Page 23 of Ravaging Red (Monsters of the Hollow Realm #1)

I felt the bond with Rael shudder, and I stopped breathing. The warmth I always felt, the tether to my Wolf, dimmed. I couldn’t feel him. I couldn’t feel anything but pain.

As my life was being drawn out of me, I heard the woods suddenly explode. Rael’s roar shattered through the trees.

His large black form slammed into the creature, claws slashing, eyes burning with rage.

I’d never seen him in this savage state, and it startled me.

I scooted back against a tree trunk watching as his monstrous form seethed, appearing vicious and unstoppable.

He tore into the shadowed thing, ripping pieces of it free, scattering smoke and ash and screaming darkness.

But the thing was fast. It threw him back with a burst of black energy that cracked the trees. I screamed again, crawling toward him, but the creature grabbed me again.

“No!” I cried, kicking as it dragged me back.

“You must die!” It shrieked.

And then everything just stopped. Because Rael was there. No longer a Wolf but something older. Wilder.

He didn’t roar this time. He descended .

He was a blur of muscle and fur. His sharp claws slashed through the air as he launched at the creature. His roar split the forest like thunder, sharp teeth gleaming under the Blood Moon as he struck. The thing shrieked, not in fear, but in fury. As if it welcomed the fight.

Their bodies collided in a blur of blackness and dark smoke.

Rael slashed at it, raking deep furrows into its chest, splitting bone from smoke.

Black blood spilled, hissing like acid as it hit the ground.

It burned everything in its path, and I moved my feet away before it seared me.

The creature retaliated with a burst of cursed wind, its skeletal hands weaving symbols in the air, ancient and jagged, the magic unraveling quickly through the clearing.

“You should have stayed in your den, Wolf,” the creature spat, its voice twisting and echoing with every word.

“You should have never brought a human here. This bond you’ve forged, it’s blasphemy . She is flesh. You are ruin. And together, you insult everything the Veil was meant to hold in.”

Rael snarled, ignoring the lash of bone that struck across his ribs, blood spilling hot down his side.

He lunged again, and this time, he was not merciful.

His claws dug into the creature’s neck, his teeth snapping through smoke and cartilage, and he forced it to the ground with a roar that made the trees tremble.

“I don’t know what the fck you are, but you don’t get to speak of her,” he growled, voice low and shaking with fury. “You don’t look at her. You don’t breathe near her.”

The creature shrieked again, trying to form another spell, but Rael was already tearing through it, ripping at the magic-laced bone, dragging chunks of shadowed flesh free with every savage strike.

The ground steamed beneath their struggle, the air thick with the scent of blood and something much more evil. Envy.

But even as Rael’s fangs buried deep into its throat, even as the creature screamed one last time as its form broke, dissolving into smoke and wind, it still didn’t die .

Instead, it threatened. “You think you've won,” it hissed, its voice now a coil of air and venom, wrapping around us both like a curse. “But bonds like yours... they bleed. And I will be there when it does. To take what you love most.”

The shadows scattered, the forest groaned, and the clearing went still once more.

Rael stood panting, his body trembling, the glow in his eyes dimming as his claws dripped with fading traces of the creature’s form. He turned to me, chest heaving, his face a mask of rage and fear, and for a long moment, he didn’t speak.

He suddenly reached for me, pulling me into his warmth as we boh collapsed to the ground. I could feel the thud of his racing heartbeat on my cheek. “Are you alright?” His voice was hoarse and out of breath.

“How…how did you know?” I whispered, running my hands across his chest, my fingertips hovering over the wounds there.

He held me as if I was all that tethered him to the earth. “I felt it,” he gasped. “The second it touched you. I felt it trying to tear you away from me.”

I clung to him, sobbing. “It said it lost its mate… it wanted to make us suffer. I could feel him sucking my life away.”

“You’ll feel it for a while,” he said. “An echo. Like a bruise on your soul.”

“I felt… cold,” I whispered.

He cradled my face, pulled me close. “I’ll warm you. Always. I’ll never let you feel that way again.”

“Will it be back?” I asked, nervously glancing in between the trees that surrounded us.

“We are safe for now, Red.”

“But it will be back,” I insisted.

He hesitated before finally responding. “It will return but we will be prepared.”

“How?”

“I will not let you be harmed, Red.” He stated with a finality that stirred my heart.

Gods, I reached for him with trembling fingers and pulled his face down to mine.

It wasn’t just desperation or survival or the aching need to feel whole again after that thing had tried to tear me apart.

No. It was more. I pressed my lips to his and breathed again.

It was the kind of kiss that spoke in silence and held a hungry promise. One that sealed my fate.

Our mouths collided in a slow, sultry storm, the taste of him ignited that familiar fire in me.

His lips crushed mine with reverence and hunger all at once, as if he wasn’t sure whether to devour me or worship me.

The long length of his tongue swept past my lips with a groan, coaxing, tasting, claiming , until the ache in my chest unraveled and spilled out between us in every panting breath.

I curled into him, gasping against the edge of his mouth, my hands buried in his thick fur, and he held me like I was made of something fragile.

He kissed me like he needed the air inside my lungs, like he would tear the world in half to keep my breath in his mouth.

It was a kiss not meant to soothe, but to brand .

It felt like a silent vow that I was his. That whatever came next, be it blood, battle, or ruin, we would meet it bound together.

When the kiss broke, his forehead pressed to mine, his eyes soft but still burning. “I’m taking you home,” he growled.

His arms swept beneath me, gently lifting me from the bloodstained ground, and carried me through the trees. I shuddered as I remembered his monstrous form when he fought. I should have feared him them but how could I when he showed me so much love.

And it wasn’t weak or sweet. He was not soft by any means.

He showed a love that was savage and utterly unforgiving .