I Married A Dragon (Prime Mating Agency)(47)

And Cedros was the master at showing me just how much he cared.

My heart leapt when he emerged from the portal. However, my enthusiasm instantly faded when I saw the apologetic expression on his face.

“I’m sorry, my Kaida. But the surprise will have to wait. A fresh wave of aqrats is swarming the Vessant sector. I am needed.”

“Of course!” I exclaimed, walking up to him. “Do what you must to keep people safe. I can wait. You be careful and come back to me in one piece.”

“Always, my Ejaya.”

He kissed my lips, then reentered the portal. Heaving a sigh of worry, I turned towards my new desk. However, halfway through the motion, movement at the edge of my vision had me jerking my head back towards the collapsing portal. As the dark vortex vanished, I glanced around the door, especially the upper left corner of the wall, near the ceiling. I could have sworn something had come out of the portal and flown upward in a blur.

Seeing and hearing nothing, I shrugged it off and returned my attention to connecting all of my new gear to the network. But a solid ten-minutes into it, the growing impression of being observed unsettled me. I kept looking around the room and out of the large windows, but saw nothing. I even stopped moving a couple of times, keeping my breathing shallow to see if I could catch any sound… in vain. At some point, a powerful shiver ran down my spine.

No wonder I’m chilled, sitting here with my boobs hanging out.

I headed to the kitchen, where I’d discarded my t-shirt when Cedros had arrived. Just as I was about to put it on, I saw the blur again, this time fading by the wall next to the table. On instinct, I swiped my t-shirt in that direction. My heart nearly jumped out of my chest when, for a split second, I saw a large, purplish pair of glowing eyes and a wide, toothy mouth. I screamed, stumbling backwards before running towards the bedroom.

Something had entered the house through the portal. Not an aqrat, but something else. Something stealthy and with a mouth big enough to chop my head off clean with one bite of its dagger teeth.

I needed to get to my blaster if I was to survive the beast.

Another blur shot past me overhead before the vision of horror materialized before me. Floating almost two meters above the floor, the shadowy creature appeared to simply be a round head with glowing purple eyes and a Cheshire Cat mouth. Countless shadow tentacles surrounded it with glowing tips from whence emanated what resembled electric tendrils.

I screamed again. Carried by my momentum, and knowing I couldn’t turn around and hope to escape it, I dove into a roll under it and right back onto my feet to keep running towards the bedroom. As I did so, it stretched one of its tentacles at me at dizzying speed. I felt the electric shock right below my shoulder blades before the creature vanished again. However, the debilitating, Taser-like pain I had expected never came. It slightly pinched at the most, but nowhere near enough to hurt or cause discomfort. I could only assume I’d gotten lucky and that the beast’s tentacle hadn’t managed to get proper contact with me.

And I will not give it a chance to.

I dashed inside our bedroom and made a beeline for the closet. The creature zapped me a couple more times in the process. Like the first time, neither inflicted actual pain. It qualified as a strong tingle at best. Instead of reassuring me, my overactive imagination went into overdrive. Maybe the creature’s lightning wasn’t meant to electrocute but was instead infecting me with God only knew what. Was it some kind of slow acting paralytic? Was it some toxin similar to the one from the aqrats that made Cedros go rabid?

Heart pounding, I shoved the dreadful thoughts at the back of my mind as I fumbled with the crate containing my weapons. I shouted when the length of a shadowy tentacle slipped along my back. A powerful tingling lingered for a moment while my head jerked in every direction in my vain attempt to locate my stalker.

The wretched thing was toying with me. While a part of me rejoiced that it hadn’t already bitten half of my face off, the paranoid side of me was coming up with explanations for this odd behavior that I didn’t like one bit. Plenty of fiendish creatures played with their prey before feasting. Some did it because fear kicked their target’s hormonal system into overdrive, flooding their system with what their predator craved. Others did it to allow whatever venom or toxin they were tactically injecting their victim with to act in a way that would make digesting them easier later. I suspected my stalker fell into the latter category. It was fast enough that it could have killed me a long time ago, if that had been its intention.

I finally got a hold of my blaster, setting it to lethal, then yanking my combat uniform out of the crate. My eyes still scanning the room for any blur that could reveal the creature’s location, I quickly moved towards the glass wall of the room, all but pressing my back to it to make sure it couldn’t attack me from behind. Weapon raised, I battled with my suit, trying to slip it on. If I was going to be found dead, mangled by some shadow beast, it sure as hell wouldn’t be with my tits hanging out and my ass mostly exposed in my barely there excuse of a bikini bottom.

At last, I caught the blur closing in on me. Without hesitation, I took multiple shots at it, but missed as it swerved, its shadowy form appearing briefly before it disappeared again. Still struggling to put on my suit, I decided to make a dash for the hygiene room and lock myself inside. Randomly shooting at the ceiling, grateful that the stone walls appeared as impervious to blaster fire as to dragon flames, I made a run for it.