Page 17

Story: When Death Whispers

16

I’m surrounded by darkness.

Not just the kind you get with your eyes closed. This is heavy—dense. No matter where I look or which way I turn, all I see is an endless void of black. I blink and rub my eyes to clear them, but all that remains is… nothing.

Then shapes begin to emerge—thin, skeletal trees rising like bones from the ground. A forest, maybe. Or what’s left of one. The branches are jagged and bare, swaying in a wind I can’t feel.

The air tastes like ash.

I blink hard, trying to focus, but it’s like the shadows shift when I’m not looking. Nothing here feels real. Or maybe it feels too real.

And of course, my first thought?

I bet Parker’s monster can see just fine in this kind of dark.

The thought pisses me off more than it should.

A low, frustrated sound leaves my throat. The fog muffles it instantly, like even my anger doesn’t belong here.

And that’s when I see him.

Parker’s monster. More shadow than man, tall and draped in death. He doesn’t just walk through the fog—he drags it with him..

His eyes burn with a fierce orange glow, each step lighting the gnarled shapes around him like a lantern in the night.

My chest tightens, breath catching as cold fear roots itself in my spine. The same fear I felt that night on the porch. The same fear I feel every time I close my eyes.

Am I dreaming? Or is this something worse? I honestly can’t tell.

A shiver of dread snakes up my spine, and my knees grow weak, as if every ounce of my energy is being drawn away in one deep, final breath.

It takes all my strength to stay upright, and for a moment, the overwhelming desire to simply... rest nearly consumes me.

Then I hear it.

A moan. Soft. Shaky. Frustrated and wanting in a way that shoots straight through my ribs.

Then another. Closer.

A gasp, high and breathless?—

Parker.

Her name claws out of my throat, but the fog swallows it whole.

I turn fast, stumbling through the dark toward the sound. “Parker!” I try again, louder this time, but it’s like yelling into a vacuum. Nothing bounces back, no echo.

A flash of silver cuts through the haze—her hair.

My chest lurches.

Fuck. She’s here too?

The panic hits hard and fast, drowning out everything else—even the fear of him.

All I can think about is her. Getting to her. Getting her out. Away from wherever we are.

I break into a run.

Whatever’s coming, it can go through me first.

I push through the fog, heart hammering, eyes locked on the flash of silver ahead. The air thickens, heavier with every step, like it’s trying to slow me down—warn me off. But then I see her.

She’s lying on the dirt, skin pale against the dark ground, shadows crawling over her like living silk. Her eyes are closed, lips parted, her body arching into the inky tendrils sliding between her legs and curling over her chest.

My mouth goes dry.

She’s not in pain. Not fighting. She doesn’t even look scared. Not this time.

She’s gasping like every inch of her skin is being worshipped.

“Parker,” I breathe, her name catching in my throat.

She’s a living, breathing fever dream, one my imagination has completely failed me on until now. There’s no way my mind could have conjured up the sight before me.

Her skin is more creamy and pale than I had imagined it to be countless times, her nipples a delicious light pink that breaks up all that snow white flesh, and currently being tweaked by the shadowy hands encompassing her body.

“Parker…” Her name tumbles out of me, low and needy, and not what I meant it to be.

This has to be a dream.

Right?

Except it doesn’t feel like one. Not with the scent of her—sweet and sharp, citrus and sweat—filling my lungs.

I spot him, finally—the monster—half-shrouded behind a tree, his orange eyes locked on her like he’s starving. But he doesn’t move closer. Only watches.

I don’t know what the fuck this is, or what the hell I’m doing here—but I know one thing. If Parker’s in it, there is no fucking way I’m leaving her alone.

“Hudson…”

My name rolls off her lips in a moan that makes my cock instantly hard, as if her voice alone had an on switch for it.

Her gorgeous ice-blue eyes are on me now, and she’s panting, needy, her back arched, pushing her tits up in the air and dammit if I don’t want to taste them.

“I need you. Now. Help me.”

Her legs fall open, her fingers clawing at the earth like she’s trying to anchor herself to something—anything—and not finding it. I stumble toward her, dropping to my knees, reaching for her hand.

