Claimed by a Stranger (Craved Series #2) by Hazel Kelly Read Free Book Online

know.”
     
    “The suspense
is killing me, Jack.”
     
    “I know the
feeling.”
     
    “Could you at
least make up some bullshit astronomy in the meantime?”
     
    “Sure.” I
pointed straight up ahead. “See that star straight over that highest cliff.”
     
    “The really
bright one?”
     
    “Yeah.”
     
    “What about
it?”
     
    “Well, if you
follow that up to the star above it,” I said, pointing. “And then go straight
through those three to the right and then down through the two small ones just
there-”
     
    “Uh-huh,” she
said, looking past the end of my finger.
     
    “That’s a Thai
character.”
     
    “Which one?”
     
    “The first one
in the word for patience.”
     
    She narrowed
her eyes at me and turned back towards the sky. “Do you know that one?” she
asked, pointing across my field of vision.
     
    “Where?”
     
    “Where that
tiny cluster of stars is?”
     
    I was pretty
sure it was a small jet, but I decided to keep that to myself.
     
    “That’s a
little, shrunken penis.”
     
    My eyes grew
wide. “Okaay…”
     
    “Anyway,” she
said, lowering her voice. “Legend has it that it was supposed to get much
bigger, but the guy who it belonged to started being a smart ass and ended up
spending the night alone.”
     
    I shook my
head. “In terms of constellations, it’s not my favorite.”
     
    She cocked her
head at me and raised her eyebrows. “Still a valuable lesson though.”
     
    I laughed. “If
I didn’t know better, I’d think that was a threat.”
     
    “And if it
was?”
     
    “If it was
you’re going to have to tell me because I don’t take that kind of thing
lightly.”
     
    “What’s that
mean?”
     
    “It means that
if it was a threat, I can’t let it go unpunished.”
     
    She laughed and
her eyes sprang into little crescents. “You mean you would punish little old me
for a little old threat?”
     
    I fixed my
eyes on hers. “I most certainly would. Until you begged for more.”
     
    She swallowed.
     
    “Well?” I
asked. “Was it a threat?”
     
    Her eyes said
yes, but her lips said, “No.”
     
    “Hey Audrey?”
     
    “Hey Jack.”
     
    “Just because it
wasn’t a threat doesn’t mean you aren’t going to beg.”
     
    She shook her
head and parted her lips to speak, but at the same moment, the silence in the
clearing changed. The air got still and a faint sound- much like a siren- began
in the distance. 
     
    Audrey’s eyes
grew wide.
     
    I smiled.
     
    “What’s that
screeching?” she asked.
     
    “The show,” I
said. “Just listen.”
     
    Her ears
perked up like a cat’s and she was on high alert as she looked towards the jagged
cliffs where the sound was coming from. “It’s like the sirens in the Odyssey.”  
     
    And sure
enough, when I turned to look at her face, she was completely mesmerized-
almost entranced by the shrieking echoes coming from the distance.
     
    Finally, when
her eyes were wider than I’d ever seen them, the show began.
     
    At first only
a few bats came flying out from behind the tall rocks, disappearing into the
darkness one by one like black shooting stars. Then they came in their tens,
exploding like small fireworks to different corners of the clearing.
     
    Soon they were
dispensing in their hundreds, spilling out from their caves in black waves. And
then finally, they came in their thousands, fleeing from the rocks in hordes
like swirls of smoke before scattering like ashes being blown across the sky.
     
    With each
swarm, the intermittent screeching erupted anew as they formed new shapes that
passed over us before bursting into thousands of tiny pieces to make way for
the next group.
     
    “What do you
think?” I whispered, keeping my eyes on the show.
     
    “It’s
beautiful.”
     
    “This is why I
dragged you all the way out here,” I said, leaning against her until our
shoulders touched.
     
    “It’s
completely overwhelming.” She turned to look at me, her eyes shiny.