"Ravenous" - читать интересную книгу автора (King Sherri L. - Horde Wars 1 - Ravenousvoto6 (html))

She’d had many good years with her grandparents, true, but she still missed them with an aching heart. It was hard to be alone in so frightening and dangerous a world. Hard to acknowledge the fact that no one was waiting for her when she came home.

Cady breathed out a heavy sigh. Knowing that her memories would not leave her in peace this night, she leaned against the doorframe and looked into the darkness of her home.

She wondered, not for the first time, if this was all there was to life. Her life. Fighting almost nightly to save the innocent, then coming home alone to an empty house. Struggling to stay afloat financially and mentally. Only to have to do it all over again the next night.

She wondered if the monsters would suddenly stop coming. Maybe just as suddenly as they had first come that stormy night fifteen years ago. The night they’d killed her parents and little brother, Armand. The night she’d left her childhood behind and taken up the chase as if a gauntlet had been thrown, forever dedicating her life to the pursuit and destruction of the monsters.

Cady jerked back to herself. She had no time for such frivolous reveries. What she needed was a bath and a cup of hot, soothing tea. The sky outside was starting to lighten as the sun rose to bring the dawn. The monsters could not move about by day, so she and the people of Lula were safe…until the next nightfall. And the next. And the next.



* * * * *

Shoulders slumped and achy, Cady stepped further into the room. Even though the sky outside was brightening, little of the illumination reached beyond the windows of her home. Deep shadows swallowed the interior of the house but Cady didn’t bother switching on a lamp to light her way. She was simply too tired to bother and too in need of a hot shower to waste the time.

It was a mistake. One she was not soon to forget.

From deep within the shadows, an arm struck out and wrapped itself around her neck. With a choked gasp, Cady struck out at the large form behind her. Satisfaction flooded her when she connected a solid blow against her attacker’s head. She wasted no time, and brought her booted foot solidly against the instep of her assailant. As she heard the pained grunt from the form behind her, she thrust her elbow into a firm, muscled midriff and tried to squirm free of the restraining arm around her throat.

Instead of loosening his arm, her assailant tightened his chokehold on her, and brought his other arm around her middle. A large hand splayed wide across her stomach to better hold her still. She was jerked forcefully back against a hard muscled body. Her struggles were ignored, much like the buzzing of an insect.

The arm that encircled her throat suddenly contorted. Before her wide, startled eyes a glowing, blue-white blade erupted from the skin of her assailant’s forearm. The electric glow illuminated most of the room. The blade arched out in a wicked curve from the muscular arm, to rest the deadly, winking point just below her chin.

“Do not move if you wish to live, human,” a voice growled deeply into her ear.

Cady ceased her struggles abruptly—not because she feared that the man behind her would end her life—but because his voice compelled her to do his bidding. His voice was deep, but melodiously pure in tone, like the voice of an archangel. She suddenly had no will to struggle against him. In those heartbeats that followed the command of his magical voice she would have been willing to do anything for him.

Anything at all.

“With whom do you swear allegiance, mortal? Daemon or Shikar?”

“What do you mean?” she rasped out.

“Are you friend to the Shikar Alliance or to the Daemon Horde? Answer me, woman. Now, or I will bleed you out where you stand. You will be dead before you hit the floor.”

“I swear I have no idea what you’re talking about. And even if I did, why should I tell you? I mean—we haven’t even been properly introduced,” she quipped, before mentally cursing her smart-assed mouth. It was always getting her in trouble.

Fuck it. She was already in trouble.

Suddenly the hands that held her cruelly, roughly against her captor’s hard form, released her. She was spun roughly around, then pinned once more so that she faced him in the shadows. The arm sporting the wicked magical blade rested across her clavicle, once again placing the deadly point against her chin.

Cady’s dark eyes flew up to the face of her captor, only to find it hidden in shadows too deep for her night vision to penetrate. Not even the bright glow of the blade at her throat pierced the shadows that swallowed her attacker’s features. It was as if he controlled where the light fell, and he had no wish to reveal himself to her.

The hand that rested hot and firm upon her back, holding her tight against him, dug cruelly into the claw-wounds at her back. It made her wince and fight against the urge to cry out. She felt the commingled ooze of her congealed blood and that of the monsters she’d killed squish between her back and his splayed hand.

“You have the Daemons’ foul stench upon you, but you are virtually unharmed. How do you explain this, human? Do you dare consort with the Horde? Are you the Daemons’ concubine, a wanton follower of their evil ways?” His fingers dug more forcefully into the wounded flesh of her back.

Cady’s vision grayed as pain wracked her battle-weary body. She gritted her teeth against a scream but could not hold back an agonized gasp. She rallied her last reserves of strength and braced herself to fight. Her pain, fear and anger fueled the fires of her attack.