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CHAPTER 2

The world was very different when Mia awoke. She lay on a soft roll of some sort and a blanket draped across her running clothes. Relief swirled through her. She didn't know where she was, but she was still dressed. She turned her head and looked around. The building around her was constructed of twigs, the walls and roof little more than bundled sticks held together with twine. Flashes of green and brown were visible through the slats and Mia wondered if she was somewhere in the valley. The only problem with that deduction was the heat. A pressing, almost suffocating heat that built little beads of sweat on her skin without any effort.

The sound of voices brought her farther into reality and she pushed herself up to a sitting position. She was alone in the little hut, but there were other beds, four of them to be exact, and at least one of those voices sounded feminine. Mia took a moment to check her pockets, but her phone was long gone. Crap.

What the hell should she do now? The sinking realization she had been kidnapped refused to settle completely into her thoughts, almost like watching a movie from the outside. She felt numb, because this couldn't, couldn't have happened to her.

She sat for a long time. Nothing changed. She wasn't magically transported back to the river trail and the heat still blasted at her. Bugs, lots and lots of bugs, hummed outside of the twig walls. Some had made it inside, as well, and they floated around the area.

Finally, she couldn't take it any longer. She rose to standing and made her way to the door. For some odd reason, it was more solid than the walls, and leaned precariously to one side. The duality confused her. She still didn't feel like she was thinking quite clearly.

Grunting with the effort, she pulled the door aside and stepped out.

For a moment, she forgot to breathe. This definitely was not the river valley and it definitely shouldn't be possible. She blinked several times, but it didn't help anything. Trees surrounded her, as she had thought in the hut, but they were not the trees of the river valley where she had been running, nor were they any sort of tree she had ever come into contact with. She was reasonably certain that all of Earth combined did not have trees with deep purple bark and trunks that were as big as houses. Beneath the living giants, the flora was a little more recognizable but no less alarming. Shrubs with black and fuchsia fruits littered the undergrowth and long vines joined the trees together like wild power lines.

“You have awakened. Good. Come and eat, you will need fuel for the long journey.”

Mia turned, startled. An entire group of people had escaped her notice, which didn't bode well for her sanity. Neither did the fact that he spoke in a dialect that she had never heard, and yet she understood him clearly. She blinked at the speaker. A man...sort of. Broad and muscled, he wore a dark vest and pants that seemed to be made out of the same material. It looked pliant enough, just the way that it caught the light was...wrong. That was weird, but clothing and fashion threw her off easily. Not that this looked like any kind of fashion, it was more like a uniform. Something utility. What really made her stop, made her brain falter, was the patterns along his skin, mottled spots that could only be described as wild. Like something you would see on a wild creature. Did he lose some bet with tattoos? But no, as her gaze traveled upward and landed, at last, on his face, she realized that something was truly very wrong. He was blond, with his hair cropped close to his head, his features striking and masculine, especially the slightly flattened nose, and the elongated, almost cat-like eyes. And the fangs.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, backing away, but finding her movement impeded by the brush beneath her feet. Vivid green eyes peered at her, assessing, studying, complete with slitted pupils. His pointed and lightly furred ears swiveled toward her, at attention.

She had eaten something bad. Someone had spiked her food and she was hallucinating.

Except, she hadn't eaten anything in nearly twenty-four hours. Still, she had to be tripping on something. She was standing in a strange, jungle forest staring at a cat-man. Like someone took a wild cat and an attractive body builder and smashed them together and this was what came out. Somehow, he held a wild sort of appeal and she applauded her imagination for coming up with a fantasy that would definitely not lead to slipping back into memories of Brian. An odd fantasy to be sure, but since she'd had had nothing but angry hurt dreams over the last month, she would take it. She was about to move forward, toward him, maybe run a hand along the bulging peck that peeked out of that odd looking vest, but a niggle of memory made her stop. It was his voice, and the odd accent with which he spoke, it was oddly familiar, and it took her a moment to realize why.

“You did something to me. I was running and you pointed some kind of weapon at me and now...” Mia looked around noting more women nearby.

“Yes, you are one who has been selected. It is essential you eat now. We must move forward shortly, the forest is not safe at night.”

She glanced at the other women. They were young, maybe even younger than herself. Two with dark hair and olive skin huddled next to one another, their eyes glassy and wide. They looked to be sisters, perhaps. There was a blond sitting straight backed, her hands trembling as she lifted something to her lips and took a bite. The last was a pale little thing, huddled on the ground with her arms wrapped around her knees and her chestnut bob hanging in her face. A plate of food lay before her on the ground, untouched.

“Selected for what? I don't even know where I am. I'm either super high or this is some kind of elaborate prank...”

The blond man tilted his head and Mia noticed the others for the first time. Men, six of them, all with similar cat-like features, if different markings. There were two with varying degrees of stripes, and at least one with the rosette-like spots of a leopard. They all looked as if they bench pressed small cars for a living, and they all wore the exact same vest and pant combination. Maybe it was a uniform.

One of them, a leaner, darker version of the blond, but with smaller spots and two long sweeps of black beneath his eyes like tear trails, stepped toward her, plate in hand. She noticed as he neared that it wasn't exactly a plate, but a slab of wood, smoothed and polished. It held what looked like a rough form of bread and some kind of fruit cut into pieces. The man stopped a safe distance from her and held out the plate like some form of offering.

Mia glanced at it and then returned her gaze to the blond. This wasn't a fun fantasy any longer.

“Take me home.”

He shook his head slightly, his face expressionless. “This is your home now. Our world, Callaphria. You would do well to forget your past.”

Something about the finality of his words stripped her numbness, the feeling that this was all an illusion, away. This was too real, too detailed to be a dream. The surreal feeling was soon replaced by panic.

“You will take me home! You cannot just kidnap me and expect that I'm going to go with you wherever you want!” By the end of the declaration, her voice had taken on a near shrieking pitch, but she didn't care.

“Hush, woman,” the man with the tear tracks and the plate growled. “There are dangers in the forest. It is best if they don't hear us.”

Mia opened her mouth to scream. The blond cat-man was at her side in an instant. How was it even possible for him to have moved that fast? With quick efficient movements he clamped a hand against her mouth and pulled her back against his very solid chest. He placed a finger at her temple, the same place he had touched her before she had passed out in the river valley.

Suddenly, she had used up all of her courage. His hold felt very real, and the slight twinge of pain where he banded her against him sent fear trembling through her.

“You feel this?” he asked, his smooth voice tight. His finger rubbed at something, a lump just beneath her hairline. “This is a neurotransmitter. For now, it is implanted just below your skin. It allows you to understand what we are telling you, which is an essential part of keeping you safe. It also allows me to subvert your consciousness if you become too much of a burden on our abilities to do so. If you scream or even raise your voice in your panic, you will bring all manner of trouble upon us, and it may be that my men and I will be unable to protect you. Now, you have a very simple choice. You can obey my commands and prepare to make the day's journey on your own two feet, or I can knock you out and one of us will carry you back to Virkaith. Either way, it is time for us to set out. I need your answer.”

Slowly he removed his hand giving Mia leave to speak. Terror coursed through her, but she had little choice. She had no intention of obeying his commands but being knocked out again was not an option.

After a moment, he removed his hand altogether and stepped away. Relief joined the cooler air caressing her skin where his presence had been.

“Good,” he nodded and strode back to the spot he had been standing.

Like some kind of very odd dream, she watched as the vest across his chest shifted, moving and flowing like black oil across his skin until it resembled a set of armor that might have had a starring role in some sci-fi movie. A wicked looking blade melted out of the right forearm and slid into his palm.

This was so not good.

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