Page 122 of Lost in the Dark

LIGHT

ATLAS ROSE

He’s more monster than he is man…but for me, he’ll be both.

In the beginning there was only the void, till the words, "Let there be light" and the moths that’d been hidden were revealed, banishing them to a realm of shadows.

But these weren’t small, harmless creatures. No, these things were monstrous andprimalwith an unquenchable hunger for the darkness, and a ravenous thirst for desire.

Until these dark hunters became the hunted, and to escape, plunged from their world into ours…right when I was getting my heart trampled by my deadbeat, loser boyfriend.

I thought Michael took me to camping to propose, but it seems marriage is the last thing on his mind. So I leave his ass…along with my tent, my food…and my car and storm into the forest for escape.

A forest that grows dark around me.

A forest thatcomes alive.

Where I’m saved by a terrifying creature who looks at me with ravenous black eyes.

I fight when he takes me…fight his hunger…fight his touch.

And when terror and disgust gives way to a need buried deep inside me, I fight for my sanity.

And pray I never step back into the light.

Dregon

Run!

The roar punched through my chest. I took flight, drove my wings through the air, and scanned the terrain.My men…I sensed them in the distance as we raced from the castle grounds toward the forest.

The forest would protect us…if only we could make it through the ravines.

“Halt!”The bellow forced me to look over my shoulder. The glint of steel came from the guards as they drew back their poisoned-tipped arrows. “IN THE NAME OF THE KING!”

In the name of the king…

The king we came to murder…and took his daughter, instead.

Mother of Night…what had we done? The howls of retribution behind me only grew louder as more came for us, blending in a deafening crescendo of rage. Still, I didn’t stop, I didn’t even slow. I fixed my sight on the rush of movement ahead and the flutter of wings as Lohne shielded the female in his arms and lunged for the chasm.

Crack!

A gunshot came behind me and I drove my wings downwards. Agony followed as one of their arrows found its mark, then Lohne, my second-in-command, pulled the female tightly against his chest and plunged, driving his body through the ravine and toward the other side.

Until a blinding spear of light came from somewhere underneath that empty chasm and snatched him from the air.

What the burn?!

“STOP!”The roars behind me were closer as more of my men drove toward that piercing gleam and disappeared.

No…

We couldn’t go into the light…

We didn’tdarego into the light.

Because light, to us, meant death.