A Star is Born: The Coming Dawn: Book I Read online

  She supposed her struggling movements made whatever it was stop dragging her, because they froze and a moment later she was released. Terrified and eager to flee, she scrambled backward.

  Deep noisy breaths came from the giant creature, as if it were scenting the air. What did it smell? If the animal was clearly nervous, someone small like Kylie was clearly in danger. Not being able to see, she was helpless with nowhere to run. Making a plan of action was impossible, but at the rate she was running into trouble, she would be dead by daybreak. Pretending to be dead seemed like the only halfway decent defense, but Kylie was too panic-stricken to keep her breaths quiet and shallow.

  The same big hand clutched her waist. She felt the beast hurl her over its shoulder, and a moment later it ran. She was jostled with every bound the creature took. Her ribs stung with sharp stabs as she bounced and flopped like a rag doll. Kylie knew she was going to die if she continued to let the beast keep her.

  Kylie kicked and punched anything she could. The thick skin was like rubber and her efforts didn’t even faze the beast.

  “Aaahhhhh!” A low rumbling battle cry came from a distance; and the creature tossed Kylie off its shoulder. She hit the wall and slid to the ground. She heard what sounded like a bear and man fighting and roaring. Then there was an unearthly howl that vibrated her entire body. She covered her ears until there was silence. With a thud, the beast fell inches from Kylie. Warm, gushing fluid splattered her.

  An enormous limb landed on Kylie’s head, and smacked her against stone, opening a searing gash. The pain was so intense, her air was stolen and her scream was mute.

  “Cover it up,” she heard the man urgently growl and was shocked that he was angry at her for getting hurt. His voice was unexpectedly close. He grabbed her hand to force her to put pressure on her wound. The instant her hand touched her fractured skull, her fingers blistered.

  She screamed and yanked her hand away. He didn’t understand how badly it hurt. “Cover it up, or you’ll die. Don’t you understand you’re bleeding?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, painfully aware that she knew for quite some time that she was going to die that day.

  “You need to put pressure on the wound to heal it.” He tried to make her press it again, by clinching her hand tightly. Then he tried forcing her once again to cover it. Kylie screamed, this time her cries echoed in the cave. She tried pulling her hand away, but he wouldn’t release her. She kicked him as hard as she could to get his attention. He needed to know the pain was too intense, and burned her.

  “Please no! It hurts.” She struggled as he seized her by both hands. Then he hoisted her up, having her sit, before trying once again to make her cup her skull. With all her strength, she tried freeing herself. He wasn’t listening.

  “You want to die then?” he asked as she fought him. Their argument was getting her nowhere. He was too strong. His power frightened her, because she felt she had no choice as he held her hand behind her head.

  She struck him hard, possibly in the shin, to get his attention. “You’re scaring me! I can’t see! I don’t know what’s going on. It hurts to touch it. Please, there has to be another way! I’ll die if I keep my hand there.” She kicked him again, right where she was sure it would cripple him. He let go, and groaned. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “Don’t you get it? You’ll die!” he roared, continuing to boom commands.

  She felt lightheaded. Her body was shaky. Her skin felt like it was burning off. One last time she tried to follow his command, and reached back to put pressure on the wound. The blood was so hot she couldn’t come close to touching it. Her hands felt blistered from fingertip to palm. Surely she would cook down to the bone if she attempted healing the wound again. The burning fire slowly trickled down her neck. She could feel her skin bubbling.

  “Cover it up. You’re dying. Your light is flickering out!”

  She felt tired, so tired. She could barely keep her head up. Odd she would die this way. Falling into a cavern with no hole in the ceiling, seeing glowing water and eels, then being captured by a large beast that walked upright.

  Without warning, he grasped the back of her head, and he compressed her injury. He bellowed in pain, but he didn’t let go. She felt the sweltering blood burn back into the skin. The pain decreased. They continued screaming in excruciating pain. She felt her skin cool. The sharp ache in her head lessened and even her hand was rapidly healing. The man’s roar became an angry groan. He didn’t let go of her head until all the pain was gone, and felt completely cool.

