Slag: Book Four in the Galaxy Pirates Alien Abduction Romance Series (Shifter) by Alana Khan (i like reading books .TXT) 📗

“Here,” she says as she slams a dish of food on the floor.

Great. I was getting hungry. I smell the offering before I see it. The king paid five million credits for me and wants to feed me rancid food. What level of hell is this?

It’s a chopped-up mixture of cooked animal and vegetable matter that looks disgusting, although the smell is worse.

“Eat it!” She’s far too close as she stomps her foot in temper. If she doesn’t watch it, she’s going to wind up neutering me without the aid of a doctor.

I approach the plate of food, but the stench is too much. I look up at her, try to make the most adorable dreambaby face to placate her, and make the cutest sound in the dreambaby vocabulary. There. That should certainly soften her attitude.

“Listen you little dracker, my father made me bring this to you and you will eat it or I will punish you. I don’t like being your servant.”

Her foot is tapping very close to one of my tails. When I swish it to the other side of my body, she very pointedly moves and taps that ungainly foot even closer. This evil young female is threatening me.

I stick my tongue into the food and can’t control my gag reflex.

“I knew you were defective. Everyone knows you should have more purple than blue. Eat or I’ll lock you in the closet.”

Being locked in the closet means no hunting for trinkets tonight. No hunting for trinkets tonight means we might have to stay here one extra day. One extra day means even more unpalatable food and more close encounters with her extremely large, extremely angry foot.

I eat until she stops watching me and plops heavily on the bed. Now out of her line of sight, I gather as much of the food as I can carry into my mouth and proceed to spit it out under the middle of her huge bed. There are large balls of dust here indicating even the king’s staff doesn’t clean under here very often. I wonder how long after I leave it will take for them to discover where the horrid smell is coming from.

“I’m going to call you Blinkers. Come here Blinkers. Come right now or I’ll punish you.”

I jump onto the bed, snuggle close, and breathe into her face. If I have to tolerate the taste, the least she can do is have to smell it.

“Yuck, you smell horrible. I’m going to wash you.”

Wash? She meant drown. Her treatment of me during my bath was rough and she managed to pour so much water down my throat I thought I was dying. Now I’m dressed in purple pajamas and smashed under her heavy covers.

Since I have to wait until she’s asleep before I go hunting, I allow myself a nap. I’ll wake in a bit and sneak into the living area to get the mask of the Forgotten Altheon Warrior that is on the top of Thantose’s list.

I wake up with Princess Veryl snuggled against me. No. Let me clarify. I wake up with the Princess’s arm slung around Slag’s waist.

Although I shifted while walking and eating and showering, I never practiced staying shifted while sleeping. I see that was an enormous tactical error. As Thantose would say, fuck!

If she wakes with me in this form, this will be a death sentence. The fact that we’ve tricked the king and sullied his daughter’s reputation is something we won’t be able to explain away.

I try to shift into dreambaby form, but can’t budge. I go down the list of everything I’ve ever shifted into, just to unstick myself, but I’m still huge and green.

Maybe if I can crawl out from under her arm and have a moment alone in the bathroom, I can control the panic that has me frozen and collect my thoughts enough to shift. I try to slide toward the foot of the bed, but the evil child holds me tighter even in her sleep. Turning away from her gets no results either.

I slow my breathing and think of the one thing in my life that is right and perfect and has never been anything but wonderful. My KJ.

I’ve always protected her, even when she thought I was abusing her. I wasn’t thinking straight back then, but I remember her face when I splattered my seed on her that first night in the mine. She was shocked and offended and afraid I would harm her, obviously unaware of the fact that I was only trying to protect her.

I helped her out of the mine, kept her safe from the giant worms on Rhoid, and flew her to safety from the hull of Daneur Khour’s vessel. She’s my KJ. My mate. My whole world.

Calming thoughts of her settle my spirit and allow my panic to subside. I shift into my dreambaby form, slide easily from Veryl’s greedy grip, and pad to the door. Two shifts later, I’ve opened the door, returned to dreambaby form, and am creeping to the living area.

Before the sun is even dreaming of peaking over the horizon, I’ve snuck three things from the top of Thantose’s clear and copious list into the kitchen and am back in bed with the evil overlord Veryl.

“What. Is. This?” her voice is husky and so mad the hair on my back stands on end.

I wake abruptly to Veryl’s normally sallow complexion looking bright crimson. At first, I worry that I’m in Slag form again, but thankfully I’m a dreambaby, although I’m certain she’d be the first to inform me I have more blue coloring than I should have.

“This!” she scolds as she shakes a purple rag in front of my nose. The purple rag used to