Chapter Nine #2
The roots are moving, stretching, becoming longer, and continuing to grow through the window. I rub my eyes, blaming exhaustion when it comes to the environment coming to life.
Pushing myself back inside, I clutch the lip of the window to close it. A few roots snap in half from the pressure, but the thicker ones don’t budge.
“Come. On.” I grunt, using all my weight and strength to close the window. “Fuck.” Stepping back, I place my hands on my hips and stare at the problem I can’t seem to solve.
Even being a detective, there are some things that don’t have solutions.
“I could get a knife and cut them. God, that’s going to take forever. And a ton of clean up. So much for my night off,” I grumble, lacing my hands and placing them on top of my head while blowing at a breath.
Groaning, I bend down and pick up the berries that have fallen off the roots, wondering if they are edible.
“Lula-lala-la-la-laaa.”
I freeze when the deep voice slithers down my spine. The gravel to the edge has goosebumps peppering over my flesh, my body’s natural way of telling me that I’m in danger.
“Lulaaa,” he breathes the end of my name, a haunted hiss mixing with the wind howling through the window. The floorboards creak under his weight when he takes a step forward, his shadow swallowing my own.
This can’t be real. This can’t be real. This can’t be real.
I chant over and over again in my head. The feeling of being watched lately comes to mind, and the same sensations overcome my body. The same sense of danger, the same yearning to know who is responsible for awakening the need for thrill.
A hot flush rolls over every inch of my body. From head to toe, I feel his presence, yet there’s a buzz of safety, security, and protection. Whoever this is, whoever has been following me, breaking into my home, even going as far as killing people, he doesn’t scare me.
“You don’t want to do this. I’m an officer with Cove Police Department and—”
“—I know what you are. I know who you are.” His voice rumbles like the depths of an earthquake, sending tremors through my every bone. “I don’t care.”
“Killing a cop will only make this worse for you. You’ll never get out of prison.”
His shadow becomes bigger, towering over me as he takes a step forward, engulfing me in its sinful cloak.
“Do you think prison could keep me away from you?” A growl from him calls to me, my body reacting in ways that don’t make sense.
“Do you think anyone could keep me away from you?” He takes another step forward, the warmth radiating from his body seeping into my back.
“Do you think that anyone who came between us would live to see another day?”
I still can’t move. Fear immobilizes me, my brain unable to communicate with my body when I see the reflection of the intruder in the window.
He’s part of the unknown I can see. He’s massive, his head nearly touching the ceiling. His skin reminds me of leaves on a spring day.
He’s my favorite color and, for reasons beyond me, I want to know what he’d look like against me. I want to fall against him. I want him to catch me and wrap me in his oversized embrace.
A reaction I’ve never felt before with anyone.
Roots slither over my shoulders, the dark blue berries catching my eye that are scattered across them. A hazy memory tries to come forward. I remember him from the night of the accident, I think.
The monster I thought I saw above me in bed, which I blamed on a nightmare. I’m either dreaming right now, or I’m truly in a terrifying situation that I have no chance of escaping.
Not when it comes to the size of this beast.
I stand no chance.
I’m pinned against the wall before I have a chance to blink, a large palm is nestled between my shoulders, applying enough pressure to keep me still, but not enough to hurt me.
A chittering sound comes from him, mixed between a purr and a click. The clamor is quick, awakening an outcry of need in my soul as if he is calling to me, for me, only I don’t know how to answer.
“Not even death would keep me away from what I desire most.” His breath is warm against the shell of my ear as his roots bind me to the wall.
“You cannot escape me, Lulaaa,” he whispers my name in a way that would travel with the autumn leaves on a brisk wind—hushed with a soft crackle as the tones travel to find the perfect place beneath my bones.
“What do you want?” I whimper, wondering why the trail of his lips against the back of my neck only has me agonizing for more.
“Is it not obvious, My Dream?” His gargantuan hand curls around my shoulder, the tips of his black claws biting into my skin.
My breath comes out in shaking bursts. Lust is a partner to thrill, dancing inside my soul, and fighting for who takes the lead. A sensual battle that I know thrill will lose.
“Take what you want and go then.” I swallow, my throat dry as my breath becomes faster.
A sharp pain drags down my arm. Pushing through the fear, my eyes peer down, inhaling when I see his fingers rake down my arm. Thin red lines appear on my skin.
Easing the pain, he changes his touch. He flips his hand, the rough caress gone and replaced with the ease of his knuckles gliding up my arm, a gentle curiosity as if he is touching a person for the first time.
I’m transfixed.
I’m trapped within his roots.
Bound in his grasp.
And there’s nowhere for me to run.
I can’t turn around. I can’t see him for what he is. All I have is the wall holding me and the hope that whoever this man is, this creature, that he decides to let me go.
“Taking what I want isn’t so easy,” he says, grabbing the length of my dark brown hair.
