Clarity's Doom (Ancient Origins Book 1) by C.L. Scholey Read Free Book Online

way she looked and felt, Clarity wouldn’t mind being wet. The sticky substance of the sap covered her, and her hair was pinned to parts of her forehead. Her fingers fused together and she despised the tug as she separated each digit, stretching her skin.
    Clarity stood, waiting for the first spatters of rain to fall. Arms out at her sides, palms up, watching the heavens, she frowned when the wetness hit the back of her hands. She stood there, now staring down as her runners became saturated. Her palms turned down and the coolness of each drop hit her skin with a pat pat pat and slipped through her fingers.
    Single droplets floated up as she watched wide-eyed with wonder. Water bubbles stretched, separated, again elongated, and continued their ascent. Eerie, massive clouds, gray and unwelcoming overhead moved in. Sharp thunder, rocking Clarity to the core, commanded the grounds to release the moisture in words unheard but heeded. The sogginess dampened her ankles, then calves, snaking up her thighs, over her hips. Tickling lines of wetness caressed her. Swirling, rising, her shirt blew up to her midriff. Her hands swayed as her neck twisted to see the rain rise up to the sky, left and right. Foliage ruffled, puddles emptied. The scene surreal to the human eye. Drops trailed their way up her skin, against her inner thighs disappearing to stop at her panty line.
    Dripping could be heard as the rain spattered the underside of leaves. The storm grew in intensity. Ground lightning, a sizzling zigzag, toppled trees making Clarity jump. Thunder roared overhead. Precipitation from a pond rose into the heavens. Huge black-gold frogs climbed down trees to slither into dark holes as snakes. Clarity blinked hard wondering if her eyes were deceiving her.
    A frog snake?
    A roaring filled her ears as she became saturated. The novelty of the strange happenstance quickly turned to panic. Rain flew up with intensity to fill her nostrils until she thought she might drown. Covering her nose and mouth she began to run. The ground grew slick beneath her feet, tripping her, covering her knees in small red marks she knew would bruise later.
    Clarity raced terror stricken through the forest looking for shelter. Any opening exposed to the sky gave up its water supply. The gray sky overhead swirled with massive amounts of rain, hovering, swarming. She was at the mercy of the wind. Her arms pressed against her head trying desperately to shield her face. The intense foliage she battled through, now crawling on a hand and knees, dragging her purse behind her, dumped sheets of water to run in rivulets first down her body then changed haphazard in their direction to race upward.
    The vulnerability of being assaulted from beneath and sideways dropped Clarity to her belly where she remained. Lightning crackled and zipped over her, racing through the trees. A sharp explosion sounded when a bolt hit a target, the tree shattered. To add to her fear, the rain mixed as droplets landed from the sky as the heavens opened to return rain to ponds. Bombarded from both land and sky, Clarity screamed and choked as water flushed her mouth. Condensation and infiltration run amok. She was drowning on land.
    “Help,” she screamed, then choked.
    Strong hands on her shoulders made her cringe and cry out. She peered up under an arm, gasping, her face sodden with rain and tears. A beast didn’t have her. It was a man. The biggest man she had ever seen. He pulled her into his arms and ran. The pounding deluge continued from under them, above them. She didn’t know how the man could see where he was going. She pressed her face into his bare chest, her arm snaked up to clasp around his neck. She cupped her hand against her mouth and nose trying to form an air pocket to breathe. When it didn’t work, she muscled her purse up to her cheek to try the same. His powerful grip crushed her to his warm skin. Strong legs pumped beneath him as his feet flew across the