Beyond My Stars

Run

  Day 3 of Maite season: Location Reye tribe, Kaliva.

            The three of us checked into the Inn, but before any of us could relax. A loud knocking on the door caught our attentions. Koryn went over and opened the door. On the other side was a stunning Kajian female, long cornrowed black hair, long legs, and a face to make anyone jealous. Her silver eyes were piercing as she ran them blatantly over Koryn.   

            “My name’s Molgana, my mother is the one who owns the Inn. She asked me to come by and make sure you didn’t need anything.” She said the last word as seductively as possible, making me snort as I tried to hold in my laughter.

            Her eyes darted over to me and a clear visible frown appeared on her blood red lips. Koryn let out a deep almost irritated sigh. “No, were good.”

            She nodded. “I didn’t know there was…more of you. Are you staying with us long?”

            “No, just for the night if we have too.” Koryn said, studying the Kaji as she studied me. “Do you know anything about the creature who have been eating the organs of your fellow tribesman?”

            Molgana shook her head. “Only that it strikes when the second moon starts to cross the sky. It seems to have a liking for the weak.”

            With that said she shot me a look, one that Kit didn’t appreciate. He came over to my side and kissed my cheek as his hand ran over the bare skin on my stomach. The place where his lips gently touched felt warm even after they were gone. “I guess we have nothing to worry about then.”

            I smiled licking my bottom lip, running my hand up his chest. “I would never worry when I’m with you two.”

            Molgana looked as if she was going to pop a lid. I guess she didn’t know what she was walking into. Maybe thought that she was going to convince Koryn to have a little fun with her, but she was barking up the wrong tree. Koryn looked more irritated by her presence than me or Kit. With a huff, Kit moved over to take the door from Koryn.

            “This was lovely, but we have work to do. I want to kill this creature with enough time to get back to wining my Maité over.” Koryn said as Kit went to shut the door.

            “Wait.” She hastily grabbed the door and gestured inside. “If you don’t mind me asking, who is your Maité? I only see them two there and this room only had one bed.”

            Koryn Rolled his eyes when she wasn’t looking moving away to come to my side. “You’re looking at her.”

            Molgana’s eyes narrowed. “But he just kissed her?”

            “Yeah, we do that a lot.” Koryn put a hand to his head, clearly fed up with the Kaji and her questions.

            “That’s, that’s wrong.” She stammered out. “This is not right. You cannot be serious about this taboo? Two males cannot share a single female Kaji. It’s never been heard of!”

            “I guess then it’s a good thing I’m not Kajian.” I said as I felt Koryn’s hand run up my spine.

            He leaned in, brushing his lips against my ear. “It’s going to be really hard to be good when you’re a foot away from a perfectly good bed…and dresser…and bath unit.”

            In our own little world I looked over I bit my lip. “Is that what your thinking about right now, Koryn?”

            “I’m imagining how good it’s going to look to see you bent over that dresser. Or how georgous your going to look soaked and pressed up against me in the bathing unit. If only this horny Kaji b***h would leave, me and Kit can get this creature killing business over with and we can begin making you the happiest female on Kaja.” Koryn’s husky voice was melting me like ice cream on a sweltering summer day.

            I felt a tightening in the pit of my stomach as his hand roamed back down to pull my hips back against his. “So, you were serious about wanting to propose then? I thought it was a joke.”

            Koryn mumbled something I couldn’t make out. “Nope, no joke. We are going to, but we want to make sure this is something you want and can handle before we do.”

            “You just don’t want me to say no when you do.” I said with a little giggle.

            “Exactly.” He said, placing a few more kisses to my exposed shoulder.

            Molgana shook her head. “This is wrong! What would the gods and goddesses above think of this union?”

            Kit shrugged, but it was a now very irritated Koryn who answered. “Who knows, they are the ones who made us this way. Now, are you going to leave or do you want to watch what we can do with this single female body?”

            At that he leaned down a little to slip under the hem of my skirt, trailing his hand up my leg and nearly to my center spot. With a disgusted look on her face, Molgana turned and disappeared.

