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SERENAI

Serenai couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Was her own aunt actually pointing a blaster at her? Apparently so and the look on Aunt Nibblegrim’s face was rigid with anger.

“Help!” she shouted, looking around for anyone or anything that might help her. Suddenly , she had an inspiration. “ Help , Robbi !” she exclaimed, calling for the robot butler.

To her relief, he came waddling in at once.

“Yes, Mistress —how can I be of assistance?” he asked in his high, mechanical voice.

“You can stop Aunt Nibblegrim from shooting me!” Serenai exclaimed. “ Help me, Robbi !”

“Unfortunately, your Aunt Nibblegrim has added patches to my programming which don’t allow me to harm her or interfere with her actions.” Robbie sounded genuinely apologetic. “ So I cannot help you. Please forgive me, Mistress .”

Serenai felt sick. She should have seen something like this coming—should have known her Aunt was after her money all along.

But she’d had no experience with wealth—or the lengths to which people will go to get it.

She’d thought she could trust her Aunt Nibblegrim and only now was she finding out how horribly wrong she’d been.

“Ha—good boy, Robbi . Just stay right there,” Aunt Nibblegrim sneered.

“You…you planned this all along,” Serenai accused her in a shaky voice.

“Of course I planned it!” her aunt exclaimed.

“ You know, the cursed necklace worked on your mother and I was all set to inherit—until I found out your idiot of a mother had left everything to you!” she raved, waving the blaster at Serenai .

“ So then I thought, well, just give it time—it should work again. And in the meantime, you asked me about getting a bodyslave so I chose the most savage bastard I could find to guard you. I took the power source out of his pain collar remote— I was sure he’d rip your head off the minute he got a chance!

But noooo, he had to go and fall in love with you instead! ”

“Brax isn’t in love with me.” Serenai lifted her chin. “ Not …not anymore. He had to give up his memories of loving me to break that curse on that horrible necklace.”

“So now the necklace is gone and the huge brute of a bodyslave is gone, too.” Aunt Nibblegrim shook her head. “ I guess I’ll have to finish this myself.”

“Finish this? What are you talking about? You can’t just shoot me!

” Serenai still couldn’t believe what was happening but a panicked little voice deep inside her was telling her that her aunt was serious.

“ You can’t shoot me because…because everyone will know it was you!

” she exclaimed. “ Who else has a key to the front door? And who else stands to gain if I die?”

Aunt Nibblegrim scowled.

“You know, you could be right. I think we’d better handle this another way.”

Her beady little eyes scanned the living area and at last settled on the open glass panel and the balcony Serenai had been standing on.

“There.” She motioned with the blaster for Serenai to go back to the balcony. “ Get over there at once!”

“What? Why ?” Serenai had been edging away from her but she was afraid to make a break for it. The blaster was tracking her every move and she was sure by now that her aunt was crazy and wouldn’t hesitate to shoot.

“Because, we have the perfect set up—thanks to you,” Aunt Nibblegrim sneered. “ Poor little rich girl, inherits everything and then buys herself the biggest, meanest bodyslave she can. Then she’s stupid enough to fall in love with him. She takes off his pain collar and he flies away without her.”

“That’s not exactly what happened!” Serenai protested. “ Brax did love me—he just forgot.”

“None of that matters!” Aunt Nibblegrim snarled.

Lunging forward, she grabbed Serenai by the arm and began pushing her towards the balcony.

“ The point is, when they see you’ve committed suicide, I’ll be able to tell the authorities the tragic story of how my poor innocent niece was fooled into falling in love with her bodyslave.

And then, when he left her, she was so distraught she threw herself over her own balcony! ”

“What? No —you’re crazy!” Serenai tried to shake free of her but her aunt’s grip on her arm was surprisingly strong and the muzzle of the blaster was pointed directly at her midsection.

At such close range, the shot would burn a hole straight through her.

She didn’t dare to run, but the balcony and the drop—which was hundreds of stories down—was getting closer and closer as Aunt Nibblegrim shoved her towards her doom.

“Then, when you’re gone, I’ll finally have what should have been mine in the first place!” Aunt Nibblegrim laughed and it was a high, crazy sound that sent shivers down Serenai’s spine. “ All this will be mine! The building, the penthouse, the dreamgas mines, the?—”

Suddenly the door burst open with a bang and both women’s heads jerked up and around.

“What—?” Aunt Nibblegrim began but then a deep, growling voice said,

“Get away from her and put down the blaster or suffer the fucking consequences!”