Finding Solace (Ancient Origins Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Finding Solace

  Publication Information

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Also Read

  Thank You

  Finding Solace

  by

  C.L. Scholey

  Ancient Origins Book 2

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Finding Solace

  COPYRIGHT © 2017 by C. L. Scholey

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Kristian Norris

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewilderroses.com

  Publishing History

  First Scarlet Rose Edition, 2017

  Print ISBN 978-1-5092-1750-2

  Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-1751-9

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  Special thanks to Janet S. for her knowledge on deerskin and her endless patience and friendship, greatly appreciated.

  As well as Mike for the knife tip and for answering my sometimes endless questions.

  Chapter One

  Trembling, Solace watched his approach. His sheer muscle mass rippled his naked thighs. He was bare-chested, and she longed to run her hands over his wide expanse of intricate bumps and trace his magnetic, complex tattoos. His perfect hands were balled to fists. Those hands could rip the ribcage of a velociraptor apart, she saw him do it, and they could bring the gift of pleasure to life over soft, eager skin. Closer, closer he stalked, while she lay pinned by his gaze alone. The fur on the large raised platform beneath her was warm and soft, his bed, now hers, too. The fibers tickled her bare backside. She curled her fingers into the warmth in anticipation.

  The first time she laid eyes on this man was her undoing. Solace had never encountered a more perfect male. Only on this strange ancient planet was there ever the epitome of maleness, brute strength, and determination. Solace tingled knowing he was all hers, and she was his.

  Menace was his name, and it suited him. A glare cast in any direction could send powerful men fleeing. His fists, sledgehammer-sized power behind a blow, could be wielded with meticulous accuracy. So fierce was his hunger for life it showed in everything he did. Menace moved with the grace of a huge cat, a saber tooth, on the prowl. Lithe, strongminded, passionate, his sleek skin already turned a tawny, almost golden color from the new spring sun. The pads of his feet on the strewn thick fur carpets covering a stunning amber floor continued forward. Solace remembered hearing something about a river of tea flowing into the oceans to create amber.

  Solace wasn’t afraid of his approach. The pounding of her erratic heartbeat thundered within her breast. Her legs ached to spread for him, but she remained immobile, her breath small pants, her gaze devouring his body. Menace settled beside her on the bed, his huge frame dwarfed hers but never to intimidate. His warmth was heavenly. He lifted a hand to run his fingers through her tresses. Her light-colored hair slipped over his knuckles, just starting to tan as the season changed to spring.

  “What are you thinking?”

  His voice was all sexy hunger, deep, throaty, rumbling like an anticipated thunderstorm, and filled with interest. Menace was fascinated with everything she did. Wherever she went, he was close—a good thing in the primitive ancient world where she now resided. Hybrid dinosaurs roamed the planet, the best of the best, the biggest, strongest predators, ever known; at least to her. Her planet Earth never encountered the likes of the many mutated creatures. Death was near every moment Solace wandered from the safety of the village. But not now, now she was in Menace’s sights, and his gaze devoured her. Her thoughts for a moment turned to sorrow as she answered his question. Though she had been thinking about his perfect beauty, her mind was always a heartbeat away from a sad thought. Her musings never far from his magnificence, she played a fateful day over within her mind. The day she met him and the occurrence right before.

  “I was wondering how the children are, where they went. The ones who went through the sinkhole with me at the daycare on my planet Earth. I think about them every day, wondering, worrying, and hoping they are safe. When the ceiling opened above us, it was surreal then horrifying. All of them three and under. Their poor parents. We all suddenly vanished without a trace. I’ll never know. I’ll never see them again.”

  Not a day went by she didn’t wrack her brains searching to see if she failed them as one by one they were sucked upward into the dark inky sinkhole. Tiny faces, reaching hands, cries of surprise, helpless loss. As always her eyes filled with tears she was unwilling to shed, the wetness on her cheeks would make the loss that much more real while the hurt was indescribable. She thought the children were safe with her. The sinkholes seemed to be in different areas. All were caught unaware as the eerie phenomenon began growing worse but she was in a daycare. Nothing bad was ever thought to occur where tiny children laughed and played peek-a-boo. Toy play mats made a poor blanket of false security. Solace trembled.

  “Please stop. It’s been months, sweetness. No other village has heard about the little ones. I’m certain they’re safe somewhere else. We must try to think positive. We go into battle tomorrow. You need to be thinking straight.”

  He was right. She needed her mind to be in the here and now. It had been months since the devastating sinkhole sent her to this planet, this alternate Earth where dinosaurs walked the surface. Upright hybrid dinosaurs that could think and kill, the Neandersauri wanted humans from Solace’s Earth. Her friend Clarity claimed they wanted the intelligence to create space flight. They had to be destroyed before the villagers were killed. It was only a matter of time before the hybrids would be the only thinking species on the planet if war wasn’t waged. Over the long winter months, Solace and the others made weapons and learned how to use them.

