’t have reached another kingdom yet, not even at the speed a dragon flies. The kingdoms are too vast. But every minute we waste is a minute she’s moving farther from me. I can feel her presence just like I did when she first appeared on Zerra, so she must be only a local portal away.