Page 5 of Ravaging Red
The door behind me creaked, and the last thing I remember was the feel of eyes on my back… and the softest whisper that crept into my loins.
“Welcome to my den, little Red.”
Chapter 2
The Touch of a Monster
RED
Ifelt like a little girl again, and not in the good-natured sense of the word. I felt helpless as I stood there, frozen in place and trembling. I felt so small beneath the weight of something I couldn’t see but felt everywhere. The shadows inside the cabin stretched long and deep, and they moved as if they were alive. My fingers curled at my sides, shaking so hard I could barely hold my breath, let alone my thoughts. The fear was intense and different, more primal. The monster under the bed no longer frightened me. I was now afraid of the one breathing me in from within those shadows.
Everything felt twisted now. This wasn’t my Nana’s cabin anymore. The warmth I remembered, the scent of cinnamon bread, of pinewood crackling in the hearth, of her hands brushing the hair from my eyes…it was gone.Replaced.The air no longer wrapped me in safety. Instead, it overwhelmed me, and this thing, this monster, pressed against me. I could feel the heat of its mouth licking across my flesh and leaving its fire behind.
I used to laugh here. I used to dream. Now I couldn’t even swallow.
This place had been hollowed out, gutted of its goodness, and filled with something evil. It wasn’t just unfamiliar, it was predatory. A hunting ground. A cage built from memory and twisted into something meant to lure me in with false comfort.
I was the rabbit.
And I had just stepped into the lion’s den.
There was a heavy silence, filled with the sense of something wanting to pounce out at you from the dark corners of the room. It hummed with tension, like a pause before a scream. My hand tightly clutched my bag, my knuckles turning bone-white, and my nails bit into the leather until they ached. My breath came in short, sharp bursts, every inhale filled with that intoxicating feral scent. Musk, earth, and sin. And gods, it reeked of hunger. Not the kind that came from your stomach, but from below. From deep in the loins, hot and hard… aching.
It soaked into the walls, wrapping around the furniture, and curling around my throat. My skin prickled like he’d licked every inch of me already, marking me with scent alone. I couldn’t stop the reaction. My thighs clenched. My nipples tightened under my shirt. My core pulsed with that need I’d felt before.
There was a vibration in the room that was low, like a steady purr that threatened from the edges of the space. The sound hummed along my bones, tightening around my ribs, and taking my breath away. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel him. His presence was here. He was watching me from the dark, licking his lips while waiting to strike.
My heartbeat crashed into my ears, my fear loud and overwhelming. And underneath that fear… there lay something more.
Want.
It was foul and it was forbidden, almost shameful in its need. And gods help me, it feltreal. Something held the air very still, as if the entire cabin was waiting for me to break.
To scream.
To beg.
To fall to my knees andsubmit.
But I didn’t speak. I didn’t breathe. Because some part of me knew that if I did, he wouldanswer.
“Welcome, little Red. I knew you would come.”
His voice slid through the room; the sound of it was low and rough, wrong in all the right ways. Itcrawledup my spine, slow and filthy, like a warm, wet tongue dragging along my back. It felt like rot and sex all in one.
That voice had fucked before…hard.
It was the kind of voice that knew how to make a woman wet just from speaking one word. The kind of voice that scraped over your nerves and sank into your bones, staying there, echoing long after it stopped. It was dark velvet, soaked in sex, scarred with violence, and threaded with a thin edge of control.
I froze. My spine went stiff, and my skin grew hot. I spun toward the voice, heart slamming against my ribcage, but there was no one there. No figure. No shadow. Only that voice mixed with that damn primal scent.
He was close. He waseverywhere.
“You run like a human who wants to be caught,” he whispered, the sound pressed so close to my ear that I felt his breath brush over my neck, even though I knew it was impossible for him to be standing behind me. I was the only one in the room.
Wasn't I?
“Do you want to be hunted, little thing? Is that why you wore red? To be seen and chased, to be devoured?”