  Clarity and Solace killed many hybrids during the village winter hibernation when Menace and the other villagers slept, but more were coming. Death lurked everywhere on the planet. No meteor destroyed the dinosaurs here as they had on Solace’s Earth. There were no volcanos or ice age melt to separate continents. There was no place to escape to, there was no flight—only fight. The once-dying villagers found hope with Clarity and now Solace. Her father was military, and Solace would do him proud by bringing her game tomorrow.

  “Come back to me,” Menace said as he traced her cheek with a strong finger.

  Solace slipped from her reverie. “We used all the condoms for our bomb balloons.”

  “Then let’s make a baby.”

  “Before war?”

  “My entire life I’ve been at war with my thoughts. What we do tomorrow will be a relief.”

 
What he said was true. If she were to die tomorrow, taking a piece of him to have with her always would be a comfort. If there might be the slightest chance of conception there was that little bit more to strive harder for victory.

  “I love you, Menace.” Solace took his finger from her face to kiss the tip. “The first time I saw you, I knew you would be the man to love. Your eyes say so much about you. Your soul is on display, and I am honored to be with such a man.”

  Menace found her in the forest appearing unconscious after her fall through the sinkhole. The ride through inky darkness was a hell like no other. Her body had bounced on impact when she hit the ground then settled. At first, she lay stunned watching one of the biggest men she had ever seen fight a raptor. A dinosaur. An unthinkable idea, to battle something that should be extinct. She lay crumpled on her side, her cheek pressed against an earth floor, the scent raw, ancient, and unfamiliar. She wasn’t certain she was dreaming. The clash was intense. Man against beast. Menace fought with passion, he was very much the warrior she thought him to be, that he looked to be. A final blow with a huge sword sank into the beast’s chest and down it went. Menace yanked the weapon free, and as Solace went under, succumbing to the darkness after her ride from hell, she watched his leather moccasins approach. Eyelids fluttering. Not a day passed when she cast her grateful gaze onto him. He taught her how to survive in his world. More importantly he gave her a reason to live. Menace wouldn’t allow her to sink into despair.

  When Solace woke the first time in Menace’s home she was naked on a platform, his bed. A thick fur beneath her and a slight fur was settled to her hips and Menace sat beside her. His tone, so sweet and endearing, he told her about his world, about him. At first, pinned by his size, but not weight, she was unmoving. The entire time he didn’t sit ogling her, his gaze was earnest. He spoke until he seemed as naked as she was. He bared everything, including his heart. The same sincere expression gripped her this moment.

  “There is so much more to love than emotions. There is taste.” He leaned over to press his lips to hers for a moment. “I can taste love on your lips. I can feel love with my fingers.” The pads of his digits traced a line from her shoulder to her hip. “I can tell you I love you because I do. I can see the words float across your beautiful face, the dazzle of light in your eyes. You are dipped in sunshine. I will always have light if I have you. You are the dawn of each day, sweetness. There is no cold when your sight warms my heart.”

  Solace melted with each word. “You make love with your mouth in so many ways.”

  Menace nestled his face against her throat. His breath washed over her. A hand gripped her hair to tilt her neck back. He suckled her flesh making her heart leap. The pressure of his hand cupped her ass pulling her closer. For a moment his grip intensified, her breasts were squished to his chest. She gasped.

  “Can you feel me?” he whispered.

  “Yes.”

  The heat from his arousal seared her to her bones. Every inch of him was hard and hot, alive with desire for her. Menace pressed her back against the furs, sinking her into softness. He sat up to straddle her. Both hands found her breasts and kneading them, his thumb pads roamed her nipples. Small hard buds formed. With deliberate determination, he leaned over her. His mouth captured a bud and suckled until she wanted to scream. Warm wetness built between her thighs as he continued his exquisite torture. Solace cried out when his finger found her bud as she spread her legs.

  “Can you feel my love for you? Can you hear my heart beating for yours?” he whispered.

  “Yes.” She was breathless.

  Her eyes wide, she glanced up. Solace was safe from the incredible monstrosities of the planet while nestled in this home. His home was buried beneath mammoth and mastodon bones and strange meteor rocks that landed harmlessly and were harvested for their powerful glowing rays. It didn’t matter what noise they made as they loved one another, she was in a soundproof fortress deep within the ground. The ceiling above was domed and twenty feet high while they remained secure. The walls were rock interwoven with a dark substance. An intricate pattern waist height was amber. A simple touch from warm flesh made the rock glow.

  Solace grew warmer. Menace’s fingers danced across her belly. Not far from the bed of piled furs was a round rock shelter with glowing fire. A breeze blew for ventilation. Solace didn’t know from where, she didn’t care. At the moment, she was safely losing her sanity to a man whose mouth could make love in fascinating ways.

