And, if she wasn’t headed to a camp, he could easily catch her and have a little fun of his own… maybe. If he put a bag on her head so he didn’t have to look at her odd, fae features.
But then the wind changed and he stilled as his sensitive nose picked up a new scent. He wasn’t the only predator out here in the woods, and another was hunting his little prize. Sudden, savage fury curled his lip back. She was his. And he’d kill anyone or anything that came between them…
Lifting his head, he scented the air again, filtering out the little female’s odd scent and searching deeper. His magic was no good here. This was old-school primal shit… buried deep in every orc’s psyche. He caught the edge of a bitter scent and snarled, deep and low in his throat.
Dragos demon. He was on his feet and moving before he was even conscious of making a decision. If that thing got her scent, she was done for…
“This is ridiculous,” Kelly huffed, trying to wrap her blazer tighter around herself. The thin fabric offered no protection against the cold or the damp, and her teeth were beginning to chatter so hard she was surprised that they didn’t break off or shatter.
She’d been walking for what seemed like hours through the darkness. The mist had cleared, leaving her in the forest. Alone. The creepy forest. Where she couldn’t find the fucking road. She cast a glance up at the mountains that loomed overhead. She didn’t remember them being that high. And maybe she’d been sleeping on her feet as she walked because when the mist had cleared and it had begun to get light, she’d assumed it was morning.
She squinted, shielding her eyes as she looked up at the sun directly overhead. She wasn’t any kind of expert, but that wasn’t usually where the sun was in the morning…
“Great, now I’m going nuts.”
Sighing again, she tramped onward. There were no paths, and her feet—clad in strappy heels that were perfectly fine for Blissful Bubbles but less than fine for a hike of the mountains—were like blue and red blocks of ice. She grumbled under her breath. It would be just her luck to get frostbite.
Cold and miserable, she carried on. At least if she was going in circles, and it seemed highly likely as she passed a very familiar-looking tree for the third time, there was a chance she would hit the road again. She couldn’t remember leaving it… which was odd. But it had been dark and misty, and she thought she was being chased by some kind of shadow monster. If she didn’t know any better, she’d swear she’d slipped into some kind of setup for a horror film.
This fact was borne out seconds later when the air filled with a low, ominous growling—the kind of sound that sent fear racing up her spine in hobnail boots, making sure to stamp on every vertebra on the way.
There, in the bushes in front of her, were two red eyes.
Unblinking and malevolent, they fixed on her with unwavering intent. She froze, the blood in her veins turning to ice. Given how far apart those eyes were, whatever was hidden there was huge.
It might not even be that big, she told herself, trying to be reassuring. It might be two things… Okay, two things with one eye each. Yeah, that really wasn’t helping.
She managed to remember to breathe, right up to the point that whatever was in the bush stepped forward. It was like the worst possible Christmas present reveal ever.
The large knife-shaped leaves parted to reveal something out of a nightmare. A large squat body—kind of like a pit bull, if pit bulls were covered in scales—with feet the size of dinner plates, each toe tipped with a vicious shiny black claw. The body had no neck, simply body and head, the latter covered in spikes and even more scales. Two red eyes were set above a wide mouth filled with blackened teeth a shark would be proud of.
It opened its mouth, the malicious snarl growing louder and deeper. With each second that passed it was way more vicious until it became less a sound and more an auditory warning that she was about to get her face ripped off.
“Hey there… Nice doggy,” she crooned as she backed up slowly. It wasn’t really a dog but it was dog shaped, if she ignored the wings on its back and the long scaly tail that lashed at the vegetation behind it.
It followed her, step by step, the drool dripping from its jaws as it growled. She gasped as her heel caught on something, her ankle nearly folding under her. This couldn’t be it. She wasn’t going to buy it in the middle of nowhere and become dinner for some kind of scaled monster. She was obviously dreaming... things like this didn’t happen in real life.
“Good doggy. Nice doggy. Please don’t eat me,” she squeaked, her voice tightening with fear as she backed up.
It hunkered down, hunger evident in its eyes as it tracked her every movement. She caught her breath as it bunched its legs under it, wiggling its butt like a cat about to pounce. The movement was cute on a cat… on a creature from nightmares like this? Way less cute.
It froze and the red of its eyes was suddenly eaten up with black. Knowing what was about to happen, she screamed and ran. With a roar that rattled the tree tops, it launched itself through the air after her.
She barely made it a couple of steps, still screaming at the top of her lungs, before she saw a flash of green in the corner of her eye. She screamed again, trying to alter her direction to get away from the new threat, but something hard and heavy slammed into her side. It took her off her feet and she rolled, screaming and kicking, expecting claws and teeth to tear through her at any second.
But they didn’t. Instead the world tipped and tumbled around her as hard hands grabbed her waist. A second later she was thrown upside down, something hard in her stomach as she was jostled and jolted so much she felt like she was going to throw up. It took a few seconds for her to realize she’d been thrown over somebody’s shoulder. Not just any someone’s. Someone large, heavily muscled, and more importantly from her point of view, running away from the beast that had been trying to kill her.
She managed to lift her head, pushing against the back of her rescuer and shoving her hair out of her eyes. It was a mistake. Because as soon as she lifted her head, she saw that the creature was still following them, its playful red eyes focused on her as it drooled hungrily.
“Run faster!” she shrieked, going from pushing at her rescuer to clinging to him. Her hands coiled in the rough fur he wore. At least she hoped he was wearing it and it wasn’t his skin. She didn’t think she could face another monster tonight… Today… Whenever the hell it was. She didn’t know anymore.
“Stay still and I will!” a rough voice snarled as a large hand clapped down over her ass, spanking her.
“What the fuck!”
She shrieked in surprise and outrage, twisting to try and give her rescuer a piece of her mind. A fireman’s carry over rough terrain was one thing, but an unsolicited spanking was completely different.
While she wasn’t averse to a little bit of kink, that was with a partner she was comfortable with. And with consent. She hadn’t even done that with Steve… Which struck her now as a little odd, given that she’d been about to marry the guy. Yet she didn’t feel comfortable being kinky with him. Obviously her subconscious had realized things that she hadn’t. You’d think given it was a part of her, it would have given her the heads up on that one before now. A long time before now.