Chapter Seven

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STRANGE THINGS WERE HAPPENING.

An odd thing to think—considering how strange my life had become—but strange things occurred nevertheless.

Things that shouldn’t be possible.

I was no longer in Switzerland but in a forest filled with towering pines. Autumn leaves crackled beneath my moccasin covered feet. Soft beaded leather clothed me, feathers bounced in my hair, tattoos glowed on my arms hidden beneath ivory bangles.

My skin was darker, my hair black instead of brown.

I felt wilder, more in tune with the forest, knowing the breeze swept from the north and the sun signalled late afternoon. I was as native to these woods as the chipmunk watching us and the herd of deer running past in the distance.

Unlike the man doing his best to bed me.

He was an outlander.

A ruffian who stood like a tree trunk with flaming red hair, matching copper beard, and hands the size of dinner plates.

I’d been dodging him since he’d tried to pounce on me by the river’s edge. I’d darted out of his grasp, nimble and swift while he was lumbering and slow.

The only problem was with every second that ticked past, my swiftness drowned beneath sex. Elixir crept faster and crueller through my blood, ensuring I buckled beneath its horror, all while I did my best to ignore it.

I ran from its lust as surely as I ran from the man who no longer looked like Drake but was Drake.

A man who grinned and offered to ease my burning, needy desire. A man with an appendage perfectly created to grant me release after release so I didn’t sink into the quagmire from before—the sticky agony of not being able to come after doing my best to fight it when Sully tried to rescue us.

I’d fought it for far longer than I’d thought possible that night.

Could I do that again?

Could I lock down my system and prevent an orgasm? And if I did, would I be sentencing myself to death by a heart ready to self-implode?

There was no middle ground.

No right and wrong.

If I didn’t bow to my needs, I might not be breathing if Sully arrived.

But if I did give in...how can I ever live with myself?

My heart galloped, hiccupping as I parried out of the way of the man running toward me. “You know you want my cock, girl. Just let me give it to you.”

He was right.

I wanted him.

I wanted his tanned, scarred hands on my symbol-tattooed flesh. I wanted his red beard to scratch my inner thighs as he ate me. I wanted to attack the drawstring holding his tweed trousers around his hips and have him sink inside me.

But it wasn’t me who wanted him.

It was a lie, a drug—the worst kind of trick.

That man wasn’t Sully or the owner of my soul.

He was my enemy.

A troll.

I would rather my heart kick its last beat before I permitted him to fuck me.

“Leave me alone!”

“You’ll be begging me in a few more seconds.” He smirked, scratching his beard. “I’ll just wait here for you to come to your senses.”

“I’ll cut off your balls and throw them into the river if you come near me.”

He laughed hard, his baritone scattering pigeons from the pines.

My skin prickled.

Heat clenched my core.

Wetness dribbled down my leg.

Shit!

Turning away from him, I breathed hard through my nose.

Ignore it.

Ignore it.

Please, God, ignore it.

I wedged my hands into my belly, only to have the insane urge to drop them between my legs.

My leg...

I shivered as a breeze but not a breeze licked around my ankle.

A phantom touch. The sensation of a man’s fingers on my skin before it was gone.

The tease came again, this time around my wrists, a simple brush and then no more.

Drake ran at me, his brawny frame ploughing through fallen leaves and making orange foliage dance around the campsite.

I ran.

Until a few minutes ago, every time I’d tried to run, the boundary of my cage included just a few steps. I could race from the river where my weaved and waterproofed flax pot waited in the grasses. I could reach the bearskin tent and vault over the crackling fire. I could kick his pottery bowls and throw dirt at his face, but I couldn’t gallop into the trees.

I couldn’t chase the deer as they ran.

An invisible blockade prevented me, keeping me within the confines of my hell.

But now...I had no such parameters.

I leaped into the thicket, relishing in the release running gave me. I bumped into invisible things, sharp corners, and hard barriers. I couldn’t see the obstructions, my path clear within the fantasy, but who knew what my body ran into in the outside world.

How had I been freed from where Drake had tied me?

Who untied me?

I ran faster, uncaring I collided and crunched into obstacles. That was why Sully insisted on the harness in Euphoria. Why a goddess was tethered because it prevented bruises and pain by running in one world and crashing in another.

He also said it was to prevent the illusion from breaking apart.

Could I smash this hallucination to pieces if I just kept running into things I couldn’t see? If I forced my body to jerk my mind back into its control, could I be free?

Can I escape Euphoria?

Even if I escape, I’ll still need sex.

Elixir bubbled and grumbled in my blood, doing its best to make me submit but unable to take centre stage while I ran for my life.

My heart couldn’t double beat when it was needed to feed depleted muscles.

Is that the key?

Could I stay alive by pushing myself to the brink of exhaustion in exercise?

“Fuck, come back here!” Drake’s snarl chased me from the campsite.

I looked over my shoulder and tripped over a stupid tree root.

The moment I rolled in the bracken, any thoughts of running were over. Leaves against my skin, moss against my breasts. Everything was erotic. Everything made me need.

My hips shot skyward. My fingers rubbed my clit.

God, please!

I need. I need!

My system stopped asking me and stole all my control. An internal seizure rippled from my shoulders to my toes, bringing with it lust and longing and the undeniable build-up of a release.

No.

No.

Shit!

My lips spread wide as I contorted on the forest floor. My first orgasm bowled through me without permission. Sharp and savage, intense and instant.

My inner muscles clenched, rippling with heaven.

Oh!

Elixir bypassed my mental refusals, hijacking my sight, my breath, my everything.

I came apart, humping my hand like a wild animal all while Drake caught up to me. If he landed beside me. If he touched me in my current position, I wouldn’t survive what would happen.

I wouldn’t be able to sleep with him and stay mentally intact.

I wouldn’t be able to stay me.

No!

Launching to my feet, the echoes of my release still clenching my belly, I tripped and scurried deeper into the forest.

“Hey, get your ass back here!” Drake yelled.

I ran toward the tree-studded horizon.

My breasts bounced with tingles and desire.

My naked skin kissed by breezes and flower petals.

I kept running even as the world became a sinful playground to indulge in.

Elixir turned my vision red with lusty haze.

I gasped for a different type of exercise.

Sex.

God, sex.

Yes.

No!

I ran faster.

I focused on the horizon.

So close.

So near.

Too far.

A crack and a whir. A gust of power and oddness.

And the horizon vanished, spitting me out at the campsite, its fire still crackling as if I’d never left.

A reboot.

A portal that offered a sweeping vista but ended so suddenly and transported me back to the heart of the fantasy.

No!

NO!

Drake suddenly appeared beside me, his shock matching mine as we stood panting by the fire.

How?

How did this labyrinth work?

How could you escape somewhere that didn’t exist?

How did you find an exit when all exits led back to the beginning?

No...this can’t be happening.

I hugged myself.

My skin rejoiced.

The urge to drop my touch lower crippled me.

I hated this.

Hated it!

There has to be a way out.

There has to be!

But there wasn’t. No way to run out of this nightmare. No way to swim or climb or bolt. No way to stop my descent into a horny, helpless hologram.

Tears stung and slipped down my cheeks.

I’d hoped...

Please.

“Oh, God.” I jack-knifed forward as elixir turned vicious in its hunger. One release was not enough. It was just the start.

Come.

Do it.

Finger yourself.

Fuck him.

Do it!

I balled my fists into my belly, pleading with my nasty thirst not to do this. Not to hurt me like this. Not to kill me like this.

“Stop it!” I screeched. I wanted to slap myself. Drown myself. Throw myself into the fire if it would stop the curse in my blood.

“I’ll help.” Drake put his hands on me. “I’ll fuck you like you need.”

I crumpled.

I shivered.

Fire and need.

Ice and dread.

He manhandled me until his arms locked tight, his body pressed close, and his lips tried to kiss me.

I was two people in one.

A nightmare and a dream.

Heaven and hell.

I ducked his kiss.

I embraced coherency and slapped him. “Get off me.”

“Fuck, you’re—”

“Stop!” I kneed him in the balls; my strike only grazed him, but he dropped me instantly.

I ran.

His hand caught my wrist, yanking me back.

Another wave of hot, horrid elixir made me keel over. I fought myself all while trying to fight him.

“Stop trying to run. You’re supposed to want this.” He tried to kiss me again.

I raked my nails down his cheek.

“Come here,” he grunted, keeping his hips away from mine in case I kneed him again. “Why isn’t elixir working?”

We grappled and fought, grotesque lust swarming, his paws tearing at my calfskin clothing, his pants coming undone in our struggles.

“Beg me,” he barked. “Beg me to fuck you.”

Yes.

“NEVER!”

We fell to the ground, still fighting.

He pinned me on my back, still battling.

“Gotcha.” He dragged his tongue up my neck.

Elixir was a heinous master.

I almost came.

“Fuck you!” I tried kneeing him in the balls again as he slithered on top of me, his hands shoving my hand-crafted trousers down, his hips angling to mount.

For a mortifying second, I contemplated giving in.

Sully was most likely dead.

I would be too if I didn’t buckle beneath elixir.

Drake would kill me—I had no doubt about that—but perhaps not today, not now, not here.

If I allowed him to use me, wasn’t that me using him? Wasn’t I the one high? The one who needed this?

But as his mouth clamped onto mine and the tip of his cock found my entrance, I couldn’t do it.

I chose death by cardiac arrest.

I choose Sully!

I went wild.

I scratched and clawed.

I squirmed and kicked.

I twisted every bone and contorted every muscle, making him curse and growl above me.

Dirt coated us, scents of earth and fallen leaves, the heat of the fire beside us.

We fought for a minute or maybe a second, but for all my pride and ferocity, he managed to slam my hands above my head, managed to splay my legs with his, managed to grind his cock against my pussy.

Tears spilled faster.

Rage knotted with need, and lust tangled with terror.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

This was it.

The death of Eleanor as I knew her.

I waited for him to plunge inside me.

I braced myself to die.

Only...strangeness wasn’t done with me today.

Yet another bizarre twist in my godforsaken fate.

The sun suddenly snuffed out.

Gone.

Vanished.

No more.

Only the glow of the fire illuminated a suddenly haunting forest.

Daytime to night-time, just like that.

Chills decorated my skin as Drake stilled above me. “What the—” He looked around, his eyes peering in the sudden blackness, sensing the dangerous change. The perilous whispers in the trees. The slithering serpents in the dark.

The campsite, equipped for erotic couplings between guest and goddess, switched.

It morphed and cracked from one cocoon to another, shedding a chrysalis of daylight for shadows drenched in menacing peril.

Trees sloughed their leaves and stood like mighty stakes. Fissures opened up in the ground, glowing with crimson lava, revealing the stomach of the underworld. Crows flocked through the sky, their caws grim and condemning.

The world switched from normal parameters to a wasteland of trickery.

A deeper level of fear attacked me.

A fear born from a human steadfastness in seasons and the fact that the sun couldn’t just...disappear.

A forest couldn’t become hell, bleeding normalcy into fiction. Spiders the size of cats weren’t supposed to crawl by, nor wolves the size of polar bears to slink in the shadows.

I swallowed a scream as more and more predators arrived from nowhere.

Sabre tooth cats with canines still holding carrion from prior meals. Bears as tall as houses, their shaggy fur dreadlocked with gore. Vultures fell from the sky, ringing us in our fire circle. A stampede of furious wildebeest snorted in the gloom. A howl and snarl of more wolves sent elixir second-best beneath my desire to flee.

This...wasn’t possible.

This threatened to break my mind, to prove my imagination had limits and I’d reached the threshold of what I could accept.

It’s not possible!

Wait...

It’s not possible unless the man who made all of this possible is here.

Hope sprang.

Wishes spilled faster than my tears.

Sully!

I fought harder, knocking Drake sideways in his stupor of what’d happened to his fantasy. “Did I load it wrong?” He scowled, crawling back over me and pinning my wrists deeper into the dirt the more I struggled. “Quit it.”

A wolf snapped at his head.

Drake didn’t react, almost as if he believed it was just a mirage. A program glitching that couldn’t hurt him.

But I smelled the wolf’s rancid breath. I felt the breeze of its jaws. I heard the thunder of its paws.

“Let me go!” I fought again. I fought to wake up before something far more dangerous than Drake decided to have me. This might not be real. This might be entirely in our minds.

But our minds made it real.

Our brains told our skin what to feel and how to react. Our nervous system was the only reason we felt the world we lived in.

This was now the world we lived in—regardless if it was true or not. This world could kill us as surely as our old one.

“Get off me!”

God, I need.

Need!

My hips rocked as instinct suffocated beneath elixir.

Stop it!

It wasn’t the animals I had to be afraid of, it was me.

I was my own worst enemy.

Please!

“Shut the fuck up.” His red beard shuddered as he spoke. “Let me think.” He rocked his hips into mine, his cock still unnervingly close to taking me.

I hated that I shuddered in horror but also hunger. I contemplated riding him just so I could be free of the constricting, clutching mayhem of my heart.

I needed to come again.

The palpitations and skipping, tripping beats made me sick and lightheaded.

“You’ve been in these illusions plenty of times, how do you reset it?” Drake stared at me, his gaze orange from the flickering fire.

Elixir bowled through me, no longer willing to play nice, dragging me deeper into sex-crazed.

My back arched. My core begged. I let out a pitiful scream.

I need.

I can’t.

Stop it!

Drake pressed his hips into mine, scattering me in all directions, leaving only hate and shame behind. “Finally want me, huh?” He rubbed his cock against my clit, driving me headfirst into the beginnings of the most diabolical release. “I’ll fuck you, girl, but not until I figure out what the fuck is going on around here.”

“Allow me to show you.”

That voice.

My head whipped to the side.

The release taunting me erupted from the sinful snarl.

I convulsed with carnal clenches.

It wasn’t Drake who granted me pleasure. It was the owner of that magnificent growl. A grumble full of hellfire and brimstone fury. Darker than night, blacker than sin, as deadly and as lethal as venom.

