But he was entangled. In fact, he had just tied a few more knots in an already impossible situation. Cursing himself for the first-class fool he clearly was, Kade kissed the top of her head and gathered her close as he waited for his eyes to resume a normal appearance and his fangs to have a chance to retreat. It took some time, and even after his body settled into a comfortable peace, his hunger for the woman in his arms remained.
Chapter Fifteen
Daylight broke thin and overcast outside the wide mouth of the woodland cave. The predator had sought shelter there a short while ago, when the sun's first weak rays had begun to claw their way through the winter darkness. Few things existed that were stronger than he, particularly in this primitive world that was so different from the distant one he'd been born into many millennia ago, but as advanced a life-form as his kind was, his hairless, dermaglyph- covered skin could not process ultraviolet light, and just a few minutes' exposure would kill him.
From deep within the safety of the dark cave, he rested from the previous night of hunting and wandering, impatient for the thready light of daybreak to exhaust itself and retreat once more. He needed to feed again soon. He still hungered, his cells and organs and muscles requiring extensive rejuvenation after the long period of deprivation and abuse he had suffered while in captivity. The instinct to survive warred with the knowledge he had that he was, wholly and utterly, alone on this inhospitable chunk of orbiting debris.
There were none like him left here now, not for a long time. He was the last of the eight explorers who had crashed on this planet, a lone castaway with no chance of escape.
They had been born to conquer, born to be kings. Instead, one by one, his stranded brethren had all perished, whether by the harshness of their new surroundings or in war with their own half-human progeny centuries later. Through treachery and a secret bargain with his offspring, he alone had survived. But it had been that same treachery and covert dealing that had enslaved him to the son of his son, Dragos. Now that he was free, the only thing more attractive than ending his time on this forsaken planet was the idea that he might be able to take his duplicitous heir with him in death. He howled with remembered fury for the long decades of pain and experimentation that had been inflicted on him. His voice shook the walls of the cave, an unearthly roar that ripped from his lungs like a battle cry.
A gunshot answered from somewhere not too distant, somewhere in the woods beyond. There was a sudden crash in the frozen bracken outside. Then a steady, fleeting beat of animal footsteps--several sets--racing near the mouth of the cave.
Wolves.
The pack split up, half running to the right of the cave's entrance, half darting to the left of it. And behind them by only a few seconds, the sounds of human voices, armed men in dogged pursuit.
"This way," one of them shouted. "Whole goddamn pack ran up this ridge, Dave!"
"You men take the westerly path," a thunderous voice commanded in reply. "Lanny and I'll take the ridge on foot. There's a cave up this way--good chance one or more of the mangy bastards are hiding inside."
The buzz of revving engines and the stench of burning gasoline filled the air as some of the men sped off. A few moments later, outside the cave's mouth, in the daylight that barred the only route of escape, the silhouettes of two people holding long rifles took shape. The man in front was large, with a barrel chest and broad shoulders and a belly that might have been muscular in younger years but had since turned to flab. The man with him was a full foot shorter and about a hundred pounds lighter, a timid creature with a The man with him was a full foot shorter and about a hundred pounds lighter, a timid creature with a thready voice.
"I don't think there's anything in here, Dave. And I'm really not sure it's a good idea for us to split off from the others ..."
Confined to the shadows, the cave's sole occupant shrank back behind a wall of jagged rock--but not soon enough.
"There! I just saw a pair of eyes glowing inside here. What'd I tell ya, Lanny? We got one of those goddamn bastards right f**king here!" The big man's voice was eager with aggression as he raised his weapon. "Shine that flashlight and let me see what I'm shooting at, will ya?"
"Uh, okay, Dave." His nervous companion fumbled the task, clicking on the beam and sending it in a shaky bounce around the floor and walls of the cave. "Do you see it anywhere? I don't see nothing in here at all."
Of course he didn't, because the glowing gaze the larger man had seen just a moment ago was no longer low to the ground but looking down on the pair of humans from where the hunter now clung to the rock ceiling above their heads, poised over them in the dark like a spider.
The big man lowered his weapon. "What the hell? Where the f**k could it have gone?"
"We shouldn't be here, Dave. I think we should go find the others ..." The big man took a few more steps into the cave. "Don't be such a pu**y. Give me that light." As the smaller man reached out to hand it over, his boot caught on a loose rock. He stumbled, went down on his knees with a yelp of pain and surprise. "Oh, shit! I think I cut myself!" The coppery proof of it rose up in a sudden olfactory blast. The scent of fresh blood drilled into the predator's nostrils. He breathed it in and hissed it back out of his lungs through his bared teeth and fangs. Below him on the floor of the cave, the nervous little man's head jerked upward. His stricken face went slack with horror under the alien, amber glow of now-thirsting eyes.
He screamed, his voice as high and curdled as a human girl's.
At the same time, the big man wheeled around with his rifle.