            Kit laughed as he shut the door, and Koryn slipped away from with a teasing expression on his handsome face. One I wanted to slap off his face because of my frustration.

             “You two are going to give me a complex.” I groaned as I dropped back onto the bed.

            After that whole Molgana issue, the brothers took me to dinner. Which while an amazing, romantic gesture, was also terrifying. Everyone in the building stared, and not just casual glancing our way. They didn’t care if we knew they were watching us, and some didn’t even bother to keep their voices down as they expressed their discomfort. I thought one Kaji lady was about to keel over and die when she saw Kit kissing up my arm and Koryn in my ear. One big Kaji even decided to voice his discerning thoughts with us. Calling us an array of names, which the brothers were silent about, until he pointed his big fat finger in my direction. I thought Koryn was going to disassemble the guy into several pieces right then and there, but Kit was the one who shooed the man away with a flash of his military badge and a few stern, threatening words. After that no one seemed to bother us anymore, I guess when they found out that their Chief was the one who requested their assistance with the creature, everything was okay. I also had to eat something that resembled a cross between a bird and an eel. Easiest way to describe the freaky thing sitting on my plate was a grey eel with webbed wings coming out of its body, marinated in a red paste that smelled spicy. The brothers took a few minutes out to convince me that I wasn’t going to die if I ate this abomination on my plate, and after Koryn forcibly stuck a piece in my mouth I ate with them. I figured they wouldn’t let me die, hopefully.

            Then they were insistent on taking me back to the Inn while they hunt for the creature. Koryn stating that I didn’t know what I was doing and I would hurt myself, and Kit saying that they would be too worried about me to focus on what they were doing. Arguing with them was useless. It was always two against one, like this I was never going to win. Fed up fighting with them, I changed into a spare shirt of Koryn’s he left out and watched them leave.

            So, that brings us to now. Here I sit in the room, by myself, staring at the door like an i***t. I wanted to do more. I hate being useless, more than anything. Maybe I could learn how to be more. Oh, maybe Koryn or Kit would teach me how to defend myself or just how to shoot a Kajian gun. Then at least I wouldn’t be entirely defenseless.

            Sometime after that, I fell asleep.

            Bang!

            I shot up out of bed and look around the room. It was dark, but I was positive I was alone. Then another bang. I was sure it was coming from outside the room. Without really thinking about it, I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. The air was stale, and I felt like I was being suffocated. Something was wrong. I didn’t know what to do. Stay in the room where I’ll be cornered, or leave and try to find the brothers?

            Yep, choosing option B. I didn’t worry about going back into the room for more clothes or my shoes, I figured that’s when I would be attacked. I could hear someone downstairs yelling about something, and I followed that sound. There were two ways out of the second floor one at each end of the hallway. I was nearly to one end when I heard a horrible noise behind me. Swallowing hard, I turned to see a monster. For a moment, I thought I was face-to-face with an actual gargoyle from the corners of buildings in New York. It was a stone-grey color with pitch black eyes, and a jaw that cracked open as it took a deep breath. In its claws were intestines that it was dragging across the hallway wall. The beat’s tongue flicked around as if it was a snake and tasting the air, and I was sure that it was here for me. Its clawed toes dug into the wood beneath it, creaking under the monster’s weight.

            I was frozen. I couldn’t move as I watched it put the intestines to its mouth and suck on them as if it was a spaghetti noodle. Fear was coursing through my veins, making it hard for me to keep control of my breathing. I was afraid if I moved too quickly it would lung for me, but I’m sure it was going to happen anyways. The monster tilted its head, snapping its jaws a few times and with a low growl emitting from its chest, I turned and ran.

            My feet slammed down onto the hardwood as I twisted around the corner, flying down the stairs. I could hear the creature behind me, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it. At the third to last step, I lost my balance. My whole body went forward and I crumbled against the wall facing the stairs. Yet, falling was to my advantage. The monster reached for me, thinking it was only a second away from getting a hold of me, and not paying attention slammed into the same wall above my head. I scurried off and hit the front door as the monster recovered. Since its considered ‘nighttime’ on Kaja, it was darker than usual. I looked around to see several bodies littering the streets. Trying to keep calm I went to run towards the chiefs house, but my feet hit something heavy and down I went again. This time, I landed on something squishy.

