Marcus (unfinished)

Her lungs burned. Her vision blurred. She could not keep this up much longer. Already her legs were refusing to keep running, her feet starting to stumble. Fear and adrenaline had kept her on her feet this long, but she was fast coming to the end of their assistance.

She tripped, stumbled, and unable to catch herself, fell to her knees. This was the end. It had only been a few steps behind her, and now she could feet breath on the back of her neck. Then, darkness.

...

Marcus caught the girl as she started to fall. He grunted as he swung her over his shoulder and started the trek back to his cave. His lair, the villagers called it, and he the beast the lurked within. Many times they had come, armed with pitchforks and torches, to drive him out. Their friends always found them the next day, unharmed, peacefully asleep in the sunshine. He was no master kelok, but he did know some small magics, more than enough to protect himself from a few angry villagers.

He shifted the girl to his other shoulder. How had she gotten free? It was hard enough figuring out what to do with these girls they kept staking out for him without being led on a merry chase through the forest for hours. His anger burned as the thought of the first girl they had chained to a stake in the little clearing outside the village. He had no use for girls, virgin or otherwise. He had left her there, assuming the villagers would come in the morning and be overjoyed at finding her alive.

They had come, certainly. But they reacted with anger instead of joy. They blamed the girl, saying she must not have been a virgin, that she had failed, that she had put their entire village in jeopardy. Then they... He shook his head vigorously. Suffice it to say that the girl died there and the villagers went back to the village bearing the brands of murderers and rapists. It had been one of the few times he had wished himself actually able to take human life. The brands he had set on them ensured them their punishment at the hands of their fellow men, at least. Such marks could only be set upon the guilty. But since then he had been careful to collect the virgin offerings left for him.

Marcus ducked through the opening to his cave, careful to avoid hitting both his head and the girl's on the ceiling or walls. It was small, and strewn with bones and other grisly trophies. It truly looked a beast's lair. Two strides took him across to the opposite wall, where he laid his hand on the wall and whispered "open."