"Devilish Dot" - читать интересную книгу автора (Black Jaid)


Chapter Two
Hunting Grounds of the Zyon Pack
Planet Khan-Gor (“Planet of the Predators”)
Seventh Dimension, 6078 Y.Y. (Yessat years)
 
Two crimson eyes flew open. Air rushed into depleted lungs, his concaved, translucent silver chest rapidly expanding to its total musculature and size. Deadly fangs exploded from his gums. Lethal claws and talons shot out from his fingers and toes.
She is near…
He had been cocooned for one hundred earth years, his body and mind in gorak—the Khan-Gori term for “the sleep of the dead”. Gorak comes every five hundred Yessat Years and occurs between each of a Barbarian’s seven lives. Five hundred and one Yessat Years he had spent without her, without the one. He mayhap ended his first life in defeat of finding her, but his second life was about to commence—
Vaidd Zyon could feel her, could sense her, could smell her. He took a slow, deep breath, nostrils flaring and eyes briefly closing, as he inhaled her scent.
It was her.
His Bloodmate.
He had evolved in gorak. Stronger. Deadlier. More ferocious than ever he was in his first life. ‘Twas time to begin his second lifetime.
Every day, every hour, every second of the five hundred and one Yessat Years he’d spent without her had been akin to the blackest abyss. No sense of hope. No sense of joy. No reason to wish to evolve in gorak and begin the next five hundred years without the one who had been born that she might complete him. Many a day Vaidd had felt like ending it—forever.
But his pack needed him. Verily, he was his sire’s heir apparent. And so he’d carried on. Grim. Lethal. Merciless. But he’d carried on.
Vaidd took another deep breath and, once more, inhaled the scent of his Bloodmate. She was close. Very close.
The beating of his heart stilled for one angry, possessive moment when his senses confirmed something else:
She was not alone. Other males drew near.
A low growl rumbled in his throat until it turned into a deafening roar. In an explosion of violence, hunger, possession, and desire, Vaidd burst from his cocoon and shot into the air, his twelve-foot wings expanding on a predator’s ruthless cry. The instinct to return to his pack was overridden by the more primal need to track his Bloodmate—and kill any male that might touch her.
Her scent was strong, intoxicating. Bewitching. She would be his and no other’s.
She belonged to him.
* * * * *
Dot’s eyelids blinked in rapid succession as she slowly, groaningly, came to. Her forehead wrinkled in incomprehension as she glanced around. “Well hell’s goddamn bells,” she muttered. “Where in the world am I?”
What a night! she thought tragically. Turning off the engine, she opened the door of her car and arose from the driver’s seat. The rain must have ended and brought a thick fog with a cold front in its stead, for she could barely see anything at all and felt so chilled to the bone that it was as if she’d woken up in the middle of the Arctic.
Frowning, she narrowed her eyes and ran her hands up and down her goose-pimpled arms, trying to make heads or tails of her location. But the fog was thick. She couldn’t see anything at all other than what was in the immediate vicinity of her car. Not even with the headlights still shining off into the distance. What she thought the oddest, however, was that the tree she had collided with was no longer anywhere to be seen. But she’d definitely struck it…
Immediately noting that the oak she’d made impact with had left a highly noticeable dent in the driver’s side door, she angrily slammed the thing shut and harrumphed. Feeling in true drama-queen form, she lifted the back of her hand up to her forehead and sighed.
Great! This is just terrific! I haven’t had almost-sex in four years, actual sex in eight years, I spent my Friday night driving through a horrible rainstorm in the middle of nowhere trying to find Nowhere…and now on top of everything else, my insurance premium will go through the roof!
A lesser woman wouldn’t be able to pull herself together, she thought on a sniff. A lesser woman would come undone.
Dot decided she was a lesser woman.
A warbled cry of anger, frustration—no doubt partially sexual in origin!—and dismay began in her belly, gurgled up to her throat, and exploded from her mouth in a shrill, shrieking cry. She kicked the door in three times for good measure with the toe of one of the black high-heeled shoes she wore. (The ones that perfectly coordinated with her pink suit ensemble, if she did say so herself.) Might as well. The damn door would need fixed anyway!
That accomplished, she screamed again, this time longer and louder. She jumped up and down like a mad jack-in-the-box as she shrieked, fists tight and nostrils flaring. Her hair came undone out of the tight bun she’d had it coiled in, but it didn’t matter. Her tantrum was making her feel better. Much better, in fact.
A low growl pierced the quiet of the night. And then another. The growls sounded as if off from a distance, but growing closer by the millisecond.
Dot immediately shut-up. She ceased jumping. Her ears perked up and her eyes widened as she looked around.
Nothing.
The fog was so thick and all-encompassing that she couldn’t see anything. And the growling had just altogether stopped—practically as soon as it had begun. She swallowed a bit roughly, wondering to herself if this was what people meant by the old colloquialism, “the quiet before the storm”.
Dot hastily arrived at the conclusion that she didn’t want to know.
Deciding she could finish up being a lesser woman later—like in the safety of her home!—the sex toy maker determined it would, perhaps, be in her best interests to get the hell out of dodge. Like now.
What a night! What a night! What a night!
Throwing open the door of her gray sedan, Dot quickly scurried into the vehicle, slammed the dented thing shut, and locked all the doors. Her eyes still wide, she nervously glanced around to try and ascertain if any wild animals were drawing near.
The growls. They are getting closer…
Her heartbeat picking up in tempo, she mentally chastised herself for reacting like a scared ninny while simultaneously turning the key and revving up the engine. No wild animal could get into a locked car! She knew that, yet an eerie feeling persisted just the same. She felt as if she was being—well…hunted.
No doubt her imagination, but she supposed it was best to err on the side of caution.
“Come on, Dot,” she mumbled to herself. “Calm down. You can do this.”
Problem was, the fog was as thick as clichйd pea soup. No matter how hard she squinted, she couldn’t make out where she was let alone where she was going.
The eerie feeling grew, swamping her senses. She began to drive slowly, aimlessly, forward.
 Light ahead! There is light just up ahead!
Dot stepped harder on the gas pedal, determinedly driving toward the faint illumination she could just barely make out in the distance. A small, brief smile of relief shown on her lips. The light was red—it had to mean a traffic signal or something of that nature. Civilization!
But as she drove out of the all-encompassing fog and into the dark, yet visible world that awaited her, it wasn’t civilization that greeted her. At least not any sort of civilization she’d ever seen.
Dot’s heart stilled as she loosed up on the gas pedal and came to a jarring stop. Dumbfounded, her jaw dropped. Her mind raced, inducing dizziness.
Well, Dorothy, you aren’t in Kansas anymore. What the…?