Page 70 of Monsters of Desire and Nightmares of Passion

Instead on an answer, Velvet crawls up my arm and nestles on my back under my hair back. I wish I had a backpack or something. This nightgown is not ideal. My bare feel already hurt from the cold, hard rocks. I’m not so much cold as I’m area of the harshest of the surroundings. Everything here is designed to produce pain and make you feel lost, as if all hope is being sucked out of this place and replaced with pure hatred and loneliness. The Valley is a clear expression of what the lost Shadows are making made me feel—hunger, loss, pain, hopelessness. Even in my darkest hours, I never felt as helpless as I do now. Their poison fills my own soul with darkness. Nothing makes sense anymore. A part of me wants to lay down and let them have me, consume me, rip me to shreds, and tear me apart like pulled pork. The image of me roasting like a piglet almost makes me laugh.

Velvet purrs in my ear and takes away some of my fear.

I glance over my shoulder and immediately regret doing so.

Shapes appear for a few seconds and look like handsome men, only to be absorbed back into the huge cloud. Tentacles shoot out, clutching for me. The shapes are not the worst. The noises. Voices call out in pained screams I can’t ignore, their pain touching my soul. I want to do something, to stop and talk to them. They terrify me, yet I feel pity for them at the same time. These Shadows were once the same as my guys, but now they are condemned to this limbo for The Shadows. These voices are their last desperate cries, their last attempt to hold on to something before being absorbed into Nothingness.

Eyes glow in the darkness created by the cloud of broken bodies. Tendrils of darkness and weird looking tentacles stretch in our direction. My heart beats like crazy. This cloud, this mass, is dark, evil, and hungry. It’s also sad, consumed by its own despair. Each minute it gets closer, pulling at my very soul and trying to strip it in the worse possible way. I turn my attention back to the wall, swallow hard and take a deep breath again, and climb.

The rocks are edgy and sharp. I ‘m not sure how to scale this.

Draw points to a jagged outcrop. “If you look up, you’ll see handholds. Just grab on to them and climb. Mrez will take care of you. I’m staying here with Khal to buy you time.”

Draw wraps his arms around me. Tendrils of darkness pull me closer to him. His tentacles make me feel safe and loved. My heart beats like crazy when I’m so close to him, but from love rather than terror. His mouth touches mine and I forget my name again as he kisses me. My fierce warrior stands there, ready for battle. I so wish I had his strength and determination. Should I tell the guys that the voices in my head are calling to me? That the lost Shadows know my name and want me closer, so close? That they want me to join them? That they offer me pieces of their own rotten flesh to eat and that I take the offering, all the while looking at the lost Shadows and asking myself if this is maybe the right way to go?

I inhale again. No, I can’t let the lost Shadows get inside my head, not now. I need to climb, and fast.

Draw says something after he kisses me, but I don’t focus on his words. It seemed so much like goodbye. It might be the last time I see him.

“You’re my heart, my forever,” Draw whispered. “I’ll find you even if I have to travel through all the dimension of the known universe. Now go.”

“Take care, okay?” My own words sound small and without the proper weight. Draw had just made to me one of the most beautiful declarations of love someone could make and all I could say was take care.

Draw nods and turns his back to me. Khal shifts into his Shadow form.

Fear freezes my heart. Not fear of my guys, but fear for their safety. In such a short time, they became my everything, my family, my guys. If something happens to one of them, I wouldn’t be able to keep going.

All six of Khal’s hard, muscular arms tense, and his long claws stretch out, ready to fight. He is the god of blood and destruction, the one who saved me from certain death back at the hospital. I should be scared of him but, instead, I’m aroused by the way he stands there, ready to defend me.

Above me, Mrez looks like a cat as he jumps from one rock to the other in that half-physical, half-mist form typical for him. I grab the first handhold above me, ignoring the roar that came from the cloud of lost Shadows, or whatever the hell that is, and looked up.

Mrez hangs from the wall, head down, staring at me. “I’ve got you. I promise.”

His eyes seem like molten lava. I melt.

My body starts the climb without my thinking about what I’m doing. In a weird way, the less I concentrate on what I’m doing, the easier it is. Have I done this before? Is it muscle memory that’s returning to me after so long? I remember some of my training, but nothing involved climbing. We used weapons and learned magic and spells. This is fantastic.

Velvet purrs on my back, sending vibrations down my spine that weirdly help me grasp on the edges. The sharp rocks hurt my fingers. My stubbornness takes over, ignoring the pain and burn. I’m used to physical work as a nurse, but this is another level of shit.

Ivy, fuck it. You’re rock climbing.

Muscles I never knew I possessed help me. My body presses closer to the wall, and my hands and feet find new places to climb. With each of her purrs, Velvet makes the climb easier. The pain disappears from my bare feet and bleeding hands.

“I don’t know how you’re doing this, little one, but keep doing it,” I whisper to her under my labored breath.

The air burns inside my chest. Each time I take a breath, it hurts, like drinking lava and having it harden inside my chest, only to break it into small pieces with my next breath. I glance up. Mrez smiles at me. He’s in his half-transparent, non-physical form that makes him look like a nightmare. But not to me. He’s my guy.

“You’re doing good, Ivy.”

My reply is a groan.

Mrez moves closer to me. Does he see them, too?

This time they change, appearing like handsome men. Even more unsettling, they seem familiar to me. I have seen them before. I concentrate on their faces, using the distraction to stop me thinking about the way the air is ruining my lungs and burning my windpipe. Then it dawns on me. The faces belong to the men on the covers of books I love so badly. This is why they are familiar.

“Stay, Ivy. Stay,” they plead. “We can give you everything you want and dream of. Just stay with us. Show us life and love. Give us purpose. Please, Ivy. Stay.”

Their hands grab at my ankles and pull me down.

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