Page 3 of Ravaging Red (Monsters of the Hollow Realm #1)

The Touch of a Monster

RED

I felt like a little girl again, and not in the good-natured sense of the word.

I felt helpless as I stood there, frozen in place and trembling.

I felt so small beneath the weight of something I couldn’t see but felt everywhere.

The shadows inside the cabin stretched long and deep, and they moved as if they were alive.

My fingers curled at my sides, shaking so hard I could barely hold my breath, let alone my thoughts.

The fear was intense and different, more primal.

The monster under the bed no longer frightened me.

I was now afraid of the one breathing me in from within those shadows.

Everything felt twisted now. This wasn’t my Nana’s cabin anymore.

The warmth I remembered, the scent of cinnamon bread, of pinewood crackling in the hearth, of her hands brushing the hair from my eyes…

it was gone. Replaced. The air no longer wrapped me in safety.

Instead, it overwhelmed me, and this thing, this monster, pressed against me.

I could feel the heat of its mouth licking across my flesh and leaving its fire behind.

I used to laugh here. I used to dream. Now I couldn’t even swallow.

This place had been hollowed out, gutted of its goodness, and filled with something evil. It wasn’t just unfamiliar, it was predatory. A hunting ground. A cage built from memory and twisted into something meant to lure me in with false comfort.

I was the rabbit.

And I had just stepped into the lion’s den.

There was a heavy silence, filled with the sense of something wanting to pounce out at you from the dark corners of the room.

It hummed with tension, like a pause before a scream.

My hand tightly clutched my bag, my knuckles turning bone-white, and my nails bit into the leather until they ached.

My breath came in short, sharp bursts, every inhale filled with that intoxicating feral scent.

Musk, earth, and sin. And gods, it reeked of hunger.

Not the kind that came from your stomach, but from below.

From deep in the loins, hot and hard… aching.

It soaked into the walls, wrapping around the furniture, and curling around my throat.

My skin prickled like he’d licked every inch of me already, marking me with scent alone.

I couldn’t stop the reaction. My thighs clenched.

My nipples tightened under my shirt. My core pulsed with that need I’d felt before.

There was a vibration in the room that was low, like a steady purr that threatened from the edges of the space.

The sound hummed along my bones, tightening around my ribs, and taking my breath away.

I couldn’t see him, but I could feel him.

His presence was here. He was watching me from the dark, licking his lips while waiting to strike.

My heartbeat crashed into my ears, my fear loud and overwhelming. And underneath that fear… there lay something more.

Want.

It was foul and it was forbidden, almost shameful in its need. And gods help me, it felt real . Something held the air very still, as if the entire cabin was waiting for me to break.

To scream.

To beg.

To fall to my knees and submit .

But I didn’t speak. I didn’t breathe. Because some part of me knew that if I did, he would answer .

“Welcome, little Red. I knew you would come.”

His voice slid through the room; the sound of it was low and rough, wrong in all the right ways. It crawled up my spine, slow and filthy, like a warm, wet tongue dragging along my back. It felt like rot and sex all in one.

That voice had fucked before… hard .

It was the kind of voice that knew how to make a woman wet just from speaking one word.

The kind of voice that scraped over your nerves and sank into your bones, staying there, echoing long after it stopped.

It was dark velvet, soaked in sex, scarred with violence, and threaded with a thin edge of control.

I froze. My spine went stiff, and my skin grew hot. I spun toward the voice, heart slamming against my ribcage, but there was no one there. No figure. No shadow. Only that voice mixed with that damn primal scent.

He was close. He was everywhere .

“You run like a human who wants to be caught,” he whispered, the sound pressed so close to my ear that I felt his breath brush over my neck, even though I knew it was impossible for him to be standing behind me. I was the only one in the room.

Wasn't I?

“Do you want to be hunted, little thing? Is that why you wore red? To be seen and chased, to be devoured?”

My knees almost gave out. I clutched the edge of the table for balance, my knuckles white, my body trembling with confusion and something so wrong it shook me to the core.

Still, I didn’t answer. I didn’t trust my voice.

