Page 18 of Ravaging Red
The pleasure climbed and climbed andstalled, a cruel edge with no release, like teetering on the precipice and never falling. I pressed harder, rubbed faster, fingers thrusting deeper, chasing the peak. My body wasright there, ready to come apart, but the orgasm refused to break. It hovered, mocking me. Cold and unreachable.
I let out a choked cry, slamming the flat of my palm against the cold tile as the frustration surged through me. My breath came fast, short bursts that did nothing to ease the ache crawling through my body. Every muscle was tight, my skin feverish, my thighs soaked with a need that was being stolen from me. My body trembled beneath the weight of it, desperate and unsatisfied.
There was no release for me. Just the throbbing reminder that I was denied even this. It was like something inside me had seized control, withholding the one thing I was begging for without words. No matter how much I touched or how hard I tried, it wouldn’t come. My body wasn’t mine anymore. Not fully. Because some part of me already knew the truth, I wasn’t ready to speak aloud.
Onlyhecould give me what I needed.
Rael.
Only his cock. Only his hands. His mouth. His knot buried so deep inside me, I wouldn’t be able to walk after. Onlyhim.
Tears blurred my vision, salt mixing with the water sliding down my face.
I sank to my knees in the shower, the tile sharp against my bones, and sobbed. Not because I was ashamed, not even because I couldn’t cum, but because I feltempty. Truly, horribly,emptied outin a way that had nothing to do with pleasure.
I was missing something. Like a piece of my soul had stayed behind in the woods, left with him.
Rael.
He had ruined me with a scent. With a whisper. With a look that had cut me wide open and filled me with need like poison.
I wanted him to come for me, to tear through that mystical barrier and take me.
I wanted to behisin every filthy, unbearable way.
Because somehow, in that short interlude between us, this monster had stolen my soul. And no one else would ever be enough. And I knew that no matter how much I touched myself, no matter how hard I tried to pretend, my body had already decided it belonged to him, and I would never be whole until Rael made me his.
Chapter 7
THE MESSAGE
RAEL
The pain in my bones was a living thing that kept gnawing at me. It was insistent and begging for a release that wasn’t coming. The past few days had been torture without her as I waited for the cursed moon to subside, to leave me alone.
But it hung bright in the sky, and with each heartbeat it drove me further past bloodlust, past reason, somewhere between hunger and madness. I needed answers. I needed to know what in Hades' name was going on, and the only ones who would be able to tell me what the fuck I was experiencing, were the Old Ones.
The Old Ones were not gods, but they were tied to the Hollow Council in the deepest of ways. They were something older, something far more ancient than worship or prayer. You could call them primordial forces bound in the roots of the Hollow, consumed by shadow, and bone. Their names had been long forgotten, burned from memory by time and terror, but their presence lingered, etched into the cracked stones that circled the Hollow Woods. Whispering through the blood of every monsterborn beneath the Blood Moon. I had to be cautious around them since their purpose was to keep humans and monsters apart, unless a bond was fated. A bond beyond their control.
When the Blood Moon rises, it signals that the balance has tipped, and the Old Ones were always watching to see what it brought with it. They feared another merging of realms, a breach where hunger, lust, and violence would destroy what remains of the Hollow. The last time it happened, entire lineages of monsters were wiped out, and humans forgot magic existed.
They never spoke directly at you. Their messages come through blood-runes, moonlight alignments, or prophetic possession. Only witches and theVeilboundcould interpret their warnings correctly. Monsters were bound by their ancient bloodlines to heed the Old Ones' laws. Defying them didn't just carry physical consequences, it warped the soul. But the Veilbound were chosen by birth or cursed by fate. They were another level of monsters, tethered to the boundary between worlds. They were considered guardians, but also prisoners. They bled with the veil, dreamed about it, and suffered under its weight. The mark of the Veil wasn’t visible, but it burned beneath the skin like a buried rune, flaring to life in the presence of its mated soul, one bound by fate.
I was aVeilbound. I was marked from birth. Chosen by a bloodline that once served the Old Ones as Veilkeepers. I had fought them and their chains my entire life. I’d felt the Veil in the throb of my mark, in the pulse of my cock when Red moaned my name, in the ache that twisted behind my ribs every time I defied their laws. The Old Ones demanded obedience. They enforced balance. They were the architects of binding magic, the same magic that stitched mating marks into flesh and made monsters hunger not just for sex, but for soul-deep possession.
But the Blood Moon defied them all, and its message was clear:Bind what is yours, or lose what you were.
I left the safety of the Hollow Woods early the next morning, striding through gnarled trees until I came upon a branch, a familiar red cloak hung from it. I quickly yanked it down from the tree, pressing it to my nose, engulfed in her scent. I knelt on the ground, a low howl ripping from my throat. The Veil shimmered ahead, a reminder of what I had left on the other side. A half day's journey to the town of Hollow Glen. I arrived in the middle of the night. The streets were no longer lit by the pale moonlight but by the crimson hue of the Blood Moon.
Flickering lanterns carved from creature’s skulls, aligned the streets, bone runes glowing at their bases. Charcoal signs hung from crooked roofs, scrawled with warnings in several monster tongues. I was one of the few breeds to speak Old English.
TOUCH NO HUMANS. LISTEN TO THE OLD ONES.
CONSEQUENCES WILL FALL UPON THOSE WHO CLAIM
I had walked these streets a thousand times before, but tonight they felt different. The air smelled like iron and mildew. This town was meant for creatures who knew how to live in shadow but now uncertainty and fear dwelled among them.
I passed by the Guttergate, a bar where Ogres liked to stop at. They served Gorebrew Grog, a type of sludge-like ale brewed from fermented bloodroot, smoked bone marrow, and swamp malt, that had a kick strong enough to drop a troll. And a stench to keep anyone away.
