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I slipped inside the cave, praying this nightmare didn’t contain spiders. Or snakes. Or scurrying creatures in general.
While the beast outside continued galloping in my direction, whoever had bellowed came closer as well, still crying out as if he—or she—was about to challenge the world and come up the victor.
The cave was much too shallow and empty of boulders. What kind of nightmare gave me a crappy cave with no place to hide? If I was eaten, the nightmare would be over. Surely, whoever directed things like this wanted to milk out every bit of satisfaction from my sweat.
“Wake up,” I hissed to myself, but my mind wasn’t listening. It seemed to like this alien world and the beasts stomping closer.
Another cry rang out, hoarse and guttural. As he was ducking down to scramble into the cave along with me, the beast paused.
Teeth chattering, I looked around for a convenient stepping stool. My bones were going to be plucked. I was going to be stewed for dinner—which I guessed was better than becoming his side piece.
In a blur, a second being barreled into the abominable, engaging him in mortal combat with what looked like a long crystal sword. Make that two swords, one held in each of his enormous fists. They slashed through the air like he was a mythical warrior come to life—dressed in only a loincloth. He had tons of muscles, though I really wasn’t caring about that right now.
Not too much. Hey, I was a hot-blooded woman. I’d have to lose my sight to miss something like that.
Since I couldn’t run, all I could do was press myself against the damp stone wall and watch the scene unfolding in front of the cave.
The abominable swiped out with his big, meaty claws, and the alien male ducked, gouging forward the beast with his crystal blades. One nicked the monster in the shin, and the creature tipped back his head, bellowing in pain. He didn’t waste time but stomped toward the crystal-bearing dude with both paws lashing the air.
With a grunt, the alien dove to the side and rolled, coming up in a crouch. He raced toward the monster, flipping up into the air before reaching it, landing on the creature’s thigh. He scaled the monster from there, scrambling up the furry chest to the beast’s shoulder, where he clung to its head while the abominable thrashed, trying to dislodge him.
One gouge with a crystal blade, and the furry creature staggered. He swayed and plunged toward the cave, landing face down with a heavy thud, blocking the lower half of the opening.
The alien peeled himself off and stood by the monster’s back, panting, before sheathing his blades in a belt on his waist and turning toward me. His glowing teal eyes penetrated the gloom, locking on me cringing against the back wall.
With a grunt, he swaggered toward me as if I was the spoils of war and it was time to do some plundering.
Yelping, I looked around for a way to escape, spying a hole above me, though it appeared too high to jump and grab onto the edge. But I could scale the wall. People did stuff like that all the time. Not me, but there was a first time for everything. I stuffed my right slipper into a small crevasse and stepped up, sliding the tips of my fingers into a crack. My left foot was easily wedged into another fissure, but when I reached up with my left hand to poke my fingers into a hole in the wall, the alien reached me.
He huffed and wrapped a big brawny arm that had to be the size of a leg around my waist. He hauled me off the wall and tossed me over his shoulder.
“Wait. No,” I cried, flailing.
He growled a string of guttural grunts punctuated with what sounded like barks, his big palm coming down on my ass.
“Hey, don’t!” I squirmed, smacking his rippling, muscular back with my fists. “Let me go. Please.”
My voice echoed in the cave as he strode out into the night, the steady pad of his footsteps taking me around the abominable and down the hillside.
The crystal structures I’d seen as the pod coasted above the surface winked below, every color of blue imaginable oozing in rippling waves as if they’d trapped their own version of the northern lights and were in a competition to see who could outshine the rest.
He paused at the top of the hill and released a low call that sounded like “Awww-whoop-whoop-whoop!”
Thunder erupted, and I peered up at the sky, expecting a deluge to add to my kidnapping-by-alien nightmare, but the sky remained clear.
Something moved to our right, the trees swaying as whatever it was rushed through the forest.
Did the abominable have friends?
A creature resembling a crystal triceratops burst from the trees and stomped toward us, its scales glistening deep blue in the moonlight.
It shook its head, the thin, clear blue flaps like enormous ears on either side of its head flopping.
Lowering its head, it bellowed and charged toward us, the long glassy spears jutting from the sides of its jaw thrashing through the air.
Fuck, it was going to kill us.
Chapter 4
