Besieged Read Free Page A

female who’d been speaking to him, then turned to Peggy. “She says
her son and his new wife are off visiting family in Nome so she’s taken the
liberty of fixing up their hut for you.” The old woman said something else in a
tongue Peggy was not well versed in. Benjamin nodded, then translated. “She
hopes you will find the privacy enjoyable and the warmth of the home
agreeable.”
    Peggy smiled, ignoring the nagging voice
that told her to keep close to the others and forsake her privacy as she
usually did on these trips. Not wanting to offend the old woman, she ignored
the voice and nodded. “Thank you,” she said, modestly inclining her head. “Your
hospitality is very generous.”
    * * * * *
    Wearing a thin white shift Benjamin’s
mother had stitched together for her, Peggy rolled onto her back from beneath
the polar bear furs, a wrinkle marring her brow. From within the throes of deep
sleep, she recognized on some surreal plane that something was slowly pulling
her out of the world of dreams and into the world of semi-wakefulness. She had
that feeling again, that bizarre feeling of being watched…
    Peggy’s eyes flew open. Her irises
immediately tried to adjust to the pitch-black darkness. She could see very
little, almost nothing in fact, but she could still make out a shadowy shape on
the far side of the hut. She gasped as she sat straight up, her heartbeat
accelerating. Oh my God , she thought in a panic, I never should have
slept in here alone .
    Her chest heaving up and down from the
adrenaline pumping through her system, her heart pounding in her ears, she
threw off the polar bear furs and scrambled to her knees. She squinted at the
shadowy shape on the far side of the one-room hut, trying to discern what the
shape was.
    Oh my God. Oh my God! What is it?
    Peggy’s hands balled into nervous fists as
she shot up to her feet. Her breathing was heavy, labored, as if she’d just run
a two-mile sprint. Preparing to turn on her heel and dash—anywhere—she gasped
when a pale beam of moonlight hit the hut and the shadowy shape turned into…
    A parka.
    A harmless, lifeless parka sitting on a log
chair by the hut’s small kitchen table.
    Peggy half laughed and half cried. She
closed her eyes for a brief moment and exhaled the breath she’d been holding
in. Relief—she’d never felt so damn relieved in her entire life. “I’m losing
it,” she muttered, her fingers threading through her hair and smoothing it
back. “I’m a step away from being escorted out of Alaska by the men in white
coats.”
    Taking a deep breath and shaking her head
at the mistake, Peggy smiled at her own stupidity. “Get a grip, girl. It was
just a…”
    Her smile faded as comprehension slowly
dawned. A tremor of terror lanced through her as it occurred to Peggy that the
parka she’d worn today was hanging near the crude fireplace/stove to dry out.
It was not, nor had it ever been, placed on the chair by the kitchen table. She
swallowed roughly, her turquoise eyes widening.
    Get out of here! Now!
    Her heartbeat racing like mad, Peggy
prepared to run from the hut when a heavily muscled arm snaked firmly around
her belly. She gasped, opening her mouth to scream. A large palm slapped over
her mouth before she could get it out, all but muting the wail of fear that
erupted from her throat from behind the hand.
    Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.
    Peggy felt a pinch to her neck a threadbare
moment before her body went limp into the awaiting arms of what she assumed was
a human predator. The world spinning, her head lulled onto her shoulders and
her eyes closed. She fell backwards, passing out.
    Her last coherent thought before the
blackness overpowered her was that the stone dwellers were real.
    And that she’d never live to tell Dr. Kris
Torrence about her breakthrough discovery.

Chapter Four
     
    Her brow wrinkled in anxiety, Peggy’s eyes
slowly flickered open and tried to adjust to the dim light of…wherever she was