Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 88235 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88235 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Vicky shifted uncomfortably, squeezing her thighs together at the memory. God, she was still kind of surprised she’d done that with Chain—let him lick and suck her nipples and then touched herself while he talked dirty to her until she came. It seemed like something someone else would do—some other younger, hipper, much more daring woman.
But no—that was really me, Vicky admitted to herself. And I’m really going to a strange planet with a man I haven’t even known for twenty-four hours yet. Can’t believe I’m being so impulsive!
She hoped her daughters would believe the text message she’d sent them—that she was going out of town with a friend and might be out of touch for a while. She didn’t want them to worry about her, which they certainly would if they knew the truth.
“So what do you think?” Kat asked. “Come on out here and give us a fashion show.”
Lauren had gone back to her bakery and Sophie had left to do something with her kids but Liv and Kat clapped and whistled when Vicky came out and twirled around in the new gown.
“You look gorgeous,” Liv assured her. “And now I have to go as soon as I give you some translation bacteria.” She held up a syringe.
Vicky frowned as she held out her arm for the shot. “What’s that?”
“It helps you understand alien languages,” Kat told her. “You’re going to love it since you’re a language teacher. What do you teach, anyway?”
“Spanish and French,” Vicky told her. “And I coach the Drama Club since they cut the budget at our school and we can’t afford a full-time Drama teacher.”
Liv frowned. “Those bastards, always cutting the budget for education! You ought to come teach up here on the Mother Ship. The Kindred prioritize education—teachers are paid as much here as the head of the Kindred High Council—which happens to be Sylvan, my brother-in-law.”
“That sounds amazing,” Vicky said honestly. “I’d love to live someplace where all my hard work and the extra time I put in every single day is actually valued.”
“Teachers aren’t paid nearly enough on Earth—at least not in our country,” Kat said soberly. “They have such a hard job! They ought to be getting the big bucks.”
“Well, Chain said he’s going to see if he can get me paid for this, uh, mission to Priima Bella,” Vicky said. “It’ll be nice to have a little extra since I kind of spent all my savings on a designer dress that got ripped to shreds by the alien bad guys who were after Chain when he met me.”
“Oh, sounds like you’ve already had some adventures with your handsome Kindred,” Liv said, grinning. “And now you get to go to a safe planet and just kick back and sight-see while he makes the deal for the other half of the T’lix-Kruthe.”
“What is the T’lix-Kruthe, anyway?” Vicky asked curiously. “I mean, I held onto it for him for a while, but to me it just looked like a shiny, light-up golden golf ball with a divot carved out of one end.”
“Honestly, it’s so ancient and it’s been so long since the Kindred had it all together in one piece, nobody is quite sure what it is,” Kat told her. “But Sylvan has been praying for guidance about a very important decision he has to make and one of the priestesses in the Sacred Grove had a vision about it. She told us we had to get it back in order to know what to do.”
“But how will it tell him? What does it do? Or, I guess you don’t really know that, huh?” Vicky asked.
Liv shook her head. “All we know is that it’s supposed to provide the wisdom of the Goddess herself—the Mother of All Life. That’s what Sylvan is hoping anyway.”
“I guess it would be nosy of me to ask what decision he’s trying to make.”
“Yes, it absolutely would—I knew I liked you for some reason,” Kat said, grinning at her. “Actually, it’s not a secret. The Mother Ship’s population has reached the place where we could actually spare enough warriors to staff a second ship.”
“The Mother Ship Two,” Liv said musingly. “It would take a long time to build and it would require a complicated operation in order to split the green star that powers our own Mother Ship in order to give it a power source—but it’s doable. And some people are saying, necessary.”
“Why?” Vicky asked, mystified. “Are you getting overpopulated here?”
“No, but we will be in another generation or two,” Kat said. “The Kindred believe in planning ahead—far ahead. And the second Mother Ship wouldn’t hang around here, either. It would start folding space until it found another Earth-like planet where there were enough females for the Kindred males to call brides from it.”
“It’s a journey that might take them to the other end of the universe,” Liv murmured. “And anybody who joined it might never be seen or heard from again by our own Mother Ship. Space is vast.” She dashed tears from her eyes. “Sorry—I was just thinking, what if my little boy decided to go?”