Page 2 of His Human Runaway

The group of males sheltering within the manor during the month-long storms viciously fought amongst themselves in the great hall for my virginity. Whole tournaments that involved flame-throwing and bloody fist fights that broke out between them. This silliness worked out in my favor. No one took me for himself. And eventually I got away and escaped.

All I want is to return home, to New Earth.

And I’ve learned my lesson—Tarvos is not a welcoming planet and the Hyrrokin are not to be trusted. My friends were right, I should never have left home.

“Ouch!” I yell. “Get off!” A large bug is on my arm, ready to suck my blood. “I hate this place,” I mutter as I swat it away.

I continue to trek through the verdant green jungles of Tarvos, hoping to eventually stumble upon a farmer or the edge of a small town. It’s still drizzling, and the mud is thick. My flat slip-on shoes are so wrong for this terrain. I haven’t eaten in two days. Despite my weight I’m reasonably fit. I like to walk and play sports. But no way was I prepared for this type of hikethrough an alien jungle. Luckily there’s been plenty of water to drink in passing streams, but my stomach is empty and I’m starting to wish a large plate of original planet lasagna and my favorite sparkling sweet drink would magically fall out of the sky.

A deep, animalistic growl rumbles in the distance and pause. Oh hells. I freeze and glance at the bushes on either side of me. I’ve managed to avoid predators up until this point. But it looks like my luck has run out. There’s another growl that sounds louder. I rush forward, trying to make it out of the narrow, rocky space and out to the next meadow. I’ve already tried climbing up a tree, to no avail. I’m just not strong enough. Running for cover is my only escape.

And the rains increase in intensity.

Lightning strikes overhead and thunder rumbles in the distance. I slip and fall in the mud and suddenly I’m sliding off the meager path I’ve been creating for myself in the bushes and I’m on my ass, bumping down the side of a hill. I shriek with terror and try my best to throw out my hands to slow my slide and not hit any rocks as I slide down, down, down.

Finally, it’s all over and I’m still, at the bottom of a ravine, crying.

That hurt like hell.

Finally, I sniff and rub at my nose, and take a moment to do an inventory of my injuries. I’m wearing pants, slip-ons and a traditional Hyrrokin tube top shirt. Thankfully both my shoes are still on, but barely hanging on. I hurt everywhere and there’s a tear in my pants leg that reveals a deep, bleeding cut. I try to push up and stand and fall back, crying because my right wrist might be broken. Tears return at the throbbing pain and desperate situation.

This is awful but is still better than having stayed back at the mansion. I start walking again, limping forward.

After two whole months under a form of house arrest at the mansion, I realized no one was going to save me from that situation. I had to save myself. I’d tried to tell staff that I’d been kidnapped and was there against my will, but they laughed me off. I told a peacekeeper who arrived one day and she frowned, turned her back on me and pretended not to hear.

I’d been warned many times that there was nowhere to run because the wildlands surrounding the mansion were filled with predators who’d consider me a tasty snack. But I’d spent most of the last thirty days locked in my room during the storms, afraid of every noise and the males who were battling in the halls.

But Akin and his entourage weren’t the worst of my worries.

His mother, the crime boss, was also sheltering in the mansion and Rokena Brimstone is so evil, she makes the rest of the Hyrrokin mafia look like nice puppies.

She ordered a hit on me.

This is because I tried to sneak into the library late one night to get another book and accidentally overheard her plans to assassinate the Queen of Tarvos. “Sneaky creature,” she snarled when she caught me hiding behind a door after her meeting with a group of enforcers. I’d hit record on my tablet the moment I realized what I was hearing and she caught me standing there with the function light still flashing on the screen. “Akin won’t be able to protect you now, little human. You will die for this treachery.”

I tucked my tablet in my pocket, scurried away to my quarters and locked my bedroom door, the sounds of her derisive laughter ringing in my ears.

I’d already been planning my exit, but overhearing Rokena’s terrible plans and subsequent threat made me work faster. Staying at the mansion and trying to ride out Akin’s plans for me was no longer an option. Her threat wasn’t a whim. I was as goodas dead if I remained. And I had to get to the authorities and warn them that their Queen was in danger.

But who could I trust?

The last storm of rainy season ended and I paid a local farmer who arrived with supplies for the kitchens to smuggle me out to the nearest urban center. I bribed him with a jeweled bracelet that had been a gift from Akin.

I made it off the grounds hidden in the back of his old, rumbling utility vehicle. But instead of taking me to town as promised, he dumped me off in the wildlands, and I was left wondering if that Hyrrokin was a snitch. Or possibly I was his mark and he’d been ordered by Rokena to leave me out here to die? Was this her plan all along? And it really was a good plan, leaving her innocent in my death in the eyes of her son.

The same growl as before rumbles in the bushes again, this time closer.

Dammit.

A rush of adrenaline spikes, giving me the strength to ignore the pain and leap away. My feet move faster and I scramble, but then slip and fall back into the mud. A scream flies out of my mouth as I land on my injured wrist. The pain is so great black spots form in front of my eyes.

A drumbeat of hooves sounds in the distance.

I roll over and squint, trying to get a clear picture of the dark shape that moves through the jungle in my direction. There’s a blur of a large being riding on top of another animal. Is that a mirage? No, it’s a deadly, satanic-looking male with a bare chest, huge black horns and a barbed tail. He’s riding a magnificent, four-legged, powerful beast and he races right for me. His animal skids to a halt nearby and leaps off his saddle and drops to the ground next to my prone form.

I scream as this new threat that looms overhead.

A huge, striped, furry animal on four muscular legs with extremely large fangs lunges out of the bushes to attack.

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