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I brandished the burning branch, hoping the beast, like all cats and predators, would be afraid of fire. But then my eyes fell on a deep, festering wound in its side, and its protruding ribs, and realized the animal was as desperate for a meal as I. It would come for me, or die trying.
This is it, I thought.This is how you die.
Alone, eaten by a cat, millions of years in the past.
Nobody would ever know what had happened to me.
But then, out of nowhere, a man scaled the large rock to my left, shouting out guttural sounds and waving some kind of gun thing that I had only seen in sci-fi movies, which seemed just as out of place as he was himself.
He was enormous—standing at six and a half feet, his bare chest looked to be at least fifty inches in circumference if not more. He was a mountain of a man, the kind of man you never saw in real life, only in action movies or fitness magazines, and even those men would have paled in comparison to this stranger. His muscles bulged as he spread his entire body out like a giantXon bent knees to make himself appear bigger, probably to intimate the saber-toothed cat.
I should have warned him of the animal’s injury that suggested it wouldn’t allow the beast to give up easily, but my tongue was glued to my mouth, which became even dryer when the man seemed to realize the animal would attack and instead of shooting it, holstered his gun in favor for a broadsword I now noticed sheathed behind his back.
For just a moment, I allowed myself the illusion of finally, against all odds, having run into my Highlander. But I disregarded that idea instantly.Cavemanwas probably a more suitable term given when we were. Although… the weird gun by his thigh and the sword he held didn’t belong in this time period. Then again, neither did I.
I screamed again when the giant cat jumped, but the man easily sidestepped it while bringing his sword down in a wide arc underneath the creature’s belly, cutting it from one end to the other so deeply, he must have hit the heart. The saber-toothed cat didn’t even yowl, instead it just plopped dead to the ground.
The man turned to me, and my breath caught in my throat. That face.
The crooked nose, just as I had imagined when Matteo had made it straight, and the eyes that were bluer than he had portrayed them, too. The man looked exactly as I had imagined him from the moment I saw the face Matteo had fashioned from the skull.
“Thor,” I breathed, and then the world went dark around me.
I barely caught herbefore her body hit the forest floor. Still, my mind reeled. How did this strange female know my name?
Her body was light as it hung suspended in my arms, giving me ample time to study her. If it hadn’t been for her slight and short build, she could have been a Vhar’Khyng. The resemblance was uncanny. Dirty, blonde hair hung messily over her face, and I wiped errant strands to the side. A petite nose stood out on her heart-shaped face with an adorable turned-up tip that begged to be flicked. Dry but luscious lips beckoned me to kiss them. Her strange clothes were bedraggled, ripped, and hung loosely from her frame, hinting at a recent significant weight loss.
By all standards, she was a beautiful female, which begged the question, what was she doing out here by herself? Where were her people? Her mate? Had she gotten lost from her tribe?
The last word brought me back to reality. Her tribe! If she was part of a tribe, she could be the answer to our prayers. For five years we had mourned the loss of females, of never being ableto find our szaria, of our names being the last in our clan. But suddenly, there was hope in the form of this strange female.
She moaned, and I snuggled her against my chest, felt my heart leap, and wished she would open her eyes so I could see what color they were and if they were as similar to mine as the rest of her body was.
I took inventory of her many injuries, but thankfully all seemed to be minor scratches and bruises. The worst off were her feet. My eyes narrowed, and I carefully bent first her one foot and then the other to inspect the extent of her injuries there.
Blisters, old and new, marred her nearly black soles. Scrapes, some crusted over with blood, others fresh, lined the underside and top of her feet. They needed to be washed and cleaned to fully see how badly they were hurt. That she had been able to stand on them, let alone walk, seemed a minor miracle, or spoke of her determination.
The question of where her shoes were bounced around my head just as much as the thoughts pondering about where her people were. Most of all, I wondered how she knew my name.
She moaned again, and I cursed myself for not having brought anything with me besides my weapons. Then again, I had only meant to go for a run. Never had I expected to find a lone female out here.
Her eyelids fluttered. Intently, I watched them open, and stared into the deepest green eyes I had ever seen, reminding me of the springs on Jahrle. Her eyes were still clouded from being unconscious, but they regarded me with an intensity that created a strange sensation inside my stomach. As if thousands of tiny bubbles suddenly popped, and a tremble rose through my muscles.
Her generous red lips curved up, and tentatively, her hand reached up to cup the side of my cheek. She mumbled somethingin a language I didn’t understand but hoped my implanted translator would pick up.
“Thor.” She said my name again, and I shivered. But then the tips of her fingers made contact with my skin, and a hot jolt ran through me as if I had been hit by lightning.
“Szaria,” I uttered breathlessly as I recognized my fated mate in her.
The sound of my voice must have startled her. Her eyes widened in fright, and she tried to scoot away from me. I lifted my arms to show her I meant no harm and allowed her to slide from my lap and scurry against a tree.
“Whoareyou?” she asked. She spoke so quickly, her words still didn’t make any sense to me. They all blurred together.
“Slow down, allow my translator to pick up—”
“Who areyou?” she repeated, and this time my translator chip picked up the word “who.”
One of my cellmates had explained how the chips worked, but I hadn’t paid that much attention. All I remembered was they worked with my auditory cortex somehow and would eventually enable me to speak the female’s language as well as allow me to understand it. For it to work though, I needed her to speak a few more words.
