Chapter 5
I followed the light until I was finally back outside. The entrance was a den, but that didn’t help me figure out what creature lived there. The water was only a few feet away from the entrance. I was still too close.
Now that I was outside, I could moderate my steps into a calm pace. The small amount of distance and sunlight did wonders in returning my heart rate to a steadier pace.
But even then, the feeling of being near the water made my fingers tremble.
My eyes scanned the area, looking for the creature that would have made that nest.
It took my brain too long to realize what was wrong. Right in front of me, about three yards away, two red eyes glowed from beneath the surface. The eyes were bright enough to see them through the opaque water.
My breath caught, and I froze in place.
Whatever that was, it wasn’t a native creature, but trying to reason what it could be was like thinking through sludge. It was impossible to form any theories with the intense eye contact that refused to look away.
A rumbling growl was muffled by the water and bubbles blew over the eyes, breaking the surface,
I forced a deep breath. Oxygen. I needed oxygen if I wanted to make it out of this alive.
Calmly. I stepped back, and the water violently thrashed, and those red eyes sped closer.
The head finally surfaced.
From the corner of someone’s eye, they might think that it was an alligator.
Deep greenish-brown scales coated the head; the perfect color to hide in this water.
The scales at the top back of its head stood up in a way that wasn’t normal, and I was willing to bet they were a defense mechanism, that was bastard sharp if they touched you.
The snout was too short and blunt to be anything in that family.
The splashes in the water said it was bigger, much bigger than any of its cousins I’d worked with.
Not to mention the human way the eyes locked on me.
Do something!
“I’m sorry, okay! Go home!” I yelled, waving my arms in big motions over my head to make myself as large as possible. “I won’t fuck with it again. Deal?”
The rest of its body came to the surface. Fuck, maybe making myself bigger wasn’t a great idea.
From snout to the tip of its tail, it had to be twelve feet long.
Think, Talia!
I backed into a tree, and the warm bark sparked the smallest sliver of hope. It wasn’t the best idea, but it was better than nothing. Alligators could climb when they were smaller. Hopefully, this big girl couldn’t get her ass up there.
But that also meant turning my back to an ambush. I couldn’t stop to think things through.
Fuck it.
I grabbed the lowest sturdy branch just above my head and pulled myself up off the ground. My sore muscles complained, but the sound of footsteps in the brush behind me pushed a little more strength into me.
The sound behind me was off, but I didn’t have time to contemplate why as I focused on pulling the lower half of my body up to the branch. Once my knees rested on the branch, I let out a whoosh of breath, but I knew better than to let relief wash over me.
I wasn’t out of this yet.
The steady stride of two distinct footsteps squishing through the moist ground finally registered in my brain.
My heart stopped in my chest. Two?
Thick, muddy green claws grabbed my waist, sinking claws into my side, and yanked me off the false safety of the branch. I tried to hang on, but I was overpowered as if my desperate attempts to cling to the branch meant nothing.
I was pinned against the trunk of the tree, and could feel the large form of a muscular man against my back. Had someone snuck up on me?
No.
A cold, wet nose that was rough leather skimmed down my neck with slow intentional movements, as a soft purr vibrated my back in a way that made something inside me want to get on my hands and knees.
But I refused to put myself in that compromising position. Just the thought made my stomach twist. Why would I ever have that thought?
That wasn’t me.
I slowly turned on my heel to look at the thing behind me.
I immediately swallowed when I realized how far back I had to tilt my head to see its face. Its unkind eyes glared down at me. Their tongue flicked angrily, revealing it was forked like a snake. I had the perfect angle to see how the shape of his lower jaw reminded me of a crocodile.
They snapped their teeth, making me jump. It took me too long to realize they were testing my reaction.
Their overall form was humanoid in a way my brain couldn’t understand. My eyes jerked around trying to make sense of what this was. Heat filled my cheeks as I discovered the huge appendage that mentally put it under he.
I forced my gaze to go back up to his eyes and away from every inch of his naked humanness. Shame and embarrassment suddenly made me feel like I’d intruded on his privacy.
A quiver of something I couldn’t quite identify rolled through me.
His clawed, three finger hand touched my face gently, but those eyes narrowed on me like I’d ruined his life by showing up here. The upper lip of his snout lifted enough to let me glimpse the large canine teeth, ready to tear me apart.
He leaned down, making me feel even smaller beside him in all my five-foot glory. He snarled in my face, making me retreat harder into the tree, but that didn’t create any new space between us.
Hateful determination filled his eyes, but I was lost in the marvel of how expressive they were. Solid red eyes with a reptilian slit that started wide, but as time went on narrowed into nothing more than a black line.
He snatched his hand away as if I was the one intruding into his personal space and growled with the same veracity as a predator who finally caught its meal.
I stood there for what felt like hours before he turned on his heel, whapping me with his thick tail in the process and knocking me to my hands and knees.
I trembled as I watched him return to the water's edge, where he stopped to look back at me, for a few seconds that I wasn’t sure would ever end, and then sank below like he was nothing more than a figment of my imagination.
I inhaled loudly and realized I hadn’t been breathing. Maybe that was why nothing made sense. Yeah.
Because intelligent predators didn’t give up and walk away like that.
Why was I still alive?