Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 124077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 620(@200wpm)___ 496(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 620(@200wpm)___ 496(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Instead, he would be taking her away from it…away from him.
Taurex swallowed around the ache in his throat and began preparing a small breakfast she probably wouldn’t eat. It was the last thing he could do for her before he took her home and, perhaps, the last thing he would ever do for his mate.
31
TERRA
Terra was completely dressed and packed by the time she finally worked up the nerve to leave the sleeping chamber the next morning. She stood for several minutes with one hand resting on the living bark of the door, her heart pounding, before she could make herself open it.
She hadn’t slept at all.
Every time she closed her eyes, she remembered Taurex standing in the doorway, his immense body filling the opening, and the terror that had seized her when she realized just how completely she had put herself in his power by coming all the way out here with him.
He hadn’t done anything to justify that fear—at least not physically. In fact, when she’d asked him to leave her alone, he had done exactly that. But if there was one thing stripping had taught Terra, it was that men could be unpredictable. A man could be smiling one minute and calling you beautiful, then grabbing your wrist hard enough to leave bruises the next, because you wouldn’t give him what he wanted.
Taurex hadn’t seemed angry when he left her room last night, but what if he’d spent the whole night getting angrier? What if he decided this morning that she owed him something because he had brought her here, fed her, paid her so generously and given her a job?
Terra hated herself a little for thinking that way about him, but fear wasn’t logical, and she was suddenly desperate to get home—to see her mother and hold Cody and Lisa so tightly they would complain she was squishing them.
Taking a deep breath, she pushed the door open and made her way quietly down the curving hallway toward the kitchen, carrying her overnight bag in one hand and pulling her little rolling suitcase behind her.
The living house was beginning to wake around her, the glow-vines brightening one flower at a time as the artificial morning light filtered through the windows. But instead of seeming magical the way it had the day before, everything felt strange and alien now.
What was I thinking, coming millions of miles away from home with a man I’d barely known for a month? she asked herself.
She had been so excited by the Mother Ship and so certain Taurex would keep her safe that she hadn’t really considered how completely isolated she would be if something went wrong.
God, please, she prayed silently as she walked. If you let me get home safely, I swear I’ll never leave my babies again. I’ll stay right there in Tampa where I belong and never do anything this stupid again.
She smelled breakfast before she reached the kitchen, though the savory scent made her stomach tighten rather than growl. When she entered the food preparation area, she saw that Taurex had already made something and set a green leaf plate on the living table for her.
There was a mound of something that looked remarkably like pale green scrambled eggs beside a thick slice of darker green breakfast meat.
Despite everything, Terra immediately thought of Green Eggs and Ham. It had been Lisa’s favorite book when she was little. Terra must have read it to her five hundred times, doing all the silly voices while Lisa sat curled in her lap in footie pajamas.
The memory made her arms physically ache with the need to hold her little girl again. Her babies. God, she wanted her babies!
Then she looked at Taurex and forgot all about the strange breakfast.
He looked awful.
The big Monstrum was sitting at the table in the same loose sleep trousers he had been wearing the night before, his broad shoulders slumped and his hands resting listlessly on his thighs. There were dark shadows beneath his golden eyes, and the usual polish of his horns somehow seemed dimmed by the morning light.
He didn’t look furious. He didn’t even look resentful. He looked exhausted and strangely empty, as though something inside him had simply gone out.
“Uh…are you all right?” she asked, tentatively.
He stirred then, and looked up at her.
“There is food, if you wish to eat,” he said quietly, ignoring her question and nodding toward the leaf plate he had prepared for her.
Terra bit her bottom lip.
“Er, I appreciate you making breakfast,” she told him carefully, still watching his face for any sign that his mood might change. “But my stomach is a little upset right now.” She swallowed, wondering if even that small rejection might offend him, then forced herself to say what she really wanted. “I’d really just rather go home, if you don’t mind.”