Page 4 of Orion: Galaxy Huntress

Chapter 3

Orion

Where in Hadeshad Zeus sent me? The people lived in large boxes for buildings, with strange architecture. Ropes dangled from tall poles and connected to the dwellings. Electricity charged and throbbed in them, sparking as I wandered past. Metallic poles had signs with the strange new language written on them. Greek alphabet letters twisted into the characters that took a few moments to settle into my mind. Angled parking forty-five degrees. What in Hades did that mean?

Confused, I kept walking. Fences made of colored wood decorated the gardens. A woman walked a dog on a rope. Boxes rolled on wheels, making loud, rumbling noises. Children played behind fences in courtyards with bright outdoor furniture. And here I’d thought the furry bear was strange. Nothing like my home.

Two men emerged from a double-storied building with Oxford Tavern sprawled across the painted surface, dragging a woman by her arms.

“Let me go!” she shouted, writhing in their grasp.

They hissed at her and flashed prominent fangs. My huntress instincts kicked in, telling me they were monsters and that I must aid her. Blood rushed in my veins as my pulse sped up. Strength pumped to my muscles, long unused and stiff, pushing me across the street.

I must have made it partway across the hardened ground when a monster blared from behind me. Startled by its arrival, I hunched low, bracing for an attack. Unexpected or expected attacks were why I needed my weapons. The beast screeched and I think its tail scraped along the ground. I spun to face my enemy when something caught me and carried me away from the monster. Warm arms sparking with the same power running through the charged ropes. Human, I hoped. Or several beasts were about to die. Angered, the monster blared again, rumbling as it rolled away. Except it wasn’t a monster, it was one of the wheeled boxes.

“What are you?” I growled at the strange tool.

The arms trapping me loosened their grip as the person holding me set me on my feet. “It’s called a car.” A gruff, chesty rumble vibrated through me from ears to toe, leaving me giddy. “And you ought to be more careful.”

The man still held me crushed to his body. I felt something in my chest flicker, and it filled with a warm glow, like kindle catching fire and growing in power and size.

When he released me, I turned and glanced up into ashen eyes, stormy as a thundery day, liquid like molten silver. Beautiful, turbulent, solemn. Neck-length dark brown hair that reminded me of rain-soaked soil. Stubble of equal color scrubbing his solid jaw. Tight pants and shirt that hugged him like a caress. Revealing in a different way from the leather armor I was used to admiring on males. I felt his gaze, his longing, his hunger from head to toe, and I rocked on the spot. No one had ever looked at me like that. Like I was his entire world. The sun rising in the east and setting in the west. Rain nourishing the soil and giving rise to life. Sunlight feeding the plants reaching for it. Between my legs pulsed with an incurable ache.

No, Orion. Remember what men did to you.Left me without a shred of trust or humanity. I hadn’t been able to touch or look upon another man in that way without tasting the ash of betrayal.

Whatever trance I’d fallen under broke with a hard crack. I snapped out of the hold he had on me. Broke free of his touch as if he were made of fire.

My mouth opened to thank my rescuer and excuse myself when another scream and jostle called me away. The woman being dragged by the men needed my attention. I could take care of myself. Didn’t need a man to rescue me. The same couldn’t be said for the screaming woman.

“Excuse me.” I pushed past the man to the other side of the hard surface.

“Hey!” the gruff, handsome man called out to me.

Orion waited for no man. Fate called, and I’d never leave a woman in trouble. She also wouldn’t be lulled under the alluring gaze of a handsome stranger. Men were more trouble than they were worth. Liars. Frauds. Covetous.

“You didn’t deliver on our agreement.” The taller monster had the woman against a wall by her throat with lanky fingers tipped with long, sharp nails. “Stay still, bitch, before I kill you!”

My huntress eyes absorbed every little detail about this new beast I’d not encountered before. Pale, thin skin, stretched over his body, reminding me of someone badly dehydrated or an elderly person, with prominent blue veins pulsing beneath his skin. No heart beating inside his chest and no blood pumping throughout his body. Sharp fangs that were definitely inhuman. Death radiated from this walking corpse. Horrified, my blood came to a freezing stop.

“I gave you the spell.” Fear radiated in her eyes as his grasp tightened. Her body fought with helpless vigor under his greater force and will. “You two twatwaffles fucked it up.”

I didn’t understand several of those words, but gathered something went wrong and the men were there to collect. They wouldn’t leave until they got what they came for. If it was her life, I’d stop that.

“Who you calling a twatwaffle, bitch?” The other monster backhanded her in the face and the woman whimpered. Violence against women was never the answer, and I’d not tolerate it. This fool would be taught a lesson in respecting women.

By then, I’d reached the pavement with incredible speed, boosted by my starlight. I grabbed the second creature by the back of the neck, using momentum to shove him forward. My speed and thrust didn’t force him back as easily it would a normal human, indicating he definitely belonged to the monster class. His head hit the wall with a mighty crack. Black, sticky blood oozed from his wound and he groaned. If he had a beating heart, it would have spurted, but it was as if all the fluid in his body had congealed and died. Clutching his forehead, he stumbled then set his murderous, dark eyes on me. I’d faced plenty of fools like him in my day. Taught every single one a lesson and this would be no different.

Power charged through me. Ancient. Cosmic. Radiant. It swept from my chest across my entire body, leaving me glowing. Starlight. Zeus hadn’t stripped it from me. It had just been a natural, cyclic part of me in my galactic journey and I’d not needed to use it. But now it demanded to be unleashed on the monster to bring him to his knees before this brilliant, radiating star.

Power called something hard and smooth to shape in my palm. Fashioned and sleek, resin-covered wood kissing metal. My dagger. Thank the gods!

I charged forward, grabbing the fool by his offensive shirt, showing some crude gesture and a woman. My blade met his throat, nicking it, letting more dark blood tease down his sickly pale skin. “Let the lady go or I’ll not be kind to your friend.”

I didn’t look at the other beast holding the woman. His friend’s grunts and groans prompted him to release his foul hold and withdraw. I smashed his friend’s head into the wall once more. The body slumped at my feet, and I kicked him. Filthy, rotten scum. Just like a man to hurt a woman. Or a beast. Whatever this dead thing was.

“Everything okay here?” That voice belonged to the stormy-eyed man. It traveled to places in my body left untouched for thousands of years.

I didn’t need his help. Men sidled up to me for their gain. Men stole from me. Men were more trouble than they were worth. Best to encourage him to leave.

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