Page 37 of Ravaging Red
“Tell me about it, please.” She looked up at me, those big eyes pleading for a story.
I sighed. “The Hollow is a realm stitched together from the scraps and scars of older worlds. It’s a frayed reality that pulses with old blood and even darker magic. Some call it a sanctuary, some would say it's a prison, but for us, the ones shunned by the Council, we call it home.”
“Home,” she repeated, lost in my words. “Tell me more,” she said excitedly, pulling me to sit down on a rock.
“We don’t have time for this.”
“Make time,” she pouted, patting the rock beside her.
I rolled my eyes but did as she asked. Squeezing into the seat beside her, she tipped over, and I grabbed her, sitting her on my lap.
“Rael!”
“Do you want to hear about the Hollow or not?”
She glanced around the market and when she was satisfied no one had noticed, she gave me a quick nod, leaning into me.
“There are different places within the Veil, the Hollow is one of them. There are other territories as you travel deeper. Places unseen or hidden by magic. It’s not fully governed by logic. It shifts with the rise of the Blood Moon, and pulses with the needs of the creatures that hide within it.
“The rise? So this moon isn’t always this color?”
I shook my head as we both looked up into the sky. “No. That moon is cursed by something evil.”
“Can it hurt us?” She wondered, staring up at it.
I shook my head. “Not in the way you think.”
I kept my thoughts private because I didn’t know what that moon could do to us. It brought me my mate, but it could just as easily rip her away, causing a pain so powerful it may just kill us.
“To the North,” I continued, taking her mind off the moon. “Where the trees grow gnarled and hunched down like ancient sentinels, there hides the Grove, and it belongs to the Fae.”
“Faeries?”
“Yes, faeries. But not the Tinkerbell kind that are whispered about in human books.”
She threw her head back and laughed, the sound doing something to my heart. I pushed that light way down and concentrated.
“What on earth do you know about Tinkerbell?”
“A lot more than you think. Many of us have studied humanity very closely. Who wouldn’t study the monsters that share a border with us.”
“We’re not monsters.”
“That’s what you think, little mate. There is a lot more evil lurking in your world than there is in mine. Your kind are just more susceptible to it.”
I watched her grow solemn as I continued. “Faeries here are cruel, beautiful, ageless creatures. Their skin shimmers like moonlight off bone. Their eyes are like dark pools of obsidian. And their court was built on bargains, lies, and eternal hunger. The Grove is always blooming, beautiful but always deadly. There is poison and pleasure braided in the petals of every blossom that grows there. They are known to tempt humans by using that beauty, so you stay close, little mate.”
“You see there,” I pointed far off into the distance, where the sea was barely seen.
She nodded. “There the land sharpens into jagged black rock. There lie the Black Cliffs. It is said that there’s an old Centaur who has made his home there.Kaelith. A solitary, brutal monster, born of fire and war. He’s kept watch over the ocean’s edge for centuries. No one dares to enter since the journey itself has killed many. The cliffs are said to be cursed, their stones scorched from when dragons once bled fire into the sea.
“Have you met Kaelith?”
“You ask too many questions.”
She shrugged. “I’m a curious kitten.”
I grunted, somewhat loving the idea of having her stretched out somewhere as I fed her warm milk right from my cock. It twitched beneath her and her eyes met mine as she shifted on my lap.
