Rise Of The Beast Queen: Elizabeth

Ch 30 Escape

"Please female, come on. I'm going to get you out of here, but we have to go now." Liz ceased her struggling when she heard the deep yet gently coaxing and a little panicky voice reassure her. Kephyr wrapped the barely coherent Liz in a fur and carried her into the tunnel. Her body protested painfully with each jaring movement as he ran through the darkness, making her whimper pitifully. "Just hold on, little female. I'll get you out of here."

It wasn't long before Zephyr's enraged roar was heard echoing through the tunnels and Kephyr knew it wouldn't be long before his brother and potentially his mother's mates caught up to them. He raced through the narrow tunnels as quickly as he could but he couldn't find a way out and unfortunately he couldn't move as fast or as freely as he'd have liked since the space was so confined and he was trying to be careful with the injured female in his arms. Eventually the inevitable happened, they were caught up to by the one who knows these tunnels the best, the one who dug them in the first place, Kinkade.

"Return the female, cub. And I'm sure Tabby will arrange for you to become her mate as well." Kinkade tried to reason with him.

"No! It's wrong to force a female. It's her choice who she accepts, not mother's." Kephyr roared angrily and shifted Liz behind himself, making her stand on her own shaky legs but he still supported her with one arm and Liz clung to his back.

Unfortunately Liz didn't get very long to stabilize herself because Kinkade attacked, knocking Kephyr backwards into her, which made her stumble and fall but not hard thanks to Kephyr's tail that had wrapped itself around her waist and supported most of her weight as she went down.

"Run, female. Get out of here." Kephyr urged as he struggled to block Kinkade's attacks. Though they were both two striped males and the fox male might not have been as strong as the tiger, the older male still had more combat experience and he was fast especially in such an inclosed space. But Kephyr wasn't a fool, he knew that if Kinkade got away he would go after Liz , so all he could do for her was hold the male back until she hopefully found a way to get away.

As Liz hobbled through the darkness the chaos of the fighting began to fade behind her and before long she heard the sound of rushing water. Liz drug her tired aching body forward in the direction of the sound, because the sound is at least something to go off of in the complete darkness. Liz's sticky tongue licked across a painful split on her lip as she forced herself to keep moving until the sound was echoing so loud around her and she felt the cold spray of the water on her skin. Just from the sound of it she knew that it was moving far to quickly to walk through and try to cover her scent, but she knelt on the edge preparing to take one drink before she looked for another tunnel, but as Liz reached down into the cool crystal water the edge she knelt on crumbled and she fell in with a big splash before the current sweep her away.

Liz struggled to stay afloat as the underground river got rougher the further it carried her away, she was pulled under as she passed threw flooded tunnels. She was thrashed against stones as it swerved around bends, then she was shot out atop a huge waterfall and plunged 50 ft down into an underground lake. Her body rolled around and bobbed back to the surface, the further she floated from the raging waterfall the calmer the water became.

In the underground cavern lived a rare and reclusive beastman, He didn't see Liz fall from the waterfall but heard the odd splash and felt a strong urge to investigate. He saw her floating face down in the water and thought she was dead... He watched in amazement as her body rolled in the water like someone turned her over and was cradling her, but no one was there, then the water in her lungs evaporated, turning into a cool mist that rose from her mouth into the air. Suddenly her body spasmed like she was being electrocuted and her heart beat thundered back to a galloping rhythm.

The instant Liz gasped for breath, her beaten and battered body radiated pain with every twinge of muscle, she groaned and her body jerked, dunking her beneath the waters rippling surface. Liz fought her way back up and planted her feet on the slick stone, sputtering and coughing up the water she inhaled. Surprisingly she looked around and could actually see a little though the cave was still dark something emanated light, in her disoriented state she saw the shore and unsteadily made her way there.

With each slow step closer her body ached with painful protests, the lower the water dropped the more Liz realized her body was shutting down, she could barely hold up her own weight and by the time she crawled out of the water she instantly collapsed. As she lay there in semi-consious agony, Liz heard something, dragging across the ground, she forced the last bit of her strength just to lift her eyelids only to see a gigantic blurry figure moving towards her.

'What is it? A beastman or a wild beast? Is that a crocodile or a snake?' Liz wondered frantically while her heart thundered in her ears. She knew there was nothing she could do to either escape or defend herself. 'Did I really go through all that to die here? Where's the justice? What did I do to deserve this? Is this really how I'm going to die?' Tears fell from her eyes and her throat knotted making it harder to breath, her body shook with fear and she squeezed her eyes shut waiting for whatever was to come.

Time stretched out seemingly endlessly, until she felt an icy cold touch curl behind her shoulders and knees, then she was lifted off the ground. Liz groaned helplessly as pain shot threw her aching body with each slight movement. She once again strained against the heaviness of her eyelids but her world began to spin and she fell back into the dark abyss of unconsciousness.