Page 69 of Monsters of Desire and Nightmares of Passion

Ivy, on the other hand, is terrified. Her heart pounds like crazy against my back. My stinger is armed and ready to poison any enemy that tries to touch my heart.

As I follow Mrez, I pull on the energy strings that connect us and send warmth and energy to my mates. Ivy exhales, her breath creating a small cloud over my shoulder. She feels calm and confident now. I possess enough strength for all of us and don’t mind sharing with the woman I love more than my life.

“The portal is up there,” calls out Mrez. “I feel it. Follow me.”

A steep rock wall towers in front of us. Mrez shifts into his Shadow form, turning into smoke and tendrils of darkness, and slips up the slope.

Awesome. Why can’t the portal be in a puddle on the ground? Damn, it is what it is. We can’t go back.

The dark energy follows us, pounding against the stone walls surrounding us. I can’t turn into a fog because of Ivy. It’s impossible to carry her in my non-physical form. Velvet chitters in fear, a sound that is like a sad meowing mixed with a bark. I sense its fear. It has connected to us in an interesting way and had done so very fast.

“What’s that behind us?” Ivy whispers into my ear, her voice shaking.

“The lost ones, Shadows who are here waiting to be absorbed into the Nothingness.”

“I can feel them touching me. They’re in my head, playing games with my mind. I’m scared.”

“Hold on, baby.”

Instead of crying or shivering, she remains strong. I feel her steady heartbeat against my skin.

Ivy

Draw can’t see what I do. Or can he? I’m not sure and this isn’t the moment to ask.

Velvet closes all four of her eyes and purrs to help calm me down. She slips closer to me. Her two hearts beat inside her small chest. Holding on to her and Draw helps, but the followers still tease me, raking their long, dirty claws against me. Each time I open my eyes, I see a face, one that appears sick and distorted, disturbing in a way that shakes me to the core. Each vision contains a different horror. One eye hanging out, pieces of flesh missing, ears growing out of their foreheads.

Draw said the attackers are behind us. I could feel them. Their stench and despair wash over me, trying to pull me away from Draw. I hold on tightly to him. The more I push away from them, the closer they come. It’s like trying to get chewing gum out of your hair. You would pull at it and, instead of removing it from your long strands, more and more would get sticky from that one piece of gum. They pull at me. My stomach burns with hunger, but it isn’t mine. It’s their hunger yelling out to me, pulling me under a blanket of fear.

Every time I close my eyes, I slip toward the horde hunting us, mouths open and jagged teeth ready to rip away my flesh and skin. They have an intense curiosity about me, and it terrifies me. I can feel their intentions, the wish that drives them, the purpose that unites them. They are possessed by a stinking ball of dark agony, the need to rip me open just to see what I am about. The light inside me attracts them so much that they can’t deny the need to assimilate me, to feed on me so they can fill their own emptiness with my flesh and purpose.

No.

A new hand touches my back. This time I feel it, It’s right there, so close. It wants me. It needs to crawl under my skin and drink my secrets the way it would drink wine and blood. I’m like a promise for them, a promise they’ll feel full, that their empty feeling would finally go away, pushed aside by the purpose they would absorb from me.

“You’ll be okay, Ivy. But you have to climb.”

Draw makes no sense at first because I’m so absorbed in my own world, with the lost Shadows hunting me and their desire for me in a very primary way. In the next wave of images, the bony Shadow pushes inside me in a purely sexual way. I’m on a platform, secured, hanging head down and bleeding out. All the lost Shadows fight to lick at least one drop of my blood. They crave the ruby liquid the way an addict craves his next hit. The bony Shadow is on top of me, its face that of a horse with long, jagged teeth and hollow eyes that stare at me. It pounds into me, its bones scratching against my surface. It wants me to realize that I’m helpless, that I am his to take and to play with any way he likes. That there’s no escape.

“The Valley needs you,” the bony Shadow yells out to me from its skeletal head in a voice that maybe once was human. It makes me shiver and want to push away, to run away as fast as possible. That’s not an alternative because it’s inside my head, going through my memories the way a kid would look at a scrapbook. It’s hungry, and I felt its hunger in my bones. I look at it again. This time, its mouth is stitched shut and its lost eyes have a dreamy look, a look from before his body had been fed on, leaving it this skeleton prince that wants to rip open my skin and flesh and feast on me.

“You need to start climbing, Ivy,” Draw calls out again.

The roar of hundreds of moaning voices calling out to me in pain makes it hard to focus. Right, I need to climb, up there. My gaze drifts up at the wall covered in jagged rocks. I can do this. I can do this. I’m not shivering. I’m not afraid. I’m good. I repeat these words as I peer up at the stone wall I’m about to climb, alone, wearing a nightgown and no shoes.

Great, just my fucking luck.

“I won’t let you fall,” Draw whispers from his Shadow form. It seems as if he’s all around me, his warmth keeping me safe.

I refuse to acknowledge the wall of darkness following us and try to muster the courage I need. Even so, I turn my head around and cast a glimpse in that direction. Fear sneaks up on me, making me shiver. I’m fully aware of the danger. However, at the same time, it produces a feeling of power that blooms inside my chest.

“What about Velvet?” The little creature still nestles in my arms, making purring noises. I refuse to leave it. Velvet lift its head and looks at me.

“Baby, can you hold on to my back?”

Her four, electric blue eyes stare deep into mine as if she could understand me.

“Can you?”

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