            “Oh god…please don’t be a body.” I whined.

            Sure enough, it was a body and body I had seen before. Lying dead and torn apart under me was the body of Molgana, and to my disgust I was laying in her chest cavity. I rolled off her to be staring directly into the face of the creature. Maybe six inches separated us, and I felt the warmth leave my body. Being next to the monster was chilling, and at that moment I thought ‘this was it. This is how I go. Cold, half naked, covered in some Kaji chicks blood’. But it didn’t attack. It almost looked like it was…studying me. I lifted my hand to push the hair out of my face, and it watched every movement.

            Then suddenly, a male Kajian came out of a building, saw me and the creature in the street and took off running. Within a split second the gargoyle was after him.

            “No! Run! Run!” I screamed, but it was too late.

            The creature jumped, landing on top of the Kajian, crushing him under its weight. As the man screamed out in pain, the monster reached down to rip his arm off at his shoulder. I felt sick to my stomach as I watched the monster lift the Kajian as he was bleeding to death, and with its other hand shoved it inside the man’s stomach to begin to pull out organs.   

            I took the opportunity to slowly begin to crawl away. Hoping that it was too busy with eating to notice me leaving. If you run, it chases, but when I was sitting here it just stared at me. So, I was staying low to the ground and crawling as fast as I could without drawing attention. The skin on my hands and knees were scraping against the street, and I had to bite down on my lip to keep from crying out from the pain.

            Nearly all the way down the street, I was making good progress, or so I thought. I heard steps behind me and stopped. I slowly glanced over my shoulder to see the creature following me, bobbing its head back and forth as it watched me attentively. Kajian copper colored blood covered the monster, dripping from its mouth and claws. Then it gained confidence. With a swipe, it knocked me over and onto my back. From what it seemed, it was playing with me. The damn thing was playing with its food.

            I sucked in a breath as it leaned in, sticking it’s tongue out to touch the side of my face.

            “Hey, big ugly bastard! That’s my girl!”

            The creature’s head cranked into the direction of the booming husky voice I know as Koryn. It shrieked as it stood up tall moving to place itself in between me and Koryn. From what I could see, Koryn was thrashed looking. His shirt was torn up, blood was all over the front of him and his pants, his hair was disheveled, and a long scratch mark was down the side of his face.

            “Look over here!” Kit yelled, nearly in the opposite direction.

            As soon as the gargoyle looked over to Kit, Koryn lifted his rifle style gun and shot twice. Both shots went through the monsters head, and as the body slumped to the street it landed on my legs.

            “Milady!” Koryn yelled, running to my side.

            Kit beat him to me, and moved quickly to free my legs from the monster. He rolled the creature off me and Koryn was swift to scoop me up bridal style.

            “Are you okay? What are you doing out here with that thing?” Kit asked as he and Koryn inspected me.

            I let out a deep breath. “It came for me at the Inn. I wasn’t going to just stay there. I came out here to have a better advantage of fighting it.”

            Koryn let out a slight laugh. “By the moons, you are perfect.”

            I rolled my eyes. “It was about to eat me.”

            “But it didn’t, luvana.” Kit said quietly. “It always attacked, mauled anything that moved, but you were face-to-face with it. You lived. Koryn’s right, you are absolutely amazing. I didn’t think you had survival skills.”

            “Was that a complement? It felt oddly like a hit against me.” I said before leaning my head against Koryn’s solid chest.

            “Complement, luvana. Rest now. We’ll watch over you while you sleep. We leave in the morning.” Koryn gently said.

            I could hear his chest rumble, but I was too tired from the stress to hear what he said. I could hear Kit and Koryn say something in unison, but I couldn’t make it out. After letting out another deep breath, I let myself go