“Your silence is sweet,” he continued, his voice sliding from one side of the room to the other. Never landing in one spot, always moving, teasing, stalking. “But your body screams to me. Don’t you hear it?”

I gasped, feeling the heat of his breath kiss my neck. It was wet and warm, and it caused me to whimper. I didn’t mean to. The sound escaped like it had a mind of its own.

“Do you feel that heat between your legs, the way your cunt throbs at the sound of my voice? That’s not fear, Red. That’s the part of you that’s mine. That wicked primal part. The part that’s tired of pretending.”

I shook my head, but I knew he wasn't lying because what he described wasn’t a lie. He knew exactly what I was feeling. That sweet pulse followed by an intense ache. He was inside me without ever touching me.

“You don’t belong in the human world,” he murmured, his voice sounding like silk dragging across broken glass.

“You belong here. In the dark. Bent over a tree root with your skirt hiked up and your plump ass bared for me. Crying out because you love it even when you hate it. I can smell your need. It’s dripping. ”

I let out a shuddering breath, one hand sliding down my cloak without meaning to, brushing over the belt that kept it closed. My fingers trembled. I was losing control. And part of me wanted to, because I could feel his dark intent behind each of his words.

He wasn’t speaking for effect. He was circling his prey. Watching and carefully calculating every move. He became the woods, and I was his prey. He made it clear that there was no escaping a monster like him.

“You should run again,” he growled softly, that dark smile bleeding into his tone.

“Run deeper. Make it fun for me, little Red. Make it worth the hunt. Let me chase you until your legs give out and you fall to your knees. Let me catch you with your breath ragged and your thighs slick with that sweet cream of yours. I want your fear; I want your body trembling with the same need you awakened in me.”

My lips parted, and a moan slipped out again, quiet and shameful. I hated that I liked it.

But instead of hearing his satisfaction, instead of facing him with some broken shred of defiance, I did the exact thing he wanted me to do.

I ran. Gods help me, I ran.

Not because I wanted to escape, but because I wanted to be chased.

I crashed through the back cabin door as if the devil was clawing at my heels, which technically, he was.

The old wood slammed open against the frame with a crack, and the sound echoed through the trees like a warning shot.

The red sky swallowed me whole, and cold air bit my skin, slicing across the bare parts of my thighs, making my nipples pebble beneath the thin cotton of my dress.

My cloak snapped behind me, torn at by thorns and greedy branches that scraped at my flesh like punishment.

Although they felt more like a buildup of what was to come.

I wasn’t running toward safety. I was running right into his clutches, and worst of all, I knew it.

My boots slammed against the forest floor, each heavy footfall reverberating through my bones, rattling down to the place between my legs that pulsed with a sick, shameful rhythm. The air around me felt too tight, too hot, so thick with the scent of him.

My breath came in jagged bursts, but not from exhaustion. From arousal and anticipation .

With every step I took, I actually hoped that he would catch me.

My thighs were soaked. My pussy throbbed. The fear that pulsed in my veins only made it worse. There was no safety anymore. No rules. No more pretending I didn’t want the wolf to find me, slam me into the nearest tree, and fuck the breath from my lungs until I forgot my name.

And gods, he knew it and he was relentless in his pursuit.

“Run, Red, run. Make me chase you. Let me earn the taste of your screams,” he sing-songed.

I didn’t hear his steps or see his shadow. But I felt him, in the curl of fog that kissed my legs, in the wind that curled around my waist, in the low growl that buzzed inside my head, steady and hot. I screamed not knowing what my end was going to be.

Every inch of me knew he was close behind, tracking and hunting me with that wild hunger. He’d scent-marked me with nothing but his voice, and now he wanted flesh.

The little girl inside me was screaming.

But the woman… the woman was moaning .

“Faster, Red,” he purred. “Make those pretty tits bounce for me. Let them ache the way you make me do. I want to see your nipples straining against your dress. I want to bite them through the fabric until blood runs down to your pussy, mixing with your virgin scent, and you scream my name.”

I whimpered, as tears filled my eyes from the wind, from the heat, from the madness of it all.

I ran until I couldn’t anymore. Until I stumbled and collapsed through a barrier in the clearing, gasping for breath, my thighs were slick as he said they would be, my chest heaving.

