Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
There are so many pretty little bursting lights, which correspond to the Zeal soldiers opening fire. They may as well be little LED lights flashing on a game board for all the effect they seem to have on my mates.
Boss lowers his head and shoulders, then charges the nearest cluster of soldiers, goring through them in one brutal motion. I am getting closer by the second, and I know that the soldiers on his horns are not holding on. They have no choice. He has turned them into impromptu head decorations, and now he uses their limp bodies as a kind of shield while the others continue to fire on him.
This gives Sharp all the opening he needs to start swinging his weapon, a sword that cuts through every bit of the soldiers where it makes contact. He is skilled with it, but even if he were not, I have no doubt that he would be making diced meat out of these soldiers.
Poor bastards. They didn’t know what they were in for.
Kronos lights the rest of them up with cracking lightning that seems to emanate from his hands and fingers. Still have no idea how he does that. There is so much more to him than meets the eye. That’s true of all of them, I realize as my feet dangle in the rushing air.
Stuck floating toward carnage, I realize again that I finally have access to all my memories with them.
They make me blush…
Some time ago…
“Kneel, pet.”
I blush, but I don’t go to my knees.
“Why do you resist even the slightest display of obedience?”
“I don’t know,” I whimper as I hide my head, a little ashamed of myself under Sharp’s stern stare.
“You speak the same language. You understand me entirely. But you have decided not to obey. Why?”
“Don’t make me explain myself,” I plead.
“You will have to explain yourself. You can either use your words, or you can choose to obey. I will take either option.”
“It feels weird to kneel. Makes me feel… small, I don’t know.”
“You are small,” he points out pragmatically.
“Yes, but that’s not what I mean. I mean I don’t… I don’t want to do what you tell me to do.”
“Are you sure about that, pet?” Sharp’s stern voice is laced with a hint of sexy warmth. He is so patient. Dangerously so.
“Yes, I am pretty sure,” I say, squirming.
“The others have put you on your knees, but I want you to do it for me. I do not want to have to manhandle you every time you need to do something.”
“But I don’t want to…”
“You whine like a juvenile,” he says. “Do you want to be treated like a little baby? Is that it? Should I treat you like a little pup? Crate you? Take you out to the toilet? Ensure you are not messing yourself?”
He is not going to let me get away with this. The others just put me on my knees and go about their business. But Sharp is more patient than that, and smarter too.
“Kneel, pet,” he says. “Or what happens to you will be so much more humiliating than the simple act of going to your knees. I can promise you that.”
“Well, now I’m curious,” I say, only somewhat joking. I thrill to threats. I know nobody on this ship is going to hurt me.
“Don’t be,” Sharp says flatly. “Kneel.”
I almost kneel. I seriously really almost do. But at the last moment my knees just refuse to bend. There’s something in a human that just doesn’t want to give in. I think it’s built into our DNA.
He picks me up, and starts stripping me of what little clothing I had on. In seconds, I am naked. He attaches a leash to my collar and pushes me into a hands and knees position.
“You’re going to crawl,” he tells me. “You’re going to follow me naked on hands and knees until your kneeling becomes second nature to you.”
I try to get up, of course. But he pushes me back down, then tugs on the leash.
“Come,” he says. “Come, and think about how much easier and less uncomfortable it would have been if you could have just kneeled to begin with.”
“This is mean,” I whimper in complaint.
“Mean would be whipping you for your insolence. Mean would be taking my leather tongue lash to your beautiful breasts and buttocks until you begged for mercy—and then showing you none. Now come with me, pet.”
“I’m sorry, Sharp,” I whisper, pulling back against the leash.
“I’m sure you are,” he says. “I promised you that you would regret your actions. And now you are. Take some heart that you can trust my threats.”
He gives me quite literally no choice in the matter. I can’t physically resist him. He’s much stronger than I am, and he is determined to make this punishment happen.