Any attempts at moving are gone when he sniffs the strands, groaning, sounding like he has never smelled anything better.
I swallow, afraid for my finger to twitch because it might remind him that I’m here, that I’m alive, and listening to his every move.
His every breath.
With every intake, there’s a slight growl that follows, one that is pleased, one that climbs down my spine, one that allows lust to pool between my legs.
“You smell intoxxxicating.”
A tear breaks free from the pools filling my eyes.
“What’s wrong?” He drags his nose across the top of my head.
“Are you afraid, Little Dream?” His wet tongue slides up my cheek, gathering the tears that have fallen.
“You should be.” Finger by finger, each one curls around my throat until he has a firm grasp on me.
“As I am your damnation.” One arm cages me in on the right side, his large bicep filling my vision.
“Your salvation.” The other arm locks the cage, pressing against the wall on the other side of me, trapping me further. “Your mutilation.” The sharp claw growing out of his thick, long finger cuts open the scab that was the healing scratch on my cheek.
It reaffirms that he has been here already, and the scratch that was there when I woke up to the sheriff banging on my door was caused by the monster inside my house.
He licks the blood from the wound, and damn it all, I lean into his touch, bending my head back to expose my neck for him.
His lips graze my throat, full and softer than I imagined a beast’s mouth to be, and two sharp points threaten to break my skin. “Your curse.”
Roots tighten around my body, securing me so I can’t escape. This should feel like a curse. I should be screaming for help, begging for him not to hurt me, fight for my life, I should do something, anything!
But this is exactly what I crave.
“You like being in the hands of someone who might kill you, don’t you?”
“You won’t,” I manage to mumble between my incoherent thoughts.
“I might.” He runs his claws through my hair.
“Do it, then,” I grit through my teeth. “End me. End whatever you’re doing if all you want is me.”
“End youuu?” The familiar hushed breath travels across my cheek. “That would end me.”
I close my eyes, relishing in the thrum of my heart, wondering if I’ll die tonight. The thrill alone might kill me, waiting to see if I’ll make it until tomorrow.
I don’t know why, but I can trust this brutal beast.
“Why aren’t you screaming? I smell your fear, Little Dream.” In a rough grip, he palms my breast, squeezing until I gasp from the sharp point of his nails teasing my nipples. “And yet I smell your desire.”
“You terrify me,” I admit, licking my lips, wishing he’d allow me to look at him. “I love that.”
“Why?”
“Mi alma lo dice,” I reply, submitting to his hands exploring my body.
“What does that mean?”
“My soul says so.”
He falls silent. I only know he is still here because I feel him. He is still standing behind me, radiating heat, a fire brewing between us that I would happily give in to, to experience more of whatever this is.
Because what if I wake up and this was all a dream? I know most women would want that. Most would be crying, begging to be set free, fighting against the restraints, and I can’t.
His roots loosen their grip, allowing me just enough space to turn around so I can finally see the monster who has invaded my home. The moment my back is against the wall, the roots bind me again, keeping me still so I can’t run.
His fingers slip under my chin, the digits wide and calloused, and they lift my head.
“Look at me.”
I didn’t realize I had my eyes shut, too afraid to know that maybe he isn’t real. I’m still not convinced that this isn’t a dream.
“I am your worst nightmare,” his voice softens for the first time, “and you are my sweetest dream.”
Opening my eyes, they widen in shock when I have to tilt my head all the way back until I hit the wall, my gaze migrating from the chiseled abs to his wide chest, broad shoulders, and a sculpted jaw.
His eyes are pitch black, and he has horns in the middle of his head like a mohawk.
Black veins and roots appear all over his body, slithering like snakes as if they are their own entity.
“What are you?” Another tear breaks free from my lash line.
“I’ve already told you.” He tilts his head, the light gleaming from his nose piercing.
He has an eyebrow piercing and two massive bone gages in his ears. His nipples have small bones through them too.
I wonder who they belong to.
“So you’ve said. That is what you have labeled yourself as, but what are you?”
“I am no longer a man, but a DNA experiment,” he says, pinching his brows together. “I am part rhino, nightmare, nightshade, vampire, and anglerfish.”
My eyes dart all over his body, trying to see each and every part that belongs to what he has named, but I don’t see them all.
“I-I-I don’t unders-stand,” I stammer, confused about how that is possible.
“I don’t understand why you can see me and no one else can.”
“I can see things that others can’t. I have always been able to.”
He cages me in again, the pitch black of his eyes shining like polished onyx, and he leans down. If I could melt into the wall, I would. More distance between us would be best. I don’t trust myself around him.
Roots tighten around my body again, this time pinning my arms and legs to the wall and leaving me vulnerable.
“You want to see where my monsters hideee?” The chitter his back, his fangs gleaming, and a large black shadow with the consistency of smoke begins to emerge from him.
It swirls around his body, hissing and clicking with excitement.
Flowers begin to bloