LLP-274 Caesar's Revenge Book Two by Jon Reskind


Chapter 1


It mattered little to the sleek and powerful german shepherd dog that 
the small town's streets had been brightened with additional lamp, 
lantern, even fired torch-light. He merely clung more stealthily to the 
inevitable shadows of the warm summer night, avoiding with ease the 
clumsy patroling male-humans who sought to destroy him. A balanced 
sense of avenged pride burned warmly in his deep muscular chest; he had 
punished them for the brutal, torture-death of his mate, satisfying the 
ancient law cryptically imbedded in his uncanny animal-brain ... lex 
talionis ... the law of retaliation. Yet, in so doing, he had rekindled 
the banked embers of another smoldering force from ages passed, a 
seething aberrant urge that had brought him down from the hills again 
this night.

Caesar stole his way in a surreptitious silence equal to the very 
shadows enshrouding him, knowing exactly his destination, the craving 
dictate in his feral loins magnetically guiding him. Cautiously, he 
moved his great head in searching sweeps, aware through instinct that 
the gold medallion hanging from his throat on its glittering chain 
could attract attention in the light of the moon. Ahead, he saw the 
shelter where she would be lying on the human sleeping place, the 
golden female-human he had chosen to replace the mate they had cruelly 
killed.

A feverish heat spread through his huge, invincible body at the glow 
coming from the opened window. She was waiting for him ...!

The surge of wild mating instinct motivating the massive dog caused his 
long tongue to lick out ravenously at his lips, while his mighty 
animal-loins convulsively reacted in pulsating throbs. Deliberately, 
but with vigilance, the illusive, canine beast crept toward the open 
window, a sudden piercing howl back in the hills advising him that his 
pack was racing down toward the valley in its quest for food ...

*   *   *

The willowy, ivory-skinned girl who tossed herself nakedly onto Jean 
Blakely's bed, sensed a certain feeling of imposition at her friend's 
relinquishing their bedroom to them. Mark, too, had insisted and of 
course, her own numb old Steve had merely said "thanks." The dodo ... 
all he was concerned with was getting a story for that lousy magazine 
he slaved for, not giving the slightest thought to Jean and Mark's 
inconvenience. Then off he goes, chasing down the utterly ridiculous 
tale that had brought them there. Not that she hadn't expected to be a 
writer's widow throughout most of their stay in Crescent Valley, but 
she'd had hopes that this, their first night there, would be spent 
together ... especially following her monthly five-day abstinence 
because of her period.


End of Page 1. See llp-274.txt for full story.