Rule #15: Never let your guard down even when on vacation because you might end up kidnapped by a random psycho

 

I wake up with a pounding headache and nausea roiling in my gut. Keeping my eyes shut, I rub my temples and groan. What the hell happened last night? I know I didn’t drink enough to give myself a hangover, even if the alcohol was strong enough to beat a paranormal’s metabolism. I remember having a great time at dinner and leaving the restaurant to go back to the bungalow with Ever, but the rest of the night is a complete blank. Forcing my eyes open, I take in my surroundings and am shocked by what I see. Somehow, I’m back home in our bedroom in Georgia. Only, there’s no color. Everything here is in black and white.

Not seeing Ever in the bed beside me, I call out, “Ever? Are you here?” When I don’t get an answer, I reach out with our mind link.

Tesoro? Are you there?

I don’t get a response and it’s at that moment, I realize our link is muted for some reason. I can hardly feel him. Jumping out of the bed, I stumble when dizziness hits and race to the bathroom to lose whatever’s in my stomach. When I finish, I feel slightly better, so I wipe my mouth off with some toilet paper and use water from the tap to rinse the taste from it. Exiting the bathroom, I head for the bedroom door and check every room up here before I run downstairs to continue searching this entire black and white house for the man I love.

As I find more empty rooms with Ever nowhere to be found, I start to panic. “Ever! Where are you?”

I run outside and stop dead in my tracks. Instead of the sprawling land of our home in Georgia, I’m surrounded by tall grey walls. What the fuck is this place?

A sinister chuckle echoes around me but as I look this way and that, I don’t see anyone. The chuckling stops and a voice says, “Welcome to my dimension.” I recognize the voice as Hosen’s, the man who led our diving excursion. I knew that man set off my spidey-senses for a reason.

Looking to the sky, I shout, “Why am I here? What have you done with my mate?”

Hosen says, “You’re here to play a game. You have until midnight to locate your mate who is being held somewhere in my maze. If you fail to find him before time runs out, you both die.”

“Sounds simple enough.”

Hosen laughs sinisterly. “Oh, that’s what you think but this game wouldn’t be fun if I made things simple. Inside the maze, there are creatures that can and will kill you if you come across them. You’ll have to battle them and the maze in order to locate your mate. The spell I cast to bring you into my dimension has sealed your animal half, so you won’t be able to rely on it. And don’t bother trying to get a location out of your mate by using a mind link if you’ve got one. He has no idea where he is.”

Damn it. Curious about the house, I ask, “How did you bring our house here?”

“It’s part of the spell that brought you here. The magic homed in on memories of the house you share and replicated it here as the starting point to the maze.” Hmm…that could work in our favor if the magic replicated everything.

“Why are you doing this?”

Hosen growls, “Enough questions. It’s time to play. You’ve got four hours until midnight.”

A giant clock ticking down from four hours appears in the sky and I curse. Turning around, I head back into the house. Finding the hidden room where Ever keeps his arsenal, I put my hand on the palm reader and pray the magic replicated everything in here. When the door slides open and reveals walls of guns, grenades, rocket launchers, ammunition, knives, swords, and all kinds of tech, my shoulders sag in relief.

Stepping into the room, the door closes behind me. Walking over to the small dresser, I open the drawers and pull out a pair of tactical pants. Putting them on, I go around the room filling the pockets with ammo and a couple grenades. Grabbing a tactical vest off one wall, I stuff the pockets of it with more ammo and grenades then I start outfitting myself with weapons. Strapping knife and gun holsters to my legs, I put an x shaped twin sword holster on my back adding swords to it.

Once I have the holsters strapped on, I pick out my guns, loading each of them and making sure there’s a bullet in the chambers before I put them in the holsters, then I add the knives. When I’m fully loaded, I go for the tech. Grabbing the little handheld device that shows me where all Ever’s trackers are currently located, I pull up the ID number for the one in the necklace I gifted Ever for his birthday. After he taught me how to use his tracking system in case he was ever kidnapped, I had the necklace made. It’s waterproof and he never takes it off. The design is a medallion featuring my animal half and on the back it’s engraved with, For Tesoro, my forever love. – V.

I thought I was being paranoid getting him a gift like that, but it seems the caution was warranted. The handheld GPS signal receiver shows the distance between where I am and Ever’s tracker. All I have to do is navigate the maze while heading for the direction of his blinking dot. Thank the gods this thing actually works here. I’d be fucked if it didn’t. When I’m certain I have everything I need to face whatever comes at me as I navigate this maze, I leave the arsenal room and exit the house. Heading for the entrance to the maze, a grin crosses my face when I think of how the tables have turned. Ever’s usually the one rescuing me but now, I get to rescue him. As for Hosen, well, he’s going to find out soon enough that he picked the wrong couple to fuck with.

Entering the maze, I check the GPS receiver and turn left. Mazes are designed to be difficult but with the GPS tracker, I can make sure I keep heading towards Ever’s dot and not away from it when I come across a dead end. If I had Ever’s speed, I could run up the walls and leap across the tops to get to him. However, I have a feeling if I did that, Hosen would call it cheating and I’d end up getting us both killed. That’s not something I want to happen so it’s a good thing I’m not a vampire.

When I come to the end of this section, I turn right and am greeted by hissing snarls. Up ahead, blocking the path is one of the ugliest creatures I’ve ever seen. It’s the only colorful thing I’ve come across aside from myself. It looks like a prehistoric aquatic chimera. The creature’s scaly hide is a mottled purple grey with black spikes running down its back connected by a thin layer of skin. The legs are those of a lion with mini versions of the back spikes attached and claws as deadly looking as those of a velociraptor.

The creature’s head is reminiscent of a giant piranha but with a mouthful of super long razor-sharp teeth, eyes as red as blood and a mohawk of equally sharp spikes. Drool is dripping from the creature’s jowls and a sound that’s a mix between a bark and a yowl is the only warning I get before the creature charges at me. Drawing one of my swords, I stand my ground and growl, “Come get some you ugly son of a bitch.”