Page 1 of The Ozar Triad

Chapter One

Riley

The change in pressure made Riley’s ears explode. Black spots spun across her vision. Her knees gave out and she came down fast on a hard, cold surface. This was not the gritty sand of wherever the hell she’d been. Her nose was now intimately acquainted with the slightly oily surface of wherever the hell she was with no idea how she got here.

She had been fighting monsters straight from her nightmares that had turned out to be real. When she’d first regained consciousness, it was to find herself trapped in a cold, slimy cell she’d had to tear herself out of, and then she’d stepped into a battle with lizard people that looked more prehistoric with their long snouts, rows of razor-sharp teeth, deadly claws and dark-green scales that sucked the light out of the air. They were more terrifying Iguanas that walked upright and were killing unarmed women. Civilians.

A battle, she could understand, and she’d kicked straight into soldier mode. Maybe it was survival mode. It sure as hell beat the reality in front of her. So, she’d fought. She managed to kill a couple of the creatures before people—ornot-people, but massive men with skin the color of gold—charged into wherever they were to fight the reptilian monsters as well. She’d barely drawn a breath when some of the golden men had surrounded her. She didn’t trust the reptile monsters. She sure as hell wasn’t going to trust men that didn’t look quite right.

She did the thing she did best—fought them—when she was surrounded by frigid black clouds. Claws grabbed her, she was pulled into a void of nothingness. Her head exploded and darkness had descended on her. That was all she knew until she found herself face down on an oil-stained surface, head pounding, ears ringing, and stomach churning.

A nightmare. She was still in that nightmare. That had to be it. She wondered vaguely why she was still trapped in it. Maybe she’d finally gone insane.

Her ears rang with a low-pitched tone, obscuring all other sounds. NIHL. Noise Induced Hearing Loss. She’d suffered that multiple times in training when a grenade had blasted too close while on duty in the side alleys of Yemen, or she’d forgotten to put in ear protection at the firing range. But added with the change of pressure, as though she’d come up too fast from a deep scuba dive, her brain pounded in protest and her stomach fought to expel its contents.

She tried lifting her head, but the damned thing was too heavy and all she could do was stay where she was, sprawled on an oil-stained ground, dragging in jagged breaths.

A rough hand grabbed her bicep. Only it wasn’t a hand. It was a claw with vicious, long black talons that sank through her skin and muscle like it was as substantial as butter. Agony ripped through her as she was lifted from the ground. Her legs wobbled beneath her. Only the claw impaling her arm kept her upright. She might have screamed—she probably did—but she couldn’t tell from the tinnitus in her ears.

Thethingthat impaled her moved its maw, only she still couldn’t hear what it said over the ringing in her head. Her heart pounded with rapid-fire beats as she came face to face with one of the reptilian monsters.

Its black, beady eyes were intelligent, and it pierced her with a hard stare as though she was no more than a hunk of meat. Saliva dripped from the corner of its jaw, splattering onto the ground. She shivered. Two more reptiles surrounded her, one on either side. The monster shook her until her head rattled on her shoulders.

Heat washed over her skin and her vision whitewashed. Despite after all she’d seen and done, she’d never been so terrified, and she’d been in some hairy situations in her time. Her experience ended at dealing with upright iguanas.

Think, soldier. Keep cool. Think and survive.

The claws slid out of the holes they’d made in her arm. Blood gushed from the open wounds and seeped between her fingers when she pressed them to her arm to stem the flow. She sagged to her knees, head swimming, her legs too weak to keep her upright.

The three monsters argued with each other. One of them held a crystal that glowed with a strange golden light. The creature tossed it from claw to claw, handling it gingerly as though it was hot.

The monster that had wounded her grabbed the crystal and pressed it to her arm. The crystal glowed so brightly that it blinded her, and she had to look away. Heat seared across her skin and pain ripped through her.

Her senses slowly returned to find she was flat on her back on the ground and there was no sight of the crystal. The monsters were fighting a few feet away. One pushed the other. It staggered backwards, before it leapt forward, slamming its chest to its opponent. The other joined in and a fight erupted. None looked at her, their attention on their own fight.

The little voice that had saved her skin more times than she could count, screamed at her.“Move!Run! Get away!”

She clenched her teeth, summoning everything in her body to stagger to her feet. Ignoring her screaming muscles and fading vision, she stepped back a few paces before the rest of the world materialized through her battered senses and she stumbled to a stop.

Creatures of all shapes and sizes scuttled around her. Some were dressed in fatigues, some in gowns, others in clothes she couldn’t name. Some were so small, they came to her knee, others so tall she would have to crick her neck to look up. The creatures had skin of different colors. Some had hair and others did not, several boasted scales, a few glowed. There were gelatinous blobs that rolled along and a few stalking furry beasts with spikes down their back.

While she wasted time gawking, more and more sets of eyes turned towards her. Some creatures stopped walking to outright stare at her.

She had a horrible, sinking feeling that this was not a dream, or even a nightmare, that this might in fact be reality. Her throbbing arm and pounding head certainly made it real. Besides, her imagination wasn’t that good. She simply couldn’t make shit like this up.

She was in some sort of airfield. Crafts of various structures and sizes scattered about, but they weren’t anything she had seen before. Some were circular, others square. A few sleek silver ones rested nearby, and beyond them, some were so black they seemed to suck the very light out of the air. Creatures scurried between them and down a central aisle that was as wide as a highway.

There was a blast and a roar as one of the machines rose from the ground. Hot air and debris scattered everywhere before it levitated, hanging in mid-air for a moment and then disappearing from sight—one moment there, the next gone.

No, her imagination definitely wasn’t that good.

A door slid open in the side of the sleek, jet-like contraption close by and a man the size of a yeti appeared, silhouetted in the interior light. He wasn’t just huge, he was massive. Just the outline of his bulging biceps and thick shoulders was enough to make her look twice. He stood so tall that he ducked his head as he stepped through the doorway.

Long, black strands of hair ran from his head down his back, the ends capped with golden beads. His skin was a burnt mocha color, of which a lot was showing as the only articles of clothing he wore were tight black pants and knee-high, thick-soled black boots that she instantly wanted for herself.

His chest was darkened by thick, swirling tattoos that covered across his shoulders, down his arms that never seemed to end, across his defined pecs, and trailed over abs she could cut her teeth on, to disappear into the waistband of his pants. Leather straps that held various lethal-looking weapons within easy reach were strapped around his torso. A massive bladed weapon was strung low on his hip, the tip nearly reaching the ground.

Behind him, two other men appeared. They were just as tall and muscle-bound. The one on his left was bald, and achingly handsome—square jaw, thick neck leading to shoulders that could balance barrels and still have room for more. His skin was a swirl of emerald green, intertwined with a pattern that looked as though it was made from golden thread.

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