Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 135784 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135784 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
"I know." My tone's a little rougher than I intended, and I grab the bowls and dish out noodles, thumping a bowl in front of her. "Eat."
"Thank you," she murmurs, and her voice is still sweet despite the fact that her cranky pet is nowhere around. For some reason, that bothers me. I don't want her to be nice. It's easier for both of us if we can't stand the sight of one another. Then we'll be relieved to part ways. So I put her cup of tea down with a bit more force than I should, ignoring the way she jumps. I thump down onto my seat and glare at her. I'm mad at myself for this stupid set-up. Why did I make a table so we could eat together? Why does it keffing matter? She's not staying. That's how I like it. I'm better off alone in the universe. No one has ever had my back, so why set myself up for pain?
Better to be alone.
I dig into my food, my mood sour. Eat quickly, I tell myself, so you can get up and leave. I shove noodles into my mouth with haste, barely using my serving sticks. My fingers work better. I slurp and chew, and then glance over at her.
The female's eyes are wide, her serving sticks poised over her bowl. She's watching me eat with a slightly horrified look on her face. She blinks. Twice.
"What?" I bark, swiping my sleeve over my face. It comes away soaked and covered with bits of noodle. I feel like an idiot. I'm eating like a rabid beast, like some sort of fool that's never seen serving sticks before. Like I've been starved…and I push my bowl away, no longer hungry, because I don't like that I'm turning back into that half-feral creature I was when I was freed from the war camp, the grimy, broken half-man who ate scraps on the ground because that was the only way to survive.
She toys with her noodles, unaware of the torment in my mind. "You wanted to talk about…food supplies?"
Maybe I did earlier. Right now, I just want her to stop looking at me with distaste. "Yeah, your pet's a problem. Unless you want to space him out the airlock, we're going to have to get supplies."
Her jaw drops. "Space him out the airlock?"
"What else do you do with unwanted pests?"
"He's not unwanted!" Her eyes shimmer with unshed tears again, to my dismay. "Someone stole him from his home. It's not his fault he's just trying to survive." Her mouth trembles. "It's certainly not his fault if he's not accustomed to station living. Blame those that stole him, not him."
Now I feel worse. I've wounded her, and I hate that she makes me feel like this. "Whatever. He's still a problem."
"Why are you such a jerk?"
"Jerrok," I snap. "For the millionth time, human, it's Jerrok."
"Sophie."
"What?"
She flings her serving sticks at me, the utensils thumping against my chest. "If you're going to chastise me for saying your name wrong—which I didn't, I was insulting you—at least have the decency to learn my damn name."
I rub at my new uniform, now covered with wet splashes of noodle broth. "Let's just make a plan so we can end this conversation, all right?"
"Fine!" She crosses her arms under her teats, and I can't help but notice they're rather large and prominent. That's why humans get stolen, isn't it? Because they have large teats even without reproducing, and because their cunts are supposed to be tight and soft and—
I squeeze my eyes shut, my cock responding at the thought. Kef me. "Here's how it's going to go."
16
JERROK
The little human—Sophie—sits ramrod straight across the table from me, bristling with irritation. We've managed to get on each other's nerves again, but I'm not apologizing. She's the interloper. She's the one that's the problem.
Not me.
"We can do this one of two ways," I say, flicking a stray bit of noodle off my sleeve. "We can send out a call for a corsair cruiser to meet us somewhere and pay an obscene amount for their food supplies, or we can venture out to a station. I vote station."
To my surprise, she pales. Her pink tongue darts out and she licks her lips. "I-I would prefer pirates, I think." Her voice is trembling. "Are they nice pirates? Like…the va Sithai?"
I snort. "What do you think the odds are of that?"
Her hand—small and delicate for all its many fingers—moves to the collar of her jumper and she clutches it tight at the throat, her shoulders shrinking. "I'm just…I can't go to a station." Sophie swallows hard. "What about the Little Sister? Any word from them?"
I shake my head. "Nothing. The Slatra system is a pretty large system. It doesn't matter if they have a map—it still might take them a lot longer than anticipated before they find the wreckage. Longer still if they run into other pirates. We can't wait for them if we like eating."