Free Creature Worlds: Solar Slick by Juliet Cardin Page A

flaming bedraggled hair. He held me a moment then turned me around and swatted my behind. “Get ready. We have an employer to impress.”
    I looked down at my tits pushing angrily against the fabric of my shirt. “If these don’t impress him, nothing will.”
    Ten minutes later we stood in the main lobby of the inn before a wide, rough looking desk with a short, snappy looking attendant behind it. When we asked to see the owner he practically sneered, “Whatever for?” He was haughty and sarcastic, and I disliked him on sight. Tigg reached for the letter baring the seal of the king and was about to pass it over to the man when I put out my hand to stop him.
    “Hold on,” I said eying the attendant with equal haughtiness. Despite my and Tigg’s obvious glum attire we were still paying customers—as far as that dolt was concerned. Looking about the inn, though it appeared large and quite grand, it still lacked the finesse of the finer establishments I’d seen on Earth, and those on Zenet. Who was this arrogant beast to act like he was the gatekeeper to the Ritz? Perhaps it would be considered a fine place, say, on Earth, like about the time of Henry the Eighth, but right now it wasn’t much better than a piss hole, as far as I was concerned.
    Tigg must have sensed I was about to infringe on a tirade. He took my elbow and turned my outraged face to look at him. “Cool it, okay?” he begged.
    I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Hormones,” I warned him.
    “I know.” He turned back to the attendant and waved the honored letter before his face. “See this? It’s a letter from King Ranox. Only to be delivered to Bard Signet.”
    The man’s face suddenly dawned with understanding. “Ah, you’re a messenger. That explains a lot. We don’t get many Lizords around here, and certainly not as guests,” he said, accenting his rude words with laugher.
    So that was what all his haughtiness was about? Tigg being a Lizord? I felt my anger swell up inside me again. Protectiveness over Tigg, not to mention our unborn child, made me smack both my hands down on the table in anger. The man jumped in surprise. “Listen here you …” I began.
    Tigg interceded again. “If you could just get the owner?” he said over my head. The little man nodded and scurried off only to return about five minutes later with a tall, bald man with a much friendlier air about him.
    “My associate says you have a note for me from King Ranox?” he said. He didn’t give any impression of being disturbed by Tigg’s presence in his hotel. Tigg handed him the letter and the man opened it carefully. A minute later he looked at Tigg again, this time with an assessing attitude. He then turned his gaze on me. His lips curled into a smile that I didn’t quite buy.
    The gatekeeper had returned to his place behind the desk as Bard Signet read the letter and I could feel his boring gaze. When the owner shook hands with first Tigg and then me, saying he could certainly find a place for personal friends of the King at his inn, the little man actually gasped in surprise.
    “This is Aelon,” Bard gestured to the gatekeeper.
    “My name is Tigg, and this is Minka,” Tigg introduced us.
    “Pleasure,” Bard said. He seemed genuine enough, which made me wonder what King Ranox had put in that letter. Maybe I’d been wrong to suspect the king of any illicit schemes? Despite all the warm fuzzies going around the room, my gut still warned, Don’t count on it .

Chapter 14
    Tigg was given work as a grounds keeper and despite the obvious disapproval of Aelon, we were given a little room to use as our own. We were in the farthest corner of the hotel in what would be considered an attic room. There was a quaint little balcony we could walk out onto offering an amazing view of the lake, so I didn’t have much to complain about. If this was to be our home for the next few months, we could make it work. Things were looking up. I rubbed my growing belly