Out of the Storm

by Avery Gale

  “Aw, well it is nice to know you dream about me. I’ll be right back. Do me a favor, get the dick out of your ass, and get in a damn good mood. You are bringing me down, asshole.” Brody walked into the hotel, leaving Leland to untie their luggage and dismount it from the bed of the truck.

  Leland swore under his breath at the knots that were over extravagantly tied in the ropes. Brody always tended to go overboard when it came to tying stuff, and he didn’t disappoint this time. When the last heavy green bag was tossed on the sidewalk, Leland hopped down and grabbed his cell phone out of the cab. No missed calls. Fucking figures. The only family he had left was his son of a bitch asshole father, who stayed drowned in the bottom of an Evans Williams bottle every day of his life. Leland had paid the old man’s bills for the past six years after the death of his mother, and didn’t get so much as a thank you, fuck you, or hate you. He called every week and talked to the answering machine, knowing his dad would hear it from his permanent spot in the old green recliner. The man had always been mean to him and his mother, but he had promised his mom on her deathbed that he would take care of him, and so he did.

  He tossed the phone back in the seat and sat down, turning up the local country station to fade into the new tune. As he listened to the words, he smiled. He hadn’t kept up with the new music releases while deployed, and found himself nodding to the song. When it ended, the man on the radio said it was called “All Over the Road” by Easton Corbin. He made a mental note to download it when he got home. The chorus had made him laugh. It said something about her pretty little lips on his neck, and the first go round he could have sworn it had said dick instead of neck. The song would never be the same now.

  After a glance at his watch, he pulled the keys and walked into the hotel to see what the holdup was. Brody was leaning casually against the counter, grinning like a cheetah in a bunny farm. “What’s taking so long? Is no one working or something?”

  Brody grinned again and pointed. “Oh, she is working, but I think we caught her at a bad time. It seems we have our own little Sleeping Beauty. I was contemplating if it was worth going to jail or not for hopping over this counter and planting a kiss on her.”

  Leland wrinkled his nose, leaning over to get a peek through the office door. His attitude changed when she came into view. A gorgeous red head was collapsed on the table, snoring softly. She had on the gaudy hotel shirt and a black pencil skirt that fell just to her knees and showed a trim build that was accented by a pair of shiny black heels. Her features were hollowed and her eyes dark on a paleness that wrenched his stomach. His heart sank for the woman. She had the cutest little nose that turned up, and full, plump kissable lips. Even given her current state, his cock twitched to life. “I do see your dilemma. She looks like she hasn’t slept in months. What are we going to do? I don’t remember seeing any other hotels in town.”

  “Oh, even if there were we damn sure aren’t staying somewhere else. I guess we will have to wake her. She’ll probably appreciate it anyway. I’d hate for her to get into trouble if someone from management called or walked in.”

  “Good point. But damn, Brody. The girl needs rest. Maybe we can offer our bed to her when she gets off work…after a massage and full service bath of course.” Leland grinned, seeing the same hunger reflect in his best friend’s eyes.

  “I like your way of thinking. Okay, here goes nothing.” Brody looked around before hopping his ass on the counter and swinging his long jean clad legs over to land on the other side. Hopefully the security cameras weren’t monitored. He quickly walked back and pushed the door open, groaning even more from the sight of her. He turned around wide-eyed and smirking at Leland, undeniably even more enthralled at the little beauty.

  Leland watched as his tougher than nails comrade and best friend brushed the hair off her neck before rubbing her arm gently. It took a few shakes to rustle her, but her lashes finally began to flutter.

  Her sleep-clouded eyes blinked rapidly trying to focus, and glanced repeatedly between him and Brody. The honey brown orbs were like an endless pool of sugar and spice. Mixed with her deep red hair, she reminded Leland of the warm gooey cinnamon rolls his mother used to make every Saturday morning when he was just a boy. The fond memory warmed his heart. The moment realization hit, she jumped up and stumbled, falling backwards over the chair. Brody reacted quickly and caught her, lifting her up in his arms.

