Lion Man's Captive, Kaitlyn O'Connor [top fiction books of all time .txt] 📗

of a medium sized dog,she screamed like a banshee and ran for all she was worth. Deafenedby the noise she was making herself, she had no idea whether thething was pursuing her or not, but she didn’t slow down to checkuntil she ran out of steam. Huffing for breath, she glanced aroundfor any sign of it and spied a something crawling along the groundthat looked vaguely like a millipede—except it was about two and ahalf feet long.

Fortunately, it didn’t seem to bemoving very fast. Sucking in a sharp breath, holding her side withone hand and her bouncing breasts with the other, she jogged on atthe best speed she could muster.

It dawned on her that sheneeded a weapon since it also occurred to her that the two monsterinsect-like things she’d spied probably weren’t one of a kind. Shethought yearningly of the pistol tucked into her glove box—probablylong gone now—and dismissed it. Nothing she’d had before mattered.They weren’t available and she needed something now!

Slowing, she began to search hersurroundings for anything that might make a weapon she had somehope of defending herself with. She spied a fair sized branch onthe ground, but discovered as soon as she picked it up that thething was rotted and would probably fall apart as soon as shewhacked something with it. A little further, she found a rock aboutthe size of her hand. Hefting it, she decided it was too heavy forher to throw very far. She could either try bashing something withit, up close and personal, or throw it and hope that was enough toscare whatever it was away.

Pines dominated the forest treepopulation and those didn’t produce branches that were particularlyuseful as spears or clubs. She finally merely tore a green branchfrom a small maple and stripped the leaves from it. It wasn’t heavyenough to knock anything unconscious or beat it to death, but, ifmemory served her, and she thought it did, the whip effect wasunpleasant enough to be some deterrent. It had certainlydiscouraged her from getting on her grandmother’s bad side whenshe’d been a child!

She was still searching for somethinglethal when the silence around her was shattered once more by theloud crashing sound of something big blundering through the brush.Her heart seemed to stand still in her chest for a moment. Shestopped dead in her tracks. Her head came up like a startled deer.The crashing noises had been preceded by a loud yelp that soundedas if it came from a human throat—a male.

It hadn’t sounded fearful. It seemed tohave been a sound of surprise.

The abrupt urge to burst into tearscame out of nowhere.

She hadn’t realized she’d begun to feelas if she was the only person left in the world until thatmoment.

Abruptly, she dropped the rock and tookoff. She was too breathless to manage running and shouting at thesame time otherwise she would’ve been screaming her head off as shecharged through the woods in search of the man she’dheard.

She was so desperate to find someoneshe tripped over a root and plowed face first down the hill severalyards before she managed to stop her descent. Shoving herself up onher hands and knees, she spied the man lying at the bottom, staringup at the sky.

She hoped he was staring up at the sky.The fear that he’d managed to break his neck and was dead assailedher as did the urge to burst into tears again—this time from fearrather than hopefulness. Her nose stung and her vision blurred.Scrambling on all fours, she reached the man and bent overhim.

Relief washed over herdizzyingly when she realized he wasbreathing. It crashed almost as quickly as hervision cleared and she got a really good look at the face. Herfirst thought was that he was in costume but almost as soon as thatflashed through her mind, she dismissed it. No makeup artist in theworld was that good! As human as he seemed in some respects, the eyesabsolutely weren’t human-like at all aside from the fact that therewere two of them on either side of the bridge of thenot-quite-human nose and they were roughly the same size and shapeas human eyes.

Her mind leapt from that to the obeliskshe’d seen and the nearly microscopic bugs that seemed to be eatingeverything in sight and she surged to her feet before she evenrealized she’d commanded herself to rise. She’d managed to take oneleaping step in retreat when he clamped a hand around her oppositeankle just as she shifted her weight in preparation to lifting it.She plowed the dirt with an inelegant grunt. Fear and shockdominated, however, and she hardly felt the blow. Whirling todiscover what had tripped her, she found his hand clamped aroundher ankle and tried to kick him in the face with her free leg. Shemissed both his face and his vulnerable throat and planted her footagainst his chest. Instead of releasing her, though, his handtightened and she rolled up and began beating him about the headand shoulders with the switch she still gripped. “Let go! Let go!Let go!” she screamed at him as she flailed with theswitch.

“Ow! Stop it! Stop it!Gods damn it! Quit!” Aidan yelled as hefelt the cut of the thin branch she was beating him with, trying tocatch it to stop her when she ignored his command to stop. Hefinally managed to catch it and tried to rip it from her hand.Instead, since she didn’t let go, he only succeeded it jerking hercloser.

She snarled at him when they came faceto face.

Uneasiness slithered through Aidan asit occurred to him that he had hold of a wild thing. He hadn’tnoticed a great deal about her beyond the fact that she was nakedand that she was clearly female since she looked very much like thefemales he was familiar with. Nearly nose to nose with her now, hetook in her bared teeth and her lips curled back in a snarl andrealized that she was dirty and her pale hair matted with leavesand other trash and so tangled it stuck out around herhead.

His mind went blank. For the life ofhim he couldn’t recall a single lesson in communicating