Page 12 of Ravaging Red (Monsters of the Hollow Realm #1)

Window Between Worlds

RAEL

S he was touching herself again.

I felt it before the dream wrapped around me and dragged me under.

I wasn’t even fully asleep when it hit. Just drifting.

And then there she was , inside my mind, her scent thick and wild, her thighs spread wide as she tried to take back what I’d already claimed.

She’d tried to cum several times before, but this time there was pain involved.

Gods, I felt it. The first slow stroke of her fingers.

The subtle shift of her hips. The way her breath hitched when she whispered my name, soft and soaked in filthy need.

My cock pulsed to life instantly, thick and straining, the tip already wet.

I couldn’t fucking breathe with how hard it made me.

Even with the Veil between us, thick with blood light and old magic, I felt her. The way her body begged. The way her frustration built. The way her cunt clenched uselessly around empty air, desperate to be filled.

Her purpose was to torture me. Tugging at her nipples, rolling her hips, whimpering in that needy way, knowing she was slowly killing me.

She moved like sin and innocence twisted into that plump, curvy body that was made for me to devour.

She was soaked, slick all over, her thighs glistening with it.

Her scent made me feel like a loose cannon.

My tongue lashed out, touching nothing but air, yet almost tasting her.

I reached for her, but she kept slipping just out of reach, the Veil dragging her backward every time I lunged forward, my claws dug into black dirt, my teeth ground together before I let out a roar for her.

And still, she kept touching herself. Edging until she was at that peak, and then…nothing.

Her thighs trembled, her breath hitched, and I heard that desperate little cry of my name, broken and soaked in want. It vibrated down the tether that connected us, a line spun from scent and obsession and something older than magic itself. Her pleasure rose, thick and sweet, then stalled.

Her climax shattered, dissolving before it could consume her.

It was stopped cold by that barrier between us.

Her body shivered and then collapsed in defeat.

I felt her sob and that pain. It was a wound that felt deep and violent.

My chest clenched. My cock twitched. My fists slammed into the ground as I snarled.

I was caged in my own fucking mind, knowing she couldn’t cum because she needed me . Not just any touch. Mine .

My hands. My tongue. My cock. My hunger.

I shared in the sob that cracked in her chest as she collapsed to the floor, curling up in that protective fetus position. In the emptiness that followed, I endured alongside her, the frustration that came with it.

She couldn’t find a release because she needed me to help her. I had tied her to me unknowingly and now we both suffered.

I would be the only one who could fill her with how she needed. The only one who could make her scream until her throat was raw, and body melted around my knot. Until her cunt forgot what it was like to clench around anything but the thick, pulsing stretch of her monster.

My eyes shot open. I was drenched in sweat, panting like I’d just run through the gates of hell. My sheets were soaked. My cock was stone hard, pulsing angrily, and flushed against my abdomen. The ache had turned to pain, and every part of me was on fire.

“Fuck,” I growled, dragging a clawed hand through my hair, fisting the strands until I saw stars behind my eyes.

On the other hand, I gripped the red cloak I’d found discarded on the path that day.

It was still filled with her scent as I pressed it to my nose, taking a sharp inhale as I tried to calm myself.

I couldn’t take it anymore. She was in heat. But so was I. And it was driving me mad.

I grabbed the base of my cock, squeezing it hard so it hurt. I needed the pain to feel like I still had some control. But it wasn’t enough. Not when I’d felt her body tremble from a world away. Not when I’d tasted the way her soul screamed for mine.

I wanted to fuck her until she cried. I wanted to ruin her until she couldn’t remember what it felt like to not need me.

She was mine. She’d always been mine. I’d let her go, but now the Blood Moon was punishing us both.

I threw my head back and howled, the sound tearing through the room. My back arched, my thighs shook, and as much as I stroked there was no pleasure, no release. It was pain. Pure and ugly. A sick joke of what I could have had if I hadn’t let her go.

I collapsed, chest heaving, stomach tight, cock still at half-mast and throbbing.

She was breaking and so was I.

I took off down the dark path and into the woods.

Ran like my life depended on it. When I got to the Veil I stopped, I paced its edges, my claws carving into the earth, my breath coming out in harsh, ragged bursts.

Every step left a trench. Every inhale dragged in more of her .

The scent of her slickness was still in the air.

She was ripe and aching, as much for me as I was for her.

The taste of her broken frustration lingered in my throat, thick and coppery, like blood.

I could smell her tears, too. That little whimper when she collapsed in defeat.

That shattered sob. It echoed inside my skull, drove itself into my spine, throbbed against the base of my cock until I thought I’d lose my fucking mind.

Do you have any idea what it does to a monster to wait?

To be bound by instinct and ruled by ritual and still…still…try to be patient?

I suffered in silence for a full fucking year while the only thing that ever belonged to me walked just out of reach. Torture like that, doesn’t make you stronger. It breaks you.

And it broke me.

And when I finally have her in my grasp… she runs?

After everything. After the way she looked at me beneath those long lashes. After the way her body bowed under the weight of my voice. After the way her cunt clenched like it had already been branded with my mark.

She fucking ran. Why?

Why did she deny what every inch of her body already accepted? Why did she fight what the blood had already decided?

Why the fuck did I let her go?

I knew why. I’d told myself the lie repeatedly.

I wanted her to come back on her own. I wanted her to choose me.

Not just because the Hollow bound us, not just because my cock hardened the moment her scent crossed the wind.

I wanted her craving me. Desperate. Addicted. But she was stronger than I thought.

In my anger I wanted her to scream for it, to scream for me!

But that was human thinking. Human empathy and rage mixed into one. And there was no such thing in the Hollow Realm.

Not during the Blood Moon and never when the Veil burns and the blood answers.

The Blood Moon was high now, swollen and merciless, casting its curse across every inch of the Hollow Realm.

It burned through my blood like venom, and whispered truths no creature could ignore.

It was the old magic, raw and unrelenting.

It forgave nothing. It demanded everything.

It turned the hunger inside us from longing to torment.

It pulled at every tether, every bond, and amplified it until it was turned into need . Pure, blinding, agonizing need.

Under the Blood Moon, mates had died from lust alone. Their bodies are consumed by starvation, not for food or water, but for touch. For connection. For a claiming that would never come.

I couldn’t let that happen. Not to her or me .

The mark wanted to form. I felt it deep in my bones, in the throb of my knot, in the way my soul itched to bite and brand her.

It wasn’t love. Love was just a myth. A fragile human construct.

But a mark …a true monster’s mark…. that was real.

It was binding. Eternal. Flesh to flesh, soul to soul, a scar of possession so deep it stitched two beings together even across realms.

When a monster craves a mark, when his body decides, it happens. Whether his mate wants it or not. Whether he wants it or not.

And now? Now I was done waiting.

I waited for nightfall, and then I crossed through the Veil.

A monster in the human realm, I stayed in the shadows.

I remained silent and coiled as I made my way down the path to the entrance of the Hollow Woods.

My body throbbed, scent glands flared, claws twitching with the need to hold and grip and spread .

I moved through the familiar darkness, tracking the memory of her scent until it painted the air around me in ripe, wet heat.

Her trail glowed like a beacon, straight to that little house on the edge of town, the one I’d circled too many times to admit, watching her from the tree line.

A beast learning patience he didn’t possess.

I found the sliding back door unlocked. She must have forgotten to lock it, or maybe she still didn’t fear me enough. She still didn’t know what I was capable of for her. Or maybe she still didn’t think monsters weren’t real. I’d have to teach her otherwise.

The house was dark and quiet, the muffled groans of the wood stretching beneath my weight. I stalked through it as quietly as I could, inhaling her scent with every step, that rich, addictive perfume of cunt, and sweat, and forbidden heat soaking the walls, the air, her bedroom.

I found her there. Dead to the world. She was splayed across the mattress not knowing what had come for her.

She was more than temptation. She was an indulgence made flesh.

All that soft, generous body lay out like a feast, glistening in the moonlight that spilled through her window.

Her skin shimmered like cream kissed by moonlight, and that thin little slip she wore, nearly translucent, was a cruel fucking tease.

One that didn’t hide a body like hers, it enhanced it.