Total pages in book: 165
Estimated words: 159487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
*This is a PLUS-length novel--over 140,000 words long
Cassie is curvy, perimenopausal, stranded on an alien planet, and trapped in a miserable marriage to a cold-blooded lizard man who no longer wants her. When the Hunger Virus turns citizens into ravenous Infected, her husband lets the city cast her outside the gates as Zombie food.
But Cassie doesn’t die.
A huge, half-feral Beast Kindred rescues her and carries her to an underground bunker, where a brilliant Blood Kindred scientist is desperately searching for a cure.
Ravik is infected and losing himself to the Hunger…but Cassie’s scent brings him back.
Severin is cold, controlled, and all science—until he realizes Cassie’s changing human body may be the key to a cure.
Now Cassie is trapped in an undergrown bunker with two massive Kindred warriors who both need her in forbidden ways. Ravik wants to claim her. Severin wants to study her. And the cure they’re creating demands touch, blood, pleasure…and a three-way bond none of them are ready to name.
Beast Kindred don’t share mates. Blood Kindred don’t either.
But Cassie may be the one woman who changes all the rules.
This spicy sci-fi romance features a curvy mature heroine, perimenopause power, alien zombie outbreak danger, forced proximity, protective Kindred warriors, MFM heat, healing bites, body worship, forbidden sharing, and a happily ever after ending that will make your toes curl and your heart melt
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
1
CASSIE
“Don’t do this, Sskarth—please, I’m begging you! Don’t let them put me outside the city gates!”
Cassie faced her husband, her hands clasped over her pounding heart, her eyes filled with tears of pure panic. All around her, the Visskous hissed their disapproval. They were a cold-blooded people—literally, since the inhabitants of Visslick Prime were lizard-like both in appearance and in biology.
She’d thought that Sskarth was so handsome and exotic when she met him on the Kindred Mother Ship. He had a sleek, slim body with a swimmer’s build and his purple scales flashed with iridescent brilliance when the light caught them just right.
He had thought that Cassie was exotic too, apparently—a prize to be won and brought back to his home world for display. The Visskous were a jealous people and there was nothing they liked more than having something exclusive that everyone else would admire and envy.
At first, Cassie had been a trophy wife—a human female from another galaxy—so unusual and unique that every other male envied Sskarth. He had a mate unlike any other woman on the planet and everything about her was considered odd and exciting. From the “silk” she grew from the top of her head to the pale, scaleless skin that covered her curvy frame, it seemed that every Visskous male who saw her wanted her.
That had been nice…for a while. Before coming to work on the Mother Ship and meeting Sskarth—who was visiting to establish trade relations with the Kindred—she’d been married for twenty years to a husband who didn’t appreciate her.
Mitchell, her ex, had been a total misogynist who had believed a woman’s job was having babies and making sandwiches. It had taken Cassie ten years to realize what a jerk he was and then ten more years after that to finally get away from him. She waited until her last son was in college and then she filed for divorce and applied for a job on board the Kindred Mother Ship on the same day.
If only she would have stayed there, she wouldn’t be in this position now, she thought, looking around at the bad-tempered lizard people, all flicking their forked tongues at her and hissing their displeasure and disapproval. She might even have found a nice Kindred warrior to settle down with. Even though she was past 40 by then, there were still Kindred who might have been interested.
But then Sskarth came into the picture. He wooed her with his extravagant wealth and promises that they would “live in a city of crystal spires together and love until the end of time.” After years spent with a taciturn asshole like Mitch, Cassie’s head had been completely turned by the overwhelming romance and what she now understood was love bombing of the alien male. She had agreed to join with Sskarth and go live with him on Visslick Prime.
And now she was regretting it because she was about to be put outside the gorgeous Crystal City to die.
“Please Sskarth!” she begged again. “I’m your mate! You can’t just put me outside the walls because I’m not a Visskous!”
“But how do we know you won’t catch the disease and spread it?” one of the lizard women demanded, giving her a hard stare through her slitted eyes. She was distinguishable from the males only by the limp, leathery crest of skin that started at her forehead and ran down the middle of her skull like a flaccid Mohawk.
“What makes you think I’d catch it or spread it?” Cassie asked in exasperation. “I’m not even Visskous—I probably can’t even get it.”
“Then you won’t mind living outside the city gates with the Infected,” the woman hissed, her forked tongue flickering in satisfaction. “Since you don’t think you’d be affected by the Rotting Disease.”
“I never said that!” Cassie protested, horrified. “Just because I might not be susceptible to the disease, doesn’t mean I want to be exposed to it!”
Or torn apart by the Infected, she thought but didn’t say because the thought was too horrible to speak aloud.
The Rotting Disease—also known as “The Hunger”—had first appeared on Visslick Prime a little over a year ago. It started with a whitening of the eyes—a kind of film grew over the pupils and irises of the victims, giving them a dead-eyed stare that was horrible to behold. Next came the red streaks around the mouth and nose that looked almost like blood—hence the name “blood sign” as the Visskous had dubbed it.
After that, the Hunger appeared—a ravenous, gnawing desire for living flesh, gnawed right off the bone. Once that happened—once the victim took his or her first bite of living flesh from a victim—it was all over. They became a mindless zombie-type creature—a walking corpse wandering aimlessly in search of living victims to cannibalize. Gradually their flesh became affected, rotting off their bones, but they kept on going, searching for their next feeding ground—their next mindless meal.