Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

Thalia

Am I dreaming?

Stroke?

Psychotic break?

Blazing red eyes radiate pure evil, clearly not a man or animal even recognized by man. I take it all in quickly—tall, standing on two legs with arms hanging almost to its knees, reed thin except for a potbelly, blotchy gray skin, and completely hairless. It has a squashed-in face, and when it peels its lips back to reveal yellowed, pointed teeth, I know I can’t afford to consider this a psychotic break.

I have to believe this is very real.

I’m right-handed and that is where my shovel is gripped. I’m not able to muster up a big swing, but I bring it across my body as hard as I can, catching the thing in the side of the head.

If it were a man, it would have dropped him to the ground. But my blow did nothing except cause the creature to snarl.

With lightning-fast reflexes, one long arm shoots out and wrenches the shovel away from me before tossing it aside where it bangs into the side of the barn. I take a few steps back, horrified as it stalks toward me slowly, matching me step for step. Its head pushes forward, tilting back and forth as it creepily appraises me.

As if I’m its next meal.

Without hesitation, I take a large step backward, raise my weapon, and shoot. There’s no aim required as it’s a shotgun and my target is only a few feet away. The blast catches the thing in its upper right arm, causing it to stumble backward. I almost gag when I see the arm is torn—muscle gaping to expose bone—and the monster looks down at the wound almost curiously.

It attempts to move its limb, but when it dangles uselessly, the beast becomes infuriated. Head swiveling my way, it opens its mouth, tips its head back, and lets out an indignant, earsplitting screech.

I don’t stick around, pivoting hard and running to the door at the rear of the barn. As I round the corner, I slam into something hard and let out an involuntary scream of terror, assuming it’s another hell-beast.

A hand comes down over my mouth, my shotgun is torn from my grasp and tossed to the ground, and then I’m being dragged through the open barn door. My adrenaline surges, and I punch, kick, and claw at my captor.

The arm squeezes around me tighter, and then I feel lips near my ear. A deep, rumbling voice says, “Hush and be still. I’m here to help you.”

Understanding that this is a human speaking and not a slimy creature from my worst nightmares, I sag with relief.

“You good?” he asks.

Fuck no, I’m not good.But I nod, anyway.

Slowly, his hand slides from my mouth and reaches to shut the door, latching it from the inside.

Releasing me from his embrace, the man takes my arm and pulls me along the aisle. I get a glimpse—a mere first impression—and note he is tall, easily over six-five, with dark blond hair shaved down to his scalp. His shoulders are broad, muscles bulging under a brown shirt that hugs his frame. When he glances over his shoulder at me, his eye color is indistinguishable in the shadows, but I can tell they are incredibly light.

Not once do I consider this person to be a danger. I follow him, intrinsically knowing that at this moment, he’s a safer bet than whatever that was outside the barn.

The stranger stops at the ladder that leads up to a loft. I don’t keep hay up there—it’s stored in a separate barn—but rather boxes of junk. “Get up,” he says quietly, nodding up to the platform bolted into the barn wall and supported with beams along the edge. “Hide near the back, and don’t come down until it’s safe.”

“My gun,” I whisper, glancing at it lying on the ground near the door. “I need it to protect myself.”

“Your gun is useless against an erchras. I’m your only hope.”

I have questions.

What the hell is an erchras?

Is it a new species in Wyoming?

And how did this man just mysteriously appear?

However, the erchras has reached the barn door and is rattling the latch. I scramble forward, right into the man for protection. His hands come to my shoulders, and he turns me toward the ladder. “Get up there now. And stay absolutely silent.”

The barn door rattles violently, the damn thing on the other side clearly not understanding how a latch works. The door isn’t locked—all the erchras has to do is turn the handle clockwise and it can easily walk inside.

I don’t wait around, instead flying up the ladder and moving to the back of the platform where I sprawl on my stomach. The flooring is no more than about twelve feet wide, so I flatten myself as much as possible and hope I can’t be seen. The boards are old and shrunken, and I can peek between them to the barn aisle below.

The man has disappeared, and for a brief but crazy second, I wonder if he was real.

The barn door judders again, and then it goes silent.

Did the thing give up?