My eyes roam the entire length of her body, trying to memorize every detail, but she’s almost entirely encased in shadows now.

“How? Tell me what to do?—”

She moves faster than I can process, grabs my arm, rolls me to my back, and straddles me in the same breath. Just like she did that stormy night under the trees, only this time… she’s not stopping.

Her heat settles against me, bare and slick, and fuck —I’m already pulsing for her. Her thighs bracket my hips, her body pressing against mine like we were made to fit. It hits me all at once?—

I’m naked.

She’s naked.

And she’s grinding against me like she needs me to breathe.

Was I naked this whole time? Did I come into this dream like this?

I don’t care. I don’t even have time to think. I don’t even want to think. Not when she’s on top of me like this, looking at me like her entire world revolves around me and her, right now, dream or not. Not when?—

Parker sinks down on me right then with a gasp, slow and unrelenting, and I swear my brain short-circuits. I feel every inch of her—tight, hot, perfect, and so fucking sexy—as she takes me to the hilt. Her head falls back, and the moan she lets out is going to haunt me forever. If we get out of this forest, I’ll still hear it. In my sleep. In the quiet. Every fucking day.

“Fuuuck, Parker, I?—”

“You should stop questioning the why, boy toy,” a deep voice growls from the dark. “Just give her what she wants.”

I jerk, trying to locate the voice, but Parker leans forward and steals my mouth with hers—biting my lip, sucking it, moaning into the kiss like her survival depends on it.

And just like that, the world narrows back to her.

Monsters, shadows, disembodied voices—they all disappear under the weight of her body and the taste of her tongue. She grinds against me with a hunger that borders on desperation. I can’t tell where she ends and I begin. All I know is I’m hers. Completely. Irrevocably.

My hands slide down, gripping her ass, guiding her rhythm to deepen the friction. Her gasp breaks into a needy moan that makes my blood boil and my heart damn near explode.

This is everything I’ve dreamed of—months of wanting her, needing her—and now she’s here, on top of me, taking what she wants. And I’m not about to let her carry it all.

I thrust up to meet her, matching her pace, pushing deeper. The shadows around her thighs slide down to my hands, wrapping around my wrists, pulsing in sync. One curls over her clit, teasing her in time with each movement. Another strokes inside her, and I feel it—feel her reacting to it, her moans turning feral, raw and frantic.

What brought us together in fear the last couple of days, has morphed into some sort of sexual fantasy, one with Parker’s breathy demands as the center of it all. I should question the why, but thoughts are a thing of the past when I’m buried so deep inside her warmth, I don’t even know my own name.

“Hudson.” Oh right. That’s my name. Fuck, it sounds better when she says it like that. Like it actually has meaning.

She’s close. I can hear it in her voice, the way she continues to whimper my name over and over like a prayer—or a spell.

I fight the urge to come, willing myself to hold on, to make this last. Even if it’s a dream, even if none of this is real—I want her to fall apart in my arms first.

Then the shadows wrap around me, slick and insistent. One snakes between my thighs, curling around my balls and giving a firm squeeze.

My body snaps tight, stars bursting behind my eyelids. “Parker—fuck,” I groan, my whole body seizing as I spill inside her in one long, shuddering release. My fingers dig into her skin, anchoring me to her like she’s the only thing holding me to this world.

But I’m not alone in this. Parker cries out too, her body trembling as she crashes over the edge with me. The sound echoes into the forest, like the trees respond to it, unlike my own calls earlier, and she slumps against me, boneless and breathless.

We stay tangled like that, her cheek pressed to my chest. My arms come around her without thought, pulling her close. Protective. Possessive. Mine.

The shadows retreat slowly, sliding off our skin like smoke dispersing in the wind. I want to look for her monster—want to find the asshole who spoke—but she looks up at me just then, those ice-blue eyes full of something I don’t have words for.

A million unspoken things pass between us. A hundred questions I’m too afraid to ask. A thousand answers I don’t think I’m ready for.

Weirdest fucking dream of my life.

Realest one, too.

If this is a dream, I never want to wake up.

“Me neither,” Parker whispers.

And that’s when I realize?—

I never said it out loud.