"Katie's Hellion" (Book I, Rhyn Trilogy)

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Dawn came slowly, followed by the brilliant blue sky of morning. She shifted from her seat in the cave to stand at the edge of the cave, furious at him for leaving her in a small cave on a sheer cliff overlooking the sea. She hadn't slept all night, afraid of what other secrets the night held.

She looked down. The churning sea below was littered with jagged rocks that looked small from her perch a hundred feet above them. Not only could she not escape, but she could just as well starve to death if he decided never to return.

She braided her hair to keep the stiff sea breeze from tossing curls in her face and squinted upward again. She was closer to the top than to the waves, but the cliff had too few hand and footholds for her to try to climb. She perched on a boulder near the entrance, wondering how many nights of Sasha-type treatment she’d take before tossing herself off the cliff.

Bored, restless, fearful, she retreated to the back of the cave, searching it again for any sort of door or anything that might aid her escape. There was nothing. Nothing she could use to escape.

Which was why he chose this spot, and she couldn’t help shivering at the thought that this place was too perfect for this to be the first time he’d imprisoned someone here.

"What’re you doing?"

She jumped but replied without turning, "Looking for a way to escape."

"One way out."

She steeled herself and turned, expecting to find a monster.

He looked human. He was taller than average, over six and a half feet, built like a rock with wide shoulders and tapered abdomen and hips beneath a jumpsuit similar to those worn by the prisoners. Its snugness drew her eyes to his crotch and lean thighs. His hair was dark, his eyes liquid silver, his complexion olive and unshaven.

He tossed fish tied together on a rope into the center of the cave, ignoring her inspection.

"I can’t eat them raw," she objected.

"Then you don’t eat."

He walked to the edge of the cave and dived out.

She followed, startled, only to see a massive black bird the size of a pterodactyl coasting along the tops of the waves. She shook her head, convinced she was going crazy. Her eyes fell to the fish, and her nose wrinkled.

Rope. She knelt beside the fish and unwrapped them with a grimace, cheered to find the section of rope nearly five feet long. She tossed the fish back to the ocean and coiled the rope, hiding it beneath several small rocks in the back of the cave. She napped, paced, and stared up at the ceiling. The sun crossed the sky, and an hour before it would set, he returned.

With more fish. She sat up and crossed her legs, eyeing the rope. He walked out again, and she tossed the fish and hid the rope, straightening just as he reappeared.

His eyes flashed silver as he glanced at her. He sat on a boulder near the entrance, as if he were the bouncer trying to prevent someone like her from exiting.

"C’mere, little girl," he growled.

"I hate that!"

"It’s how this works."

"How what works?" she asked.

"I feed you, you feed me."

"Can’t you eat a cow or a rabbit or something?"

"You taste better."

She didn’t know what to think. She needed more rope to reach the top of the cliff, yet being dinner for any creature wasn’t the way she’d like to go. And what if he attacked her as Sasha did, and she had no Lankha to heal her? She’d bleed out in this cave.