  Excerpt from Rane’s Giants

  Tremble Island Series Book One

  by Lynn Ray Lewis

  As soon as Lord Ludwig left she crawled from behind the big chest, and slowly approached the prisoner. He had not moved since they brought him in and shackled him to the wall. Her hands began to warm as she slowly ran them from the top of his head to the tips of his toes so she could assess the damage done to his body.

  This man had taken a beating like none before him. His skull was a web of cracked bone, and three of his ribs were completely broken, with one sticking out from his flesh. His thickly muscled legs were striped by fresh rope marks, and his entire body was bruised with deep painful injuries. The stab wound in his gut worried her a bit, but not as much as the cracked skull.

  This warrior had not gone down easily.

  She had to sit astraddle his thick muscular thighs to reach his head with her hands. Goddess, but the man was huge. Her legs were spread so far apart she could feel the burning stretch in her own thighs. It was good he was unconscious because she could feel the thick bulge of his man’s organ nestled between her own sex.

  Rane placed her hands on his head over the worst of the webbed bones under his hair and skin. She began the tedious task of melding the bone back together, making sure to interlock every small shard of bone so none would be left to float around in his skull after she healed him. Any tiny sliver of bone could cause damage and pain later, so it was better to get the pesky things taken care of the first time and be done with it.

  She leaned over him for hours, concentrating on healing his skull, and pushing the gel that was causing pressure on his brain to seep out of the lesser openings where the skin was broken. Even if she had water to wash away the blood, she would not have done it yet. It would take another day, at least, to heal the rest of his injuries enough to remove him from this place, and place a pile of ashes in his spot.

  Rane was getting quite a collection of big men hiding in the cave near the river. As soon as she heard that the Lord had a new prisoner, she slipped into the dungeon through the secret rock in the wall, and observed the guards and the Lord or Simon come into the room to torture the men for information.

  When they left the men beaten and shackled at death’s door, she slipped through the wall and healed them enough to secrete them out of the room, and into the small tunnel leading into the forest.

  Today’s discovery of a new prisoner was merely happenstance. She had been hiding in the dungeon because this was the one place Simon rarely ventured into without his small gang of hangers-on. She again thanked the Goddess for the small size of her body as she hid behind the trunk of torture implements in the darkest corner. There had been no time to hide in the tunnel without being seen by the guards.

  That she was already here in this room when they brought him in was a blessing for the warrior had he but known it. The bleeding in his brain causing the swelling would have killed him after days of torturous pain. That is, if the stab wounds and the blood seeping from the place his rib stuck through his flesh had not caused him to bleed to death. Or the wound became infected with filth, and he died from the infection.

  Rane took her hands from the warriors head and waited for the wounds to bleed a little more before sealing the seeping wounds on the inside of his flesh. That way, when his captors came back they would see what it appeared to be. The huge man still incapacitated from his mortal wounds, complete with fresh blood still slowly causing him to bleed to death. They liked that. They took bets on how long a prisoner would still bleed, and even how much they would bleed befo
re death. Almost to a man, Lord Ludwig’s men were as depraved as he and his sibling.

  It puzzled her as to why this warrior, and the past three like him, had not been killed outright on the battlefield as so many had been. Nor had they been subjected to the lord’s usual depravities. For some reason he seemed to fear these men, and when a small pile of ashes had been found where the prisoner had been chained, all he did was grunt and nod his head. He ordered his guards to sweep up every ash, and scatter the ashes into the wind over the fields.

  When the lord felt particularly like he needed entertainment, and there were no prisoners in the dungeon, he would have a villager brought into the hall on a trumped up charge, and allow his men to torture the poor soul. The villagers were raped and beaten for screaming during the process. One man had been strung up over the blackened beams overhead, and roasted over a vat of bubbling fat. His screams were said to still echo in the hall on cold nights.

  Sadly, by the time each villager was tossed out of the hall like a pile of garbage, if still alive, their mind was too broken for Rane to heal them. She might heal their bodies, but the mind was in the hands of the Goddess.

  JK Publishing, Inc.