Sully?

Disgusted tears drenched my cheeks as echoes of my climax made me feeble, unable to fight Drake off me. I had a small window to get away before I lost myself entirely. A few precious seconds to stay loyal to Sully and myself.

“Let her go.”

Drake twisted to look behind him as the night shimmered and parted like a veil, delivering not a man but a monster.

We both froze.

My heart tangled and tore, quadruple beating with rapidly encroaching death.

The new arrival wasn’t just a monster. He was a beast so much scarier than all the predators currently stalking. A beast standing on two legs with fangs like a vampire, eyes like a snake, and scales like a dragon.

Shaped like a man but taller than any I’d ever seen, he had no hair, no softness, no vulnerabilities. He had goat horns and bat wings and talons stolen straight from a devil.

Drake gulped as the nightmare stepped toward us. No, not stepped. Flew. An effortless swoop of membrane wings and snap of power.

Drake was lifted in one hand.

Thrown with one toss.

Eradicated with a single thought.

He cried out as he landed on the other side of the fire.

And the demon fell to one knee beside me. He held out his scaly hand, his glowing reptile eyes raking over me, and I knew.

My heart knew.

My soul knew.

My body instantly wanted him.

It wanted this monster because it knew who puppeteered such a thing.

It wasn’t biologically possible. He wasn’t my species anymore.

But he was male.

He was mine.

He’s...Sully.

With tears pouring, I placed my tiny breakable hand into his claw-frosted paw.

Electricity crackled. Chemistry ignited. That all-knowing, all-consuming, all-binding bond between a god and a goddess who no longer played in the human world but had strayed directly into myth ignited.

It gushed between us.

It branded us, burned us, broke us into pieces that belonged entirely to the other.

This was what Sully was.

He wasn’t just a man.

He wasn’t just a monster.

He was everything.

He was every creature and element.

He was fury and faith and utterly blinding loyalty.

Elixir refused to be thwarted any longer.

I’d found the man I loved and lusted.

He was here.

I could be given redemption and releases.

I could feel him beneath the fantasy. Not wearing fingerprint sensors meant I touched his skin beneath the scales.

I burned.

Scooting to my knees, I crawled into him. “You’re alive. You came for me.”

I twined myself over his scaly skin, my body with its oil sensed the otherworldly armour he wore but my fingers stroked the contours of human muscles. I kissed the ice-cold angles of his cheekbones.

I wanted him.

I needed him.

Now!

A savage growl echoed in his throat. The wolves surrounding us answered back, a symphony of snarls and yips.

Goosebumps prickled me, activating my lust a thousandfold. My thirst for him was maddening, terrifying. “Sully.”

Holding me in his massive paws, cords of power etching his reptilian skin, his features remained vicious but a soft glow appeared in the snake-slit eyes. “I found you.”

My stomach clenched as he brought my hand to his icy lips.

“I love you, Eleanor. I’m sorry I’m late. I’m sorry for what you’ve endured. But this is the last time you’ll ever be hurt this way. I give you my word.”

His voice wasn’t just a voice. It wasn’t a bear’s growl or wolf’s howl, it was a blend of all of them. A thick thunder of gravel and hurricanes.

Another orgasm threatened to split me in two.

I was turned on by his sheer potency. The fact that he could kill me with a single misplaced touch. He was so dangerous in this new form. It made every feminine, female part of me spread her legs and beg.

I wanted to be ridden and claimed.

I wanted him to take me for his own, and if he killed me while doing so, I would gladly give him my life forever.

“Sully...” More tears fell. “Thank God, you survived.”

“I did.”

“You came after me.”

“I’ll always come after you.” He nuzzled my nose with his. “You’re mine and I’m yours and I have so much to atone for.”

My heart smashed against my ribs, triple beating, failing. “I need you.”

He pulled away, his slitted eyes flashing with regret. “I can’t fuck you, Eleanor. Not like last time.” His voice rumbled, stroking me with fiery licks.

His denial hurt me worse than anything. “Please...it hurts. My heart...I need. Please, don’t refuse me.”

“I can’t feel you almost die in my arms again.” His talon-tipped thumb stroked my knuckles, his massive paw skating higher up my arm. “I can’t be the reason you suffer.”

My limb looked like a twig in his grasp. A silly little twig that he could snap at any moment. I gasped as my heart fisted and suffocated, making me breathless. “But I won’t be able to—”

“I’ll help you, Jinx...” With his strange eyes locked on mine, he hurt me. “I’m sorry.” His claw punctured my skin, driving the sharp tip into my vein, poisoning me with whatever venom he carried. “I love you, Eleanor. Please...please forgive me.”

“Forgive you...?” My eyelashes fluttered.

My heart heaved a final lurch.

Tiredness.

Heaviness.

Nothingness.