A huge explosion of wood and the sound of shrieking metal has me clasping my hand over my mouth to stifle my scream. I can see through the crack in the planks that the entire door is gone, and the erchras is entering. Its arm still dangles useless, dripping blood so dark, I think it’s actually black, which means it was strong enough to pull that barn door free with just one hand.

My entire body trembles with fear as I start to understand that the man below won’t be a match for this creature. What it doesn’t have in brains, it certainly makes up for in brute strength.

I need to calm down, but my blood pressure steadily rises. Deep breathing will make too much noise. Hell, I may just die of a heart attack rather than being pulled limb from limb by that thing. My body is once again so racked by terror, I shake uncontrollably.

Through the wooden slats, I watch the erchras move down the aisle toward the ladder. As it nears the first stall, the horse inside starts blowing and snorting. Hooves kick at the stall walls, riling up the other horses.

The erchras ignores their cacophony, instead tilting its head left and right as if it’s plagued by curiosity. The beast’s shredded, dangling arm and slouched posture with protruding potbelly make it no less intimidating.

It reaches the ladder, and I fervently pray for it to keep moving, but it stops. Dealer’s stall is opposite, and the big stallion is going crazy inside. As if noticing the horses for the first time, the erchras’s head swivels almost ninety degrees to look at the stall, saliva dripping from its mouth. It seems mystified by the noises, but when it licks its lips and moves toward Dealer’s stall, I’m horrified that it’s no longer looking for me.

Where in the hell is that man? Shouldn’t he be doing something, or did he abandon me?

Dealer screams in fright as the erchras nears his stall, and I can’t stand it. Twisting my head, I spot an old baseball bat a few feet away. I inch over, grab it, and sling it as hard as I can over the platform edge. It bounces on the concrete floor ten feet to the left of the creature.

As expected, the bat gets the erchras’s attention. But rather than move to the bat or even turn back for Dealer, its head lifts and it appraises the platform. It shuffles toward the ladder, that creepy head tilting side to side.

I shrink back into the shadows, my heart hammering so hard, I’m afraid the monster can hear me. The erchras stops at the ladder, tips its head back, and sniffs deeply.

Goddamn that sweet-smelling body lotion I put on after my shower. I might as well have a neon arrow flashing above me.

The creature’s lips pull back, exposing those sharp teeth, and it lets out what I can only describe as a howl of victory. At this very moment, I know I’m dead.

It moves to the ladder, uses its good hand to reach out to a rung, and lifts a leg to begin its upward climb. I glance around, looking for a weapon, but that freaking bat was the only thing of use.

I look back at the erchras to see it has climbed halfway up. I start praying.

Before it can take another step, though, something hurtles from the left, ripping the creature from the ladder, followed by a loud crash to the ground. I don’t think as I belly crawl to the edge to peer over.

It’s the man, and he and the monster are both on their feet, tearing at each other with fists and kicks. The erchras is strong, backhanding the man, launching him fifteen feet down the aisle. He rolls to his feet quickly, pulling a sword I hadn’t seen from a sheath at his hip, and runs toward the thing.

Teeth bared, the man swirls the long blade around his head once in mid sprint, moving so fast that the erchras can’t react. The sword hits it at the bottom of its neck and cleaves its head right from its shoulders.

The head thumps against the wall as the body pitches forward toward the man. He launches a power kick to its chest and it flies backward, crashing into one of the support beams holding up the platform.

There’s a split second when all is quiet. Then I hear the beam crack before snapping loudly. One end of the platform tilts downward, and I hear bolts ripping out of the walls. With one lurch, the entire floor angles steeply, and I slide toward the edge. Scrabbling to grab on to something to stop my fall, I come up with nothing but a handful of dust as I’m propelled over, a few of my hoarded treasures sliding after me.

The fall is not overly long, but it seems to take forever before I’ll inevitably crash into the concrete floor and break every bone in my body.

Except… I don’t hit the aisle but rather land in the muscled arms of the man. I have no clue how he moved so fast, but he has me cradled, staring at me. Those eyes are now distinct, an incredibly light shade of blue.

And then, he’s dropping me.

Not to fall on my ass. He makes sure I’m on my feet before he turns his back and walks to the erchras.