My cloak was twisted around my legs. My hair was a wind-blown mess, my lips parted and wet with an all-consuming need.

I wanted him.

I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anything else in my life.

“I can smell your juicy pussy, Red.”

His voice was low and filled with gravel. The words rolled from his tongue, drenched in carnal dominance, a growl so low and deep it made my bones vibrate, my legs part, and my breath was caught in my throat.

“Sweet and wet and aching for me. The scent of your cunt is thick in the air, Red, and it’s driving me fucking insane.”

He took another step forward, and the earth trembled beneath his weight. The trees seemed to bend to his will, and the whole forest vibrated with an unseen energy, filled with the knowledge that he was claiming me.

“You’re dripping,” he snarled, red eyes burning into mine. “Every step you took, you left a little more of that cream on the trail. You thought you were running away. But really, you were begging me to follow. Begging me to take it.”

My body betrayed me completely then, thighs parting, core throbbing, my pussy clenching around nothing as heat rolled through me in crashing waves of need. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I was soaked, and he knew . He loved it.

“But I don’t want easy, Red,” he rasped, his voice curling into my ear, smoke-like and made for sin.

“I don’t want you to be soft and ready. I want your fight.

I want you to struggle for me. I want to break every human part of you with my cock until the only name you remember is the one you scream while you cum. ”

The air seemed to ripple as he walked through the wooden brush. He was silhouetted against the red hue of the moon, making him look even more menacing.

My breath caught at the sight of him.

The Wolf.

He was not a man. Not a beast. But something more.

More muscle, more menace, more hunger than I’d ever seen in a living thing.

His body was pure domination, shoulders like stone, arms corded with thick muscle, his chest broad and heaving with each heavy breath he took.

His fur was dark as midnight, laced with silver streaks that shimmered when he moved.

Bright red tattoo stripes were inked along his abs.

He was darkness made flesh. His hands bore claws, brutal and sharp, meant to rip and pin down.

But what held me in place, what made my throat tighten and my pussy gush, was his cock .

He was hard. For me. And he wasn’t hiding it.

He was a monster made for fucking.His penis jutted up from the heavy vee of muscle between his thighs, thick and dark, covered in a sheath of ridged flesh that pulsed with barely restrained need.

His length was massive, too large, impossibly long and veined, the head flared and swelled, already glistening with precum that glinted in the moonlight like a mark of hunger.

A knot swelled at the base, thick and angry, ready to lock inside me, ready to claim me completely and permanently.

My mouth fell open, a helpless whimper escaping my lips, because no man looked like that.

No human could be so terrifying and beautiful, so monstrous and magnetic, all at once.

His cock was a weapon, one meant to ruin, to stretch, to split me wide and fill every desperate inch of me.

I was hypnotized by it, quickly realizing I craved it.

He saw the look in my eyes. The shock was followed by the heat. The helpless ache. And he smiled, a slow, wicked, and predatory smile.

“You want it, don’t you?” he murmured, taking another step, each word a thrust into my soul. “You’re so wet I can smell it from the trees. That pussy’s crying for me, little Red. She knows who she belongs to. You’re leaking for a monster, and you love it.”

My knees gave out, and I sank to the forest floor, the cloak billowing around me, my breath hitching as I stared at the impossible thickness between his legs. My thighs were slick, my cunt throbbing, my whole body alight with feral heat.

He crouched in front of me, a massive hand brushing a strand of hair from my face, a black claw tipping my chin up until I met his eyes.

“You’re going to take every fucking inch, little Red,” he whispered, his voice dripping with lust and cruelty.

“You’re going to gag on it, cry from the stretch, beg for more while I split you open, and when I knot you, you’ll scream like you were born for it.

Because you were. You were made for this cock. You were made for me .”

And when he leaned in, I managed to see his furred face and long snout. His golden eyes grew dark and dilated, while his full lips were close enough to taste. His voice dropped to a seductive snarl that set my clit pulsing with surrender.

“Now open that sweet little mouth and show me what that tongue can do, before I tear this forest apart while I fuck you into the dirt.”