  If that was all that happened, Kylie would have been grateful, but then something else happened. A blurry figure of the man came into focus. He was very muscular and wide with broad shoulders. His thick black shoulder-length hair was messy.

  She blinked, not believing how brawny and wide he was. He was immensely strong. Kylie had never seen anyone that fit. Despite him crouching, she could tell he was impressively tall. He wore a black leather scale skirt, boots that laced up his calves, and thick straps around his arms. He had a decorative swirly tattoo on his left pec, which grew before her very eyes. She couldn’t make out any details, but she definitely saw the tattoo getting bigger. His features were still very blurry as her vision came in and out of focus, but never completely clear. She couldn’t see the color of his eyes or the shape of his lips or nose. She only saw the wide body of pure muscle.

  She looked for the beast, but everything was still dark like woods on a moonless night. When she noticed her own body, she vaguely saw her silhouette. Her body was a faint blurry glow, but if she brought a hand up closer, she could see in better detail. When she was looking at her palm that she noticed something very different. Strange markings, which she could somehow read, were etched in her skin. “Cobaaron.”

  “That’s because you wouldn’t listen,” he said gruffly. He stood and took a few steps to where she believed the beast to be laying dead. “We need to leave. It’s not safe to linger.”

  “What is that thing?” She sounded hoarse from all her screaming.

  “It’s a mountain troll,” he stated impatiently and once again told her they needed to leave. “Get up. With all the racket we’ve been making we’re sure to attract more unwanted notice. You should be thankful you only gained the attention of this troll with all your shouting. I could hear you a mile away.”

  He made a circle, scanning for something, before he pointed overhead, but at what Kylie couldn’t see. “There. We will hide up in that cave for the night. Troll meat is sure to attract more trolls. They’re cannibals, and the battle over this carcass will be a loud, fierce fight. We need to hurry. Don’t just sit there; I said get up!”

  As she stood, she watched him bend and reach for something. She heard grinding and popping. The sight was eerie, seeing him work in the black of her blindness, twisting what she imagined was a limb of the troll. She heard a loud snap, and then tearing flesh. The sound was nauseating.

  “Come on,” he barked, and then marched away. His long strides put a large gap between them within a few steps. She was wobbly on her sore feet, and she couldn’t see where she was going. She trusted if she walked directly behind him she would be okay, but when she released the wall she fell, tripping over the troll.

  “Please wait,” she begged, and got back up. “I can’t see. You’re disappearing.”

  “Well, keep up. We don’t have much time. And I’m not touching you.”

  “Okay.” Kylie shrugged. That suited her fine, if he would only slow down.

  Kylie hurried along, keeping one hand on the stone for support and following his blurry shadow. He would pause every once in awhile to wait and each time he complained about her lollygagging. Kylie thought she was moving rather fast. Her heavy breathing made her ribs twinge and cramp. Every gasp was torture. She was practically jogging to keep up.

  “Why aren’t you moving? I gave you a command. Now hurry.” He swore under his breath then grumbled as he walked. The minute his back was to he
r, Kylie rolled her eyes. She would put up with rudeness because she had to, but she hoped he would get her to safety before her patience ran out and she retaliated.

  The fact that Kylie was grateful that he was helping her did make it easier to hold her tongue, but his tone was too harsh and intimidating. For such an exceedingly beefy and burly stature he should know better than to talk to a woman like that. He would easily frighten her and no woman wanted to be afraid or spoken to like that by a man.

  Again and again, he growled when he halted. “I can’t see,” Kylie finally croaked, trying to make him understand. “I’m scared, and you’re not helping! I can’t even see the cave rock. I’m walking in pitch black!”

  “So now you want me to carry you? I told you, I’m not touching you,” he growled.

  “That’s fine. I’ve no desire to be that close,” she said defensively. His assumption she wished to be carried was absurd. “I want compassion. Slow down!”

  “Well, if you can see me, I suggest you walk on my heels because I’m never touching you again.” Kylie couldn’t help but scoff. He marched up a steep, uneven hill. The sight of it was odd, because he seemed to float in a black sky as he ascended.