I think the danger is averted, but I don’t know for sure, and my mom raised no fool. I run for the barn door, which catches the man’s attention.

“Don’t,” he barks. “There are more.”

But he misunderstands. I’m not running to flee him but rather to get my shotgun.

I skid to a stop, bend, and grab it. With the barrel pointed straight at him, my finger hovers above the trigger. He might have saved me from whatever the hell that thing was, but he is still a stranger.

A very strong, deadly stranger, and I don’t trust him at all.

“No offense,” I say as I keep the barrel pointed in his direction, “but I don’t know you.”

“Of course you do,” another man’s voice says from behind me, deep and rumbling but with a tone of amusement.

Before I can fathom another person being in the barn or fully pivot to face what could be new danger, the gun is jerked out of my hands, and I snarl in frustration.

Whirling, I find a man just as tall as the other, this one with crystal-blue eyes and wavy brown hair that looks perfectly messy.

He has an easy smile that oddly puts me a little at ease before moving his gaze to the other man standing near the dead creature on my barn floor. “There were two more outside, but I took care of them.”

The other, much more dour man, by all accounts, nods curtly.

I don’t like being ignored or having my gun taken away, so I whip my leg back and launch it forward, kicking the man in the shin. Not sure it hurt him much, but it startles him enough that I’m able to grab my gun. I back up several feet, now standing between the two men but keeping the barrel pointed on the second since he was the one who disarmed me.

“Now, who the hell are you two, and what the hell is going on?” I demand, looking back and forth between them.

“I’m Kieran Dunne,” the brown-haired man says, again with that warm smile as he leans against the doorjamb where the barn door stood just moments ago. He crosses his arms casually over his chest and nods toward the other man. “That’s my brother, Bastien.”

I glance back at that guy, and he doesn’t smile. Expression hard, he stares at me.

“One of you better explain things,” I snap, now swinging the gun toward the man named Bastien since he appears to be more of a threat, despite his brother taking my gun away before. “One minute my horses are going crazy, and the next minute, monsters are trying to kill me. I better get some answers, or I’m apt to start shooting.”

The blond man looks irritated. “If you’ll just relax—”

“Relax?” I screech in indignation. “You have to be fucking kidding!”

Kieran laughs. “She’s got a mouth on her now, huh, Bastien?”

I glare at the handsome man. “You act like you know me. You said I knew you when you took my gun.” My attention goes to Bastien who stares at me dispassionately, so I swing my regard back to Kieran. “You said I have a mouth on me now, implying I didn’t before or that you knew me before. I can assure you, as a rancher’s daughter, I’ve been dropping F-bombs since I was thirteen.”

“We need to explain things,” Bastien says flatly. “Perhaps we can go into your house and sit.”

“I’m not inviting you into my home,” I seethe with mounting anger and fear. “You’re both strangers to me, and I’m starting to freak out.”

“I can explain everything,” Bastien says with a huff of annoyance. “If you just—”

“Allow me,” Kieran says, straightening up to face me. “You are the princess and sole heir to the throne of Kestevayne in the dimension of Vyronas. It’s this whole other world, which you are originally from. Through the power of magic, you’ve been living here, in Earth’s First Dimension, for the past seven years, with no memory of your prior existence. The erchras are hunting you… to kill or capture, we don’t know. But more will come.” He points at himself, then Bastien. “We are here to ensure your safety and return you home.”

My jaw drops, and I’m actually sorry I asked for an explanation. Of all the stories possible, I couldn’t have made this up. “You’re nuts,” I stammer.

But, how do I explain the erchras? That’s a creature not of this world, I’m sure of it. Up until now, I guess I’d been thinking perhaps it was an alien, but the mention of magic has me second-guessing that.

Kieran said more would be coming. I don’t buy any of his bullshit that I’m a princess with no memories, but I am terrified that there could be more of these creatures. I can’t defend myself against them.

With a heavy sigh, I realize there are no good options. If they’re going to hurt or kill me, they could do it here just as easily as in my house. They had my gun, and still saved me from certain death.

Even though I think I may be tumbling into madness, I hear myself say, “Come on inside. I could use a drink, and you can tell me your story.”