Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 86074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
And Light was the same way. He wasn’t groping her like some guys might do, or trying to take advantage in any way. He was just holding her securely against his side, doing his best to make her feel cared for and safe.
Though she hadn’t known the two of them for longer than a couple of hours, Lili felt protected…and she also felt like they honestly cared about her happiness. Which was such a rare feeling—especially in today’s dating scene, she thought. Not that they were dating of course, but it was nice to feel comfortable and cared for.
“All right,” she said, giving up and just relaxing against Light’s side. “You’re really good at that,” she added, speaking to Dark. “You ought to be a massage therapist or something. People would pay hundreds of dollars to get your special foot massage.”
Dark scowled.
“Don’t fucking want to touch any other human’s feet—just yours, little Lili. But I’m glad you like it.”
“I do,” Lili admitted. She liked the way he called her “little Lili”, but it was difficult to forget the scary things he’d done. Still, he had been protecting her, she reminded herself. And there was no doubt that her attacker had deserved it—it had been clear to Lili that she wasn’t the first woman he’d gone after.
“Are you feeling comforted?” Light asked, looking down at her. “We want you to know you’re safe now, Lilibet. I hope your positive emotions are beginning to overcome the negative ones.”
“They are.” Lili looked up at him and smiled. “You two are the sweetest guys I’ve ever met. Thank you for rescuing me and taking me away from that horrible man! Did you say we were going to the Kindred Mother Ship?”
“We are.” Light nodded. “We’re in our ship right now, headed there. I hope that’s all right—the human authorities were coming and we needed to get away quickly, before they started questioning what we did to your attacker,” he added.
Lili nodded. She didn’t really want to spend her night in the police station going over and over the awful attack while some bored cop took notes either.
“It’s okay, only I left my cell phone and all my clothes in my hotel room,” she told him. She frowned. “I guess I could ask my best friend, Rachel, if she could go get them for me. She lives aboard the Mother Ship because she’s married to a Beast Kindred.”
“If you know his name, we can bespeak him and ask him to have her come visit you at the Med Center,” Light offered.
“Oh, it’s Brock. The two of them got married just a little while ago.”
“We’ll take care of it,” Dark promised. He stopped rubbing her left foot and started on the right again. Lili almost told him she was fine now, but his warm, vibrating fingers felt so good she decided to let him go on…just a little while longer.
“Okay, thank you,” she said. “Oh, but I still have that conference for Women in Academia I’m supposed to attend at the Tampa HKR building tomorrow!” she added, remembering. “I can’t miss that. I was hoping to meet Commander Sylvan there and ask him to facilitate a meeting between me and f’loon.”
Dark frowned.
“Who the fuck is f’loon. Is he a male?”
“No, they are a bas’lat,” Lili corrected him.
“They? Are there two of them or what?” Dark frowned.
Lili smiled.
“No—bas’lat is the third sex of the Chulaz people. There really isn’t a good pronoun for them in English so we just say ‘they’ instead of ‘he’ or ‘she.’”
“Oh, the Chulaz—right.” Dark nodded.
“I’ve heard of them,” Light said, nodding. “Instead of just male and female, they have three sexes—male, female, and bas’lat. It takes one of each in order for the Chulaz to procreate but they have a shrinking population of females so they’re slowly dying out.”
“I don’t know about that,” Lili said. “I only know that f’loon has the biggest collection of alien art in the known universe. I’m hoping to go meet them and study all the works they’ve curated over the years, but I need to get Commander Sylvan’s permission to ask for a Kindred escort to get to them. They’re in the Cat’s Eye Nebula cluster,” she added.
“Light and I can take you there,” Dark offered, looking up from massaging her foot again. “You’ll definitely need protection—from what we’ve heard the Chulaz home world is fucking dangerous.”
“It is?” Lili felt a knot form in her stomach.
“Only if you don’t have a male—or males—to protect you,” Light told her. “Remember I told you they have a shrinking population of females?”
“Well, yes—but I’m not Chulaz, I’m human,” Lili protested. “It wouldn’t do them any good to capture me, would it?”
Light frowned.
“Well, the thing is, the Chulaz reproductive system is unique, in that the male produces the seed, the bas’lat produces the egg and then together they implant it into the female’s womb. So since she isn’t providing any of the reproductive material herself…”