  She glared because of his uncaring response. She was confused about her location, her world shaken to its core, her eyesight gone, and her battered body was sore. Yet he wasn’t decent enough to even slow down. His only concern was not touching her.

  The more she thought about her situation, the closer she felt to sobbing or a panic attack. She was baffled and confused about where she was, if and when her eyesight would return, and how to get home. The more she dwelled on the situation, the more defeated she felt. She felt broken and overwhelmed, and silently wept. How was any of this possible?

  Soon he was yards ahead of her. She could tell from how blurry his body became that he was some distance. “For the love of Lu Lush, will you hurry up?”

  “I’m trying.” She wiped her eyes with her hands, determined he wouldn’t see her tears.

  “We’re going to have to climb up to that cave. It’s about a hundred yards. Nothing in comparison, really,” he said.

  “Nothing in comparison to what? The Grand Canyon?” Kylie scoffed. “You want me to free climb a rock wall, blind?”

  “Look, Princess, you can either climb the cliff or die. Your choice.”

  “They both mean death.”

  He huffed and waited for her to walk the few last steps to where he stood. She continually blotted tears from her cheeks, and once again begged for compassion. “I can’t see anything, but a blurry outline of you. I’m not exaggerating. I can barely see me. I’ll die if I climb. I’ve never rock climbed before in my life. The only thing I’ve climbed is a stair stepper and we both know that takes you nowhere.”

  He didn’t wait for her to finish talking. He spun around and scaled the steep rock face. He ascended with ease, making it look effortless and as if he’d done it innumerable times.

  Kylie almost smacked her head, but at the last second, her hand swung into the cliff and she froze. She stubbed a finger, which only angered her. “I’m going to die,” she mumbled, stood back from the rock face and debated if she would even attempt climbing.

  The thought of the mountain troll brought her to her senses. Maybe if she attempted to climb and showed him how incapable she was, he would assist her.

  Another possibility occurred to her. Maybe she was dreaming; she fell through the trapdoor and hit her head. The idea was convincing. The most plausible explanation was that she was unconscious and needed to awaken from the terrible nightmare. There was a strong possibility the reason she was thinking of trolls and such a strange world, was because the play was fresh in her mind when she fell. Surely, fairies and evil witches would appear at some point. Kylie tried to manifest a fairy. When not a single fluttering set of wings flapped, she pinched herself. Nothing happened. She slapped her cheeks. Still nothing changed.

  “Fine,” she huffed. “I’ll climb the stupid rock.” She grumbled as she felt for a sturdy grip. She groped, finding rocks for her hands and feet. “Now what?” She had no idea how to climb a cliff. Did she reach higher, or find a higher step on to hoist herself higher? She felt for both.

  Before she found an adequate protruding stone, there was a small landslide of pebbles. She covered her head as she was pelted. The man landed inches from her with a loud thud. “Well, you went far.” She was in no mood to be teased. “Good thing. You’re lucky this time. We’ll have to try another cave. There was a strange smell in there. I didn’t trust it.” He continued onward. She smelled the stench of sulfur again as he walked by, the same stink of troll. She expected another large hand snatch her, but nothing except black haze was around her. Then she remembered he carried a portion of his kill.

  She guessed the awful smell was a defense mechanism to ward off beasts, because nothing would want to eat something with such a horrific smell.

  “I, uh…I could hold that for you if you want,” Kylie said and hurried to catch up. He stopped as if her words were shocking.

  “You want to carry something for me?” he asked, confused. She nodded in response. “It’s too heavy. You couldn’t lift the dense meat.”

  He walked away, and then commanded her to follow him again. He checked cave after cave. There was always something wrong with the chamber. Either it had water on the bottom with stinging rockfish, poisonous ants, was too small, too large, or too low. Waiting was fine because she was able to rest as he swiftly ascended and descended.

