PRIMAL NIGHTS

Prologue: On Broken Wings

Prologue: On Broken Wings

Open Wilderness, Vermont Area, Unknown Location...

     Thick clouds of black smoke lit up the tree tops as the roaring sound of a lone white painted biz jet with a lone red strip across the bottom half from tip to tail, soared past a few height-given trees barely missing the tips as they scraped against the metal body intensifying the rather spectacular and terrifying descent amid the vast open wilderness so far from anything remotely civilized let alone the big city from whence the plane had arrived. The sheer aspect of panic on the faces of the ill-fated passengers and crew aboard the lone out-of-control flight had been unknown to the lurking creatures and blooms below as the plane continued to spin out of control in the wake of a second combustion of the engine.

The wings began to catch fire leaving a spectacular streak of burning bright orange, yellow, and red amid dark gray then black smoke as it sped to its demise without a cause for slowing down. Had the terrified passengers and crew not been in such a chaotic situation they might have enjoyed the scenery a view of nature in its purest form untouched by the unravelings of man and machine. The speed of the failing and rapidly burning plane continued to increase as the crew did their best to brace for impact advising those in the passenger seats to do the same.

Once such a passenger who had been holding her own amid the chaos and the uncertain doom of the flight found herself doing just that in the wake of the terrified but experienced pilot's last command over the loudspeaker. She had briefly looked over the faces of the three men and two women who had been with her on this most chaotic journey knowing them for a good deal of years in their line of work.

They had been as close as family during their relatively long and pricy campaigns for many an ad agency and product making money by the boatload in the process. This particular excursion had been due to the up-and-coming photo shoot for a new perfume that had hit the market and everyone involved had been thrilled to be the first to come up with a new and exciting means of getting people to buy it.

None had been more thrilled to be asked to tackle such an intriguing product line than veteran model Allegra Cole, who had a vast and intricate network of friends of considerable wealth and a small fortune of her own in the works as she sought to go above and beyond the mere aspect of lending her face and body to commercials and product lines.

She had wanted serious work and serious pay and for that, she sought out the most sensational ways of garnering attention, the ad campaign for the latest line of perfume had been just the ticket she needed to showcase more than just her body and it would have all been a swimmingly successful project had a mechanical malfunction in the company private jet not lead to the unfortunate series of events with the her and her crew being seconds from a deadly crash in the middle of the wilderness for the sake of authenticity in a nature photo shoot for perfume.

More panic filled the doomed travelers as one of the wings from the plane caught fire and rapidly burned off as the nose-dived in the wake of the controls locking. Allegra had taken a moment to finish off her scotch and soda, a drink she had to have while flying due to her utter disdain for the process of flight, to begin with.

She had often objected to flight due to her well-noted fear of heights but became more or less at ease with it in less frequency whenever she'd been good and drunk and landed before she could figure out how long the flight plan had been.

This time she had not been so fortunate and neither had the rest of her crew, which consisted of Herman Myers, her manager and chief consultant, Kenny Porter, her design coordinator, Kendra Daniels, The stylist, and Audra Dawkins, the costume and set director. Photography coordinator and cameraman Karl Wiltson had also been among those who had been aboard the ill-fated flight along with Cory Benson the long-time pilot and new arrival co-pilot Max Welsh.

Herman had been the eldest of the bunch and a very proud gay man when it came to his tastes in style and association with it. He had been born in England and conquered the world of fashion and intrigue a good many years before Allegra had been born. Despite his not having any kids of his own, the crew often considered the old man to be their father figure of sorts. He had taken Allegra under his wing and treated her, especially as a daughter shortly after discovering her during a shopping trip to Flashpoint, New Jersey.

Herman had been quite a handsome man in his youth, tall, and well-built it had been no surprise to Allegra that he'd been a model in his own right. In the final moments before the doom had been set upon them, it was Herman and his warm firm hands and hypnotic blue eyes that met Allegra's brown eyes as he forced a rather proud smile along his still relatively handsome if not aged and pale face.

"I least I get to go out with a bang," he said resigning himself to his fate and the fate of everyone else on board. "A man of style to the very end, a beautiful infamous model beside me, and a good stiff drink in my hand."

Allegra had tears in her eyes as the trajectory of the plane began to shake and rattle the windows and everyone in their seats.

"I love you," she said not taking her eyes off Herman and not at all taking his eyes off her as he finished his drink and sat the glass back down only for it to roll off the seat and shatter against a nearby wall.

"You are the only daughter that I have ever wanted darling, and I will always love you," he replied gripping Allegra's hand in his one final time.

BRACE!

Was all that could be heard over the loudspeaker briefly before the plane hit what Allegra knew to have been water, while one would have believed the impact on water would have been better than one on land, it was not to be so as the plane had splintered as the water beat against it's already battered casing like glass breaking each window and flooding the plane before anyone knew what happened at the instant of the crash.

The private jet charted by one Allegra Cole had been submerged under cold hard water and as a result, Herman Myers died clutching her hand in the wake of the crash, a heart attack had done him in just at impact and before a fatal drowning could.

The force of the crash knocked Allegra out cold amid the water and swept inside the broken plane quickly drowning those who had been knocked unconscious or unable to hold their breath for very long. What Allegra had not known before closing her eyes had been the fact that Herman had fearfully unbuckled her seat belt when she closed her eyes to brace which had given her a fighting chance to make it to the surface just as his heart attack had taken hold of him. He had planned to ensure they could swim out amid the water after impact but he'd died before he could execute his plan due to the desperation to save the life of the only person he'd ever truly loved and the stress of their situation.

As the plane sunk deeper into the dark waters below, an unconscious Allegra Cole ended up floating to the surface appearing as dead weight in the wake of the crash and her unconscious state. She had been fortunate in her situation as a lone hunter had been in the area and took off toward the smoke from the distressed plane and happened upon the floating model badly injured during the crash but holding on by a hair's breadth.

The combined efforts of the stranger and the man she loved like a second father had contributed to her lone survival in a near-fatal crash and she'd been none the wiser.

Several Weeks Earlier...