THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)
Rayen?
If I could believe a crazy hallucination. Fear snaked through me with icy fingers, paralyzing me. I don’t know my name...or what I’m doing here...or where here is, other than recognizing those mountains .
The ground shook harder, dust and pebbles scattering everywhere. I widened my stance to keep my balance.
That’s when I caught the distinct sound of hooves pounding.
Hard. Behind me...and gaining speed.
I looked over my shoulder. A beast. My muscles clenched at the sheer size of the thing. A hairy, rhino-hide gray creature blotting out the desert landscape behind it. Barreling forward, rocking back and forth on three legs, wide head low to the ground. Scary fast, churning geysers of sand and dirt, eating up distance quicker than anything its size should.
Air backed up in my lungs. “What the – ”
“Third thing, Rayen,” the elder shouted, his voice nearly drowned by the rumble. “ Run! ”
CHAPTER 2
Ghost Man vanished as I took off running.
Something clicked in my head, some instinct. I ran, arms pumping, and rocketed away from the beast. A quick leap over thorny bushes. My heels slammed hard rock, feet racing as if hell itself chased me.
Quick check over my shoulder.
The beast was gaining, yellow eyes burning for blood.
What was that thing? Shouldn’t I know?
Didn’t matter. Right now I had no place to hide and no idea how to escape. No trees large enough to dash behind. Nothing.
Except the mountains. They were my safe haven. I knew that, somehow. But how do I know? Was there a place to hide in those rocks up ahead? Maybe that beast couldn’t follow me up a sharp incline.
Keep moving .
Ragged breaths chugged past my dry lips. Hot air scoarched my chest. I gagged on the creature’s nauseating smell. I could hear it gaining on me. Shaking the earth beneath my panicked feet.
I’m running too hard. Won’t last at this pace. My lungs were going to burst. Have to find cover.
Where?
Stinging sweat poured into my eyes when I lifted my gaze, searching boulders that had tumbled into a monolithic pile along the nearest ridge, as if stacked by a giant’s hand.
Tell me that beast can’t climb .
If I could just get far enough ahead. Reach the peak on the other side of those boulders.
I veered slightly left, pistoning my arms and breathing as hard as a small prey run to ground.
Fifty feet. Run faster .
Thirty feet. Not going to make it.
Ten feet. Come on. Almost there. Almost.
A roar screamed through the air.
I leaped from ground to rock. Slammed a knee. Slapped raw palms against jagged surfaces baked by the sun. Heat seared my skin . Ignore the pain.
Climb, climb, climb !
Scrambling like a lizard, I reached for crevices, grinding my knees and thighs.
Another scream, higher pitched this time but farther away. The thing pawed the ground. Dust erupted, choking the air.
I stretched for the next handhold and risked a quick glance back. What did that thing want?
At the base of the rocks, it started morphing from a huge, low-to-the-ground Rhino beast to a tall, thin whippet shape with a short, sleek coat of sand-colored hair.
And talons.
No way. No way in blue blazes. I’m so dead .
I bit my lip, tasting blood. Can’t quit now . I sucked in a blast of baked air and clawed my way up the next rock. Sunlight poked through crevices. Maybe on the other side there’d be someplace to hide. Or people.
Like me ? Where were my people? Friends? Family?
Did I have any?
Worry later. Right now, I’d take help from anyone I could find.
The sun roasted my exposed skin and beat down on my back. Muscles burned the harder I climbed. Blood pounded in my ears. I jammed the toes of my boots into whatever crack I could find and shoved my body higher, faster. My fingers clutched sandstone and slipped. I dug in deeper and scrambled hand-over-hand.
Hot breath licked the air around my legs.
The beast was almost on me.
A space between rocks gaped to my left. Crunching my shoulders as thin as possible, I plunged into the narrow V opening, raking my back raw.
A shaft of blue sky yawned on the other side.
Deadly panting echoed right behind me. Closing in.
Fighting panic, I scrambled forward and lunged for the far side...and too late saw nothing below.
Just air.
My feet flipped over my head. I tumbled. An ocean of sky and rusty-brown rocks blurred through my vision.
I hit hard, face planted on dirt.
Knocked the breath out of me. My head spun and every bone reverberated. I
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