  After what seemed like an hour, he finally found a cave he liked. “Come on up,” he called from inside the cave. He was high up; he looked like a fuzzy dot. Kylie estimated he wasn’t a yard shy of five hundred feet above her.

  Kylie wanted to shout, “Are you crazy?” but she thought it best to bite her tongue. After all, he was trying to help.

  Kylie felt around for rocks she could hold onto, but the texture of the earth changed. It was sharp and so thin the stone felt like she was squeezing knife blades. She gripped a handful of the least serrated rock and cringed as she tightened her grip. She whimpered while she found her footing. Then she stepped up, feeling the rock painfully gouging into the flesh of her feet and hands. She wondered if it broke skin, but she would have felt the blistering heat from her blood escaping her body.

  While clutching another rock, she heaved herself up a good foot and a half. At once the stone under her foot broke. She slid as sharp edges scraped her skin. Instantly, she was close to tears again. She tried a second time, and then another. She was taking forever, and getting nowhere, because the rocks kept breaking. With each pull-up she cursed from the pain. There was no way she could climb the wall.

  She felt a breeze and then heard a thud. A faint sulfur smell filled the air again. “You truly are the slowest woman I’ve ever seen.” There was a pleasant tone in his voice now. She could have sworn he was smiling, but his features were blurred. Why his sudden change, was a mystery. Maybe he decided she wasn’t trying to make him carry her. Then he could have realized how rude he was being. Or maybe it was the offer to carry the troll meat for him. She wasn’t about to tell him she wanted it for protection. “You should be sleeping. That is the only way you’ll get your eyesight back. You shouldn’t use your eyes anymore. Close them.” He easily flung her piggyback.

  His touch sent the strangest tingling through her body. She had a strong impulse to wrap herself around him with an odd need for closeness. She never wished to be near anyone, and it was very unlike her. She guessed it was the night’s events; he saved her and was now charming. Nevertheless, she refrained from doing anything more than encircle his neck and lock her arms tightly.

  She clumsily tried to wrap her legs around him. She didn’t realize how wide he really was. “Hold still,” he commanded, and then in one fluid motion he jumped, clutching the wall. “The trick is to brace yourself on the flat rocks between the brittle blades,” he explained, but Kylie wasn’t listening. She was
too distracted with how strong he was. He was so muscular she could feel his brute strength as he moved. All his muscles tightened and shifted. Again, she felt a strong urge to embrace him. She liked that she was hugging him. The feeling was borderline lustful. She never wanted to lay with a man, and always thought performing was her one true love. Yet, she imagined them on the ground, and giving herself to him.

  What was she thinking? She wasn’t about to have meaningless sex with a stranger, when she had never gone farther than kissing a few boys in high school. She shook her head, trying to rid the feeling.

  With startling strength, he bounded up the side of the cliff. She held on with all her might. She pinched her eyes closed as he leapt and quickly clutched rock after rock. Right when she felt she couldn’t hang on any more because of the jerking movements, he yanked her off his back and hurled her up over the cliff’s edge. She screamed, not expecting he’d throw her though the air hundreds of feet above the ground.

  She fell onto the ledge, and clutched the dirt floor, thankful to be alive. She panted and coughed, choking on dirt. All she could think about was how thankful she was for her life. “Thank you,” she panted.

  He hopped on the ledge, and then took three large steps into the cave. When she didn’t hurry to follow him, he came back, grasped her arm, and then lugged her into the cave. Again the strange urge returned, but only until he let go of her when she was apparently deep enough inside the cave. Then she heard him stack two large rocks at the front of the cave, shutting them in.

  She sat, listening to him move. She was amazed how familiar sounds were, even in such a strange world. He lit a fire by striking stones together. In no time, the entire cave was warm. She could vaguely see a glow. At least she thought she saw it, but then maybe her wishing she could see made her believe dancing orange flames flickered in the cave.

  Kylie could see the man more clearly. Curiously, he looked different. His hair was shorter, no longer touching his shoulders. He was young. His voice was so low she expected to see an older man, but he was only a year or two older. His well-defined muscles were tone, and bulged almost unnaturally, but she liked his strength.