Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79941 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79941 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
The problem with Mistress Morebutt was her intense need to micromanage and control everything and everyone in her life. She was awful to live with—especially now that they didn’t have Speaks to act as a kind of buffer-zone between them. He had always been able to mitigate any conflict between Ketha and her mother and bring peace. Now that he was gone, their entire relationship was nothing but conflict!
Ketha sighed when she thought of all the things the old Kindred bodyslave had done, from parenting her when her mother refused to be bothered, to acting as a sounding board when she needed good advice, to keeping the entire household running smoothly—all while keeping her and her mother from biting each other’s heads off. How could the new bodyslave—even if he was a sweet, mild-tempered Kindred—be anywhere near as good as the one they had lost?
“He can’t be,” Ketha muttered to herself. “There’s no way he can fill Speaks’ place—even if he tries. No matter how sweet and kind he is, he won’t be Speaks.”
She had reached the back of the vast, echoing hall by now. Finally she saw the golden curtain which led to the elite slave dealers in the back. They sold only the best of the best to the richest and most exacting Yonnite Mistresses. Mistress Morebutt had never purchased a slave from the “front room” as she scathingly called it. There was nothing worth having until you got past that golden curtain, at least in her opinion.
Ketha was stopped by an attendant at the curtain but the moment he recognized her as Mistress Morebutt’s heir, she was allowed to pass at once. She nodded her thanks and pushed on through.
Behind the sparkling metallic fabric was a long hall, carpeted in lush velka pelts. The carpeting went up the walls and ceiling too, which gave the feeling of walking down a long, furry tunnel. This served to keep everything whisper quiet, since the dense black and white pelts had natural noise canceling properties.
Ketha passed rich dark-wood doors on either side of the furry hallway until at last, she came to door at the very end of the hall. There was a tastefully muted hologram—the number 11—in faintly glowing numbers hovering above it. She knocked on it gently—just two raps with her knuckles—and it opened at once.
“Ah, Mistress Ketha!” It was Schulo, the slaver himself. Today he had on a silvery gray penter silk coat which hung to his scaly knees. The richly embroidered material draped awkwardly over his scaly Saurian body, but his smile—which was enormously wide, due to his flat, elongated snout—said he was eager to please.
“Hello, Schulo.” Ketha nodded and stepped inside.
She was aware at once of a spicy, hot scent that was somehow indefinably masculine. Where was that coming from? She looked around but couldn’t see anyone else but the Saurian in the room—though there was a second door at the back of the richly decorated office. The scent made her body throb for some reason—her nipples getting even tighter under the thin green gown she wore. Why was that?
“I’ve come to get my mother’s new bodyslave,” she said, trying to ignore the strange feelings the warm scent gave her. Probably it was just the damn fertility drugs her mother had slipped her, she reasoned. She’d been fighting a rising tide of horniness for the past few hours, but she was determined not to give in and go to the damn Conception Center!
“Ah, yesss,” Schulo hissed, nodding his long, crocodilian head. “Yesss, he is all ready to go. Though I must caution you, he isss…not quite the kind of Kindred you and your esssteemed mother are ussed to.”
Ketha frowned.
“What do you mean by that? I thought my mother ordered the same kind of Kindred our last bodyslave-butler, Speaks Softly, was. She’s not going to be happy if you give us something completely different.”
“This was the only one I could get on such short notice!” Schulo protested. “Besssides, all Kindred revere femalesss. He will ssserve you well, little Mistresss.”
When he started calling her “little Mistress,” Ketha knew something was up. Still, she was reluctantly intrigued. What would this new kind of Kindred look like? Speaks had been tall and muscular, even in his old age. He’d had thick silver hair which had once been blond and kind, faded blue eyes.
“Very well,” she said at last. “I’ll look at him. But if he’s not what we’re looking for, I’m not taking him home. Mistress Morebutt is already in a bad mood,” she added, thinking of her mother’s towering rage when she found out that Ketha had skipped yet another appointment at the Conception Center.
“Very good, very good. You will like him—I am sssure,” Schulo hissed eagerly. “Just wait here for a moment, little Mistresss while I fetch him.”