  Her breast disappeared past his lips, and she smiled as she wondered if her nipple tickled his throat. He stretched his body over hers, lower to continue to suckle. The finger he delved into her heat surprised her for a mere second. His hands were large. A pumping finger was prelude to something larger yet to come. Another finger was added and she squirmed. She cupped his bald head with a hand and moved against his now slippery fingers.

  Menace released her and hovered over her. Solace knew better than to trace his many tattoos. The images were haunting. Not all were faces, some images were of a cherished item, something of significance left behind and etched onto skin. His tale was a sad one he had told her when they first met, wanting her to know everything about him. The sacrifices he and his people endured hurt his heart.

  The drawings stopped many years ago when the last of Menace’s tribe was hunted to death. He was certain his fate would be the same, and he developed a cavalier attitude toward death—whatever came would come. He continued to live, and soon his thoughts tormented him, building to a fury so intense he became the name he despised—Menace.

  The last of his people, he roamed until finding Doom’s village. He was welcomed. Solace knew he refused to sacrifice again. It didn’t matter. The shame was Doom’s to bear. It was his village. Menace turned his rage to hunting. Nothing was safe when he walked the jungle, and the dinosaurs learned to give him and his unpredictable rage a wide berth.

  “How can you love a man like me?”

  Too late, he’d seen where her gaze rested. “How can I not?”

  Menace ran a hand across his chest. “Never again. Never again will I mourn the loss of people who should have been better protected. My villagers fell while leaving me to roam alone. My heart aches for the destruction of so many.”

  Solace took his wrist and placed his hand over her heart. “Live in here until you can bear to live inside of you.”

  A small smile twitched his lips. They were rare gifts. “If I move in, you’ll need a kick-ass dinosaur to evict me. I am told I’m strong.”

  Strong? There was no one more powerful.

  “I’ll take my chances handsome.”

  The nudge of a knee spread her thighs further. The tip of his cock slid ever so gently into her heat making certain she was ready.

  “All of me is wet,” she whispered. She wiggled her hips and winked at him.

  “Then I best not keep you waiting.”

  His plunge was sharp, hard and he was thicker than ever. He was as much a thing of beauty as he was a beast. Menace was the perfect male. Ancient and vulnerable, powerful, gentle, he loved her like no man ever had or would again. Solace clung to him. Her arms weren’t long enough to wrap around his astoundingly broad back.

  Sharp claps of thunder reached her ears as he connected against her. His love-making embarked her into thought likening him to the elements. He moved fast and furiously. When the storms came to the planet, she watched him race with the ground lightning, his devil-may-care attitude. Nothing was faster than Menace, not even the Mother Nature who ruled here. Passion was how he survived, he was a man filled with purpose. She was at this moment his survival. She lifted her legs to wrap around his waist and hung tight. Menace was the rumble in the skies, the thunder between her thighs.

  Gasping, her breath caught. He slipped a hand under her ass to make her move faster. A quick flip and she was in his arms, off the bed, both hands on her ass he pressed her to the hard rock of the wall, connecting them with a thump. She was pinned and immo
bile, his hands now free became a life of their own. He showed no mercy, and Solace was grateful. He gathered her wrists in one hand and pinned them high over her head jutting her breasts forward. His lips sucked hers, her throat, her cheeks.

  The warmth of the surface behind her heated her ass and back. She was held easily. The passion in his gaze burned her face with want and need. She could feel the pounding of his heart, see the pulsing at his throat. Wild, untamed, raw desire commanded every inch of her to become one with him.

  She felt the fast wave sweep over her when she came. Shivering to her toes, Solace cried out his name as he bucked harder, then harder still until she thought her bones would crack. His cock was hard and slick, his ass cheeks contracted with each motion showing defining muscle as her head slipped to his shoulder with exhaustion. She was building again, and the fear of an unknown tomorrow made her warrior reckless with want. Her quivering legs began to slip. There was no escape. His now intense expression pinned her to the wall when she leaned back to gather air into lungs desperate to fill. His growling pants for breath bathed her face as his teeth clenched.

  “I will live in you forever,” he ground out.

  She wondered if he really did seek entry into her flesh through his maleness, his cock a battering ram to knock down her walls and allow the proverbial Trojan horse inside. She was sinking, her breath cut short. The power of her surrendering to Menace tightened her insides wanting to capture him within her forever. Menace roared his release, pulled her from the wall, and flopped them back onto the bed. She gasped in huge amounts of air, her fingers curled into the fur of the bed. Menace lay half over her with his head resting on her belly. When he chuckled, she was startled. The sound another rare gift and she wondered what brought it on. She cast a glance to where his gaze was settled. The rock wall glowed with her imprint.

  “Well shit, how long will that last? My ass as big as day all lit up like a moon. Oh my God. I’m mooning us.”

  “I kinda like it. An in-your-face-take-that, bitches.”