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)
Cassie didn’t think she’d be affected by The Hunger…but she didn’t want to find out for sure. And she also didn’t want to become a meal for the Infected.
“Please,” she begged again, appealing to Sskarth. “I’m your wife—your mate—you swore to protect me and keep me safe and close to you. It was part of our Joining ceremony vows!”
Her Visskous husband shrugged—an oddly snake-like gesture.
“That was then—it’s been five years since we Joined. I think it’s about time we parted, Cassandra, my dear.”
“But not like this!” she begged. “Don’t put me out for the Infected—let me try to send a message back to the Mother Ship. The Kindred will come get me—I worked for them. They won’t abandon me.”
Unlike the worthless, slimy lizard husband she’d Joined with, the Kindred were loyal to their women.
He sighed, his forked tongue flickering from his lipless mouth.
“Alas, my dear, the interstellar communications array is broken and the closest one is in Sshiboleth, which was overrun months ago. We cannot call for help. All we can do is stay behind the city walls and wait for the Infected to die off. But as you know, food and water are limited.”
“And precious resources shouldn’t be wasted on ugly, scaleless off-worlders,” hissed the female Visskous. She looked Cassie up and down contemptuously. “Especially those who can’t even regulate their body temperature anymore!”
Cassie turned on her husband.
“What? You told her about my hot flashes?”
She’d been having them for several months now—the miserable symptoms of perimenopause that she couldn’t do anything about since the Visskous had no human medicine to give her to regulate her hormones. She would have gone back to the Mother Ship for treatment, but by that time the outbreak was in full swing with the Rotting Disease sweeping over the entire planet. The Infected had overrun the airfields and spaceports, so there was no way to get out.
Unfortunately, it turned out that being unable to regulate your body temperature was considered a sign of poor breeding on Visslick Prime. The first time she’d woken up beside Sskarth covered in sweat, he’d hissed in disgust as though she’d peed the bed.
After that, he no longer slept in the same bed with her—or even the same bedroom. Not that Cassie minded—by that time she had fallen completely out of love with her Visskous husband—if she’d ever really been in love in the first place. Also, sleeping beside him was like sleeping beside a scaly lump of living ice. The Visskous were naturally cold-blooded, which meant cuddling with one was extremely unpleasant—a fact Cassie had learned only after she’d gotten Joined to Sskarth and moved to his home planet.
And apparently, the feeling was mutual. Sskarth always complained about how hot she was—how her body temperature was abnormally high. Now that she was having hot flashes, he hated being near her at all. He also said she “smelled” which was rich, considering that he and the other lizard-like Visskous always stunk unpleasantly like the reptile house at the zoo to Cassie.
She wondered now why she had stuck it out for so long—why she had stayed stubbornly on Visslick Prime when she ought to have dissolved her union with Sskarth and called the Mother Ship for a transport home ages ago. Maybe she didn’t want to admit defeat—or to give up on another marriage. Her ex, Mitch, had made her feel horrible when she divorced him, claiming she was evil and cruel for “deserting him and the kids,” even though all the kids were away at college by the time she finally left.
Now Cassie wished she’d been a little less stubborn. She was stuck on an alien planet, light years from home during a zombie outbreak and her husband was about to put her outside the safety of the city walls to be eaten by the Infected all because she was going through perimenopause.
It seemed equal parts surreal and unfair, but it was going to be her fate if she couldn’t convince Sskarth to keep her safe.
“You understand, darling,” he said now, giving her that charming little, “I’m so sorry’ half-smile that had won her heart five years ago. “The resources here have been collected by my people for my people—they don’t want to waste them on an off-worlder. Especially a defective one who can’t lay eggs.”
“You knew I couldn’t lay eggs for you when you married me!” Cassie exclaimed angrily. “I told you I was past that part of my life—and that I was biologically incapable of actually laying an egg—and you said you didn’t mind.”
“And I didn’t…but now I do. Because once the Infected all die off, we’ll have to repopulate the planet. How can I do that unless I have a young, fertile mate who can lay me a large clutch of eggs?” Sskarth put his arm around the female Visskous who had been glaring at Cassie and pulled her close. “A mate like Sskilla, here.”