by A. G. Wilde
Now, the thrill it sent down her spine made her smile against his lips.
There was a throb between her legs and she gasped when she realized what it was.
He was still deep within her, but she felt as his manhood grew harder as he looked into her eyes.
He was ready again.
And so soon.
“I want you again,” he whispered.
Was this heaven?
It sure felt like it.
“Then take me, Crex,” she whispered back.
And that was all he needed to hear.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Something woke her up. She wasn’t sure what.
As she stretched, the space beside her told her she was alone.
But then the loud roar from outside the cave woke her up fully.
M’Hul.
Rushing to the mouth of the cave, she peeked out and time stood still.
There were gator-guards everywhere. At least over a dozen of them.
M’Hul was putting up a fight, snatching some in his mouth as the others used shock rods against him.
He wasn’t going to survive long if he didn’t get some help.
Crex. Where was Crex?
Her heart beat against her chest as she searched the beach. But it didn’t take long to find him. He was taking out quite a few of the guards on the other end and, for a second, she wondered why he had drawn them so far away from M’Hul.
Then it hit her.
He hadn’t drawn them away from M’Hul. He had drawn them away from her.
Glancing around the cave, her eyes fell on the blade. Grasping the weapon by the handle, she peeked through the barricade again.
She wasn’t going to just stand by and watch.
She was going to help.
Closest to her was a gator-guard with his back turned.
She didn’t need to think twice.
Slipping through the barricade, her new speed was a great asset as she rushed toward the guard, burying the blade deep in its back before he could turn around.
As he roared and fell, it caught the attention of two others.
Drawing their weapons, they rushed toward her. Ducking as the first sliced a sword her way, the fact they were trying to kill her surprised her for a second.
So this wasn’t a retrieval trip; this was a mission to neutralize them.
She’d ducked so fast, it surprised both guards. Taking that brief pause as leverage, she sliced upward with the blade, straight through the guard’s chest. Grabbing the blade, the guard’s ferocious eyes met hers as it snarled, staggering back as it held on to the blade and pulled her with him.
The other guard grasped her from behind, placing the sharp edge of its sword at her neck.
As Piper struggled against it, pushing the sword-bearing arm away from her neck, she felt as the metal bit into her skin and the first drops of blood began to flow. As they too staggered backward, it was a fight of strength.
The blade at her neck was digging deeper and deeper and if she didn’t win, she knew the next few seconds would be her end.
A loud roar above them caused her to raise her eyes in time to see a huge set of teeth descending.
M’Hul.
With one bite, he snatched the gator-guard’s head off, and the arm at her throat went limp.
Astounded, Piper staggered a few steps forward, as she watched the headless body sway before falling to the ground.
Her eyes locked with M’Hul’s before the beast bent and knocked two more guards out of the way.
It had saved her life.
M’Hul had saved her life.
Spinning in Crex’s direction, she realized they’d surrounded him with shock rods. Over seven of them.
The electricity they knew was their strong point.
He was putting up a fight but more guards were joining in. That’s when she screamed at them.
If she could distract even three of them, she knew he could get rid of the others.
Her scream worked, as some of the guards turned their heads in her direction.
Nodding to each other, three of them came running her way and Piper felt her heart rise in her throat.
Now what?
They were bound to use the shock rods against her too. And those rods meant she wouldn’t even get close enough to them to use her blade.
Her blade.
Spotting it deep in the guard she’d stabbed, she pulled it from its chest, her face contorting at the sound it made as it exited the guard’s flesh.
Lifting her head, she realized the guards were almost upon her.
She needed to move.
Taking off at a run, she ran toward the water.
She didn’t know how they’d fare there, but if there was one thing she knew, they wouldn’t use their shock rods while in the lake.
If they did, they’d also shock themselves.
That would give her a fighting chance. As she ran into the foam, the guards followed. She could hear them laughing as they chased her, thinking she was fleeing for her life.
But she wasn’t doing this for herself.
A glance at Crex, and she realized she’d given him the space he needed. He was fighting more easily. Enough to stay alive.
She was waist-deep in the water now, and the guards were still in pursuit.
Stopping when the water reached just over her breasts, she watched as they snarled and circled her.
She needed a game plan.
M’Hul couldn’t rescue her now. He was busy taking out a few other guards.
And Crex still had his hands full.
“Come, human. Don’t make this difficult,” one of the guards snarled.
“It’s that jekin we’ve heard about,” another said and one of them laughed.
She assumed “jekin” was akin to saying “bitch.”
Well, this jekin was going to fuck them up. She wasn’t sure how yet, but she knew one thing.
Their first mistake was underestimating her.
Diving under the water, Piper held her breath. The water was murky and that was going to be to her advantage.
Their mild disorientation at her unexpected move was their first mistake. Moving quickly, she thrust the blade forward with all her might, slicing through the leg of the one closest to her.
Its thrashing caused the others to glance at each other as they scanned the water.
“Stop playing games human,” one said, scanning the water.
“Use the rod,” its partner said, both ignoring their colleague who was still thrashing around.
“Fool. If we use the rod, its effect will reach us too,” growled the other.
“Put him out of his misery,” said the one that had made the stupid suggestion. Grunting, the other dislodged a blade from his waistband and buried it in the chest of the guard she’d injured.
Fuck. They didn’t even hesitate.
She’d only injured its leg. It would have lived with some medical assistance.
Well, at least they made things easier for her.
But she was running out of oxygen and they were starting to jam their rods forcefully into the water.
If they were to hit her, she was sure they’d break some bones.
It was now or never. Moving swiftly, she sliced through one of the remaining guard’s legs.
As it roared and jammed the rod toward her, Piper gripped the metal and rose from the water, inhaling as she did.
The other guard saw a chance, thrusting toward her with its blade. She was just lucky enough to dodge. But, it still sliced her, cutting a large gash in her arm that caused her to scream in pain.
But she couldn’t hesitate. Jamming her blade into the chest of the guard that was thrashing around, she submerged herself underwater again.
There was blood everywhere, hers included. She could almost smell it in the water.
The good news was that there was one guard left.
But this one wasn’t going to go down like the others. He k
new her plan. Knew she was planning to slice him in the leg to take him down.
Unexpectedly, the beast submerged itself.
It was frightfully fast in the water, as it swam further into the deep.
She didn’t know what it was doing, but it certainly looked as if it had a plan.
She needed to get back to shore.
Getting back was a struggle. She’d accidentally gone too far, she realized, as she stood on her tiptoes, trying to get foothold to wade back.
The guard that had dived was nowhere to be seen.
That wasn’t good news.
What’s worse, as she looked back to shore, things weren’t looking good.
They’d somehow subdued M’Hul and were hauling him in chains toward a massive black ship she hadn’t noticed atop the ridge.
Crex, on the other hand, twisted the last guard’s neck in his hands before he turned to look in her direction.
Even from the distance, she could see the disbelief in his eyes.
Was it disbelief?
No.
No, it wasn’t.
It was horror.
And at that moment, two large arms grabbed her around the neck, pulling her back under the water.
The gator-guard.
* * *
A scream died in her throat as she struggled against him, but he was going fast, and he was going deep, way too deep for her. Even if she got him to release her, she would surely drown at this depth.
It was holding her under the water, waiting for her to run out of air.
And she was running out, quickly.
Her best bet was to play dead. But logic didn’t work when your body realized it was being starved of air.
Plus, in the struggle, the blade had fallen from her hands.
She was naked. Literally. With nothing to defend herself.
Then, just when she was sure her lungs were going to burst, the guard’s hands loosened and other arms encircled her, arms she knew well, arms she had been curled up between just hours before.
Crex.
He was swimming fast, so fast she could feel the current against her skin, as he headed to the surface for her to breathe.
As they surfaced and she took in huge gulps of air, coughing water in the process, she held on to him.
“M’Hul,” she breathed.
“We will rescue him, fighter,” Crex said.
“Fighter,” she repeated. If her lungs weren’t still burning, she’d have chuckled.
Instead, she smiled and breathed easy.
There was blood rising around them now and she realized he must have killed the guard who’d been holding her hostage.
But something wasn’t right and it seemed as if Crex noticed it the same time as she did.
The water had suddenly begun swirling around them, like a whirlpool.
“Drak,” Crex breathed. “We must go.”
As he began swimming again, Piper’s eyes widened as she watched the whirlpool grow around them. It was preventing Crex from swimming very far, as the current within the whirlpool pulled him towards its center.
“I must go under if we are to escape this,” he said, looking at her, slight worry in his eyes.
“What is it? What is doing this?”
“A sea monster.”
Zombie-fish 2.0?
“Shit.”
“Hold your breath,” Crex said, but she couldn’t, for behind them, rising out of the water, was the biggest monstrosity in the entire universe.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It wasn’t like the other one and, as Crex turned to look at it, she heard him curse again.
“It’s the mother,” he said.
“The mother?”
“Yes, of the child you killed.”
“Ok, we’ll debate whether it deserves the title of “child” later. Right now, what the fuck do we do?!”
“We run.”
That wasn’t exactly what she’d expected to hear. Especially coming from him, Mr. Enjoy-the-kill.
But heck, when you saw a zombie fish the size of the Titanic rising from the ocean and staring at you with a gazillion red eyes, you ran or swam, whatever—you just got the fuck out of there!
“Hold your breath.” Crex only gave her a second to comply before he dived again. He was making headway to shore when something grasped him, halting his progress.
She didn’t need to guess what that thing was, as countless others grasped them, pulling them back toward Monstrosity Rebooted.
Tentacles.
Slimy, thick, zombie tentacles.
Her arms were wrapped around Crex’s back and she felt the ridges he had there pulse then grow.
He was struggling against the tentacles as more held on to him, wrapping around them both.
In the next second, his fins shot through his skin, slicing the side of one of her fingers, but the pain wasn’t felt.
In the madness, if he had sliced off a finger, she probably wouldn’t have felt it either.
Reaching behind him, he dislodged the topmost, largest fin and handed it to her. Dislodging another for himself, he sliced at the tentacles.
Fuck, the fin was sharp. It sliced straight through.
Catching the drift, Piper began slicing as well, slowly dislodging them as Crex struggled to swim forward.
But the zombie-fish-thing wasn’t giving up so easily. As they sliced the last tentacle holding them back and Crex shot forward, surfacing so she could breathe, the thing charged at them.
It was coming at them through the water at incredible speed, but although Crex was swimming above water, he was still going fast.
Ahead of them though, on the shore, four remaining gator-guards stood, their weapons charged and ready.
Something at the front and something at the back—probably nice to have in bed but not in this situation.
As they reached shallow water where she could stand without going under, Crex let her go suddenly, his eyes locking with hers and she hated the resolve she saw there.
“Crex!” She screamed as he turned to the monster.
And it didn’t wait to attack.
Out of nowhere, another tentacle shot forward, grasping Crex around the waist and pulling him toward the monster.
It was wrapped tightly around his arms as it lifted him into the air and she knew that no amount of strength was going to break that hold.
The tentacles looked like they were made of pure muscle. Shriveled muscle, but muscle nonetheless.
Piper screamed as she struggled toward them.
He was doing this to save her. It was either her or him. The monster wanted revenge. He knew she had a batter chance with the gator-guards than the monster at hand.
But how could he fight such a thing on his own?
With terror in her eyes, she watched as the monster opened its narrow mouth, exposing rows of jagged teeth.
She couldn’t get close enough; she was too slow, too far away.
Do something! Hell, do your alien magic thing or something! Anything! She felt like screaming but she’d felt this feeling before many, many times. That hopeless feeling when you knew something terrible was about to happen and there was nothing you could do about it.
It released Crex in mid-air and Piper watched him fall towards those teeth, spinning just in time to lodge the fin he was holding into the thing’s head.
But the monster did something neither of them expected.
With a hiss, it launched itself out of the water to meet Crex’s falling body, biting into his mid-section.
The world stood still as she saw the immediate pain on Crex’s face.
She’d never seen that before. Even when in the cell on the Isclit ship. Even when he was being tortured.
Her heart felt as if it was literally falling apart.
As his body fell into the water, the blood that rose to the surface made her feel sick.
It was Crex’s blood.
Crex.
No.
Please
. No.
As the monster submerged itself, Piper struggled forward, her legs finally reaching that point where the sand dipped off into deep water.
She went under, falling, but she didn’t care.
She could hardly see in the murky water but she tried anyway.
She needed to find him.
She’d already lost Callie. She couldn’t lose him too.
And then she saw him, lifeless, slowly sinking.
She didn’t know how she did it, but somehow she reached his body. Holding on to him, she wrapped her arms around him.
Her heart was thumping hard, maybe from the stress she was putting on her body, or maybe it was that thing he was constantly talking about. The jagazen.
She was aware they were sinking but what could she do?
She couldn’t swim.
She couldn’t save them.
Again, she was going to lose the one person she cared about in this universe.
Again, that person was dying because of her.
It should have been her scouting the terrarium when Callie died. Instead, Callie had gone in her place.
And she’d ended up dead.
Now, it was happening again.
If she hadn’t decided to jump in the water to lure the guards away, Crex would still be on land and this monster-fish wouldn’t have had the chance to wound him so badly.
As they sank, Piper pressed her mouth against his.
She hated to think this was their last kiss.
She didn’t like saying goodbye.
But as they sank deeper she kept her mouth there.
They say all good things must come to an end.
She just didn’t expect their end to be so soon.
Please God, she thought, I know I’m one of those kids who deserves nothing but please. Just this once.
As the water became darker, she blinked as Crex’s eyes opened, clear as day, luminescent in the darkness.
It took him a second before he realized what was happening.
Gripping her to him, he began swimming to shore.
She’d never believed in miracles but maybe God did answer prayers.
So overwhelmed she was that he was alive, she didn’t notice his sluggish movements. But as they almost reached the shore, the loud hiss behind them was unignorable.
