Those monsters that were after them had to have been almost seven feet tall. Their chests were bare and roped with layer upon layer of muscles. She prayed that the other four women were okay. All of them had been abducted by dragons for a barbaric pastime. Fun for the dragon men. Terrifying for them.

The hunt.

Panic welled up in her and she kicked harder even though there was a small part of her that told her it might be better to give up. To stop trying to survive. To let the river take her. It would be better than what those assholes would do if they got their hands on her.

“No.” She sobbed as she broke to the surface, quickly sucking in a ragged breath. Water churned around her. Candy was so cold she could barely feel her limbs. She was a fighter, a survivor. There was no way she was giving up now.

No way in hell.

Despite the freezing cold and her quivering muscles, she continued to kick. Continued to fight for that next breath and then the next. Whether she had been in the water for minutes, for an hour, or more, was hard to tell.

Candy slammed into something with her shoulder. Pain blossomed, shooting down her arm. The current pulled at her legs, pulling her under even though the solid object was in front of her.

It must have been on instinct that her arms wrapped around whatever the big solid thing was. By some miracle she managed to pull herself up so that her head came out of the water. Candy filled her lungs, she coughed and spluttered for about a half a minute before she was able to get enough oxygen into her air starved body that she could think clearly.

Had to get out.

Had. To.

She was going to die otherwise.

It was a massive tree that must have fallen into the water. Half of it’s bulk lay in the water and the other other half straddled the shore. Candy had her arms wrapped around the trunk. There was no way she could pull herself out like this. She was afraid to let go with the bottom hand because the river might pull her under if she did. She couldn’t stay in the water like this indefinitely though. The warmth inside her was slowly being sapped from her body. Her teeth were clattering so hard that she thought they might crack at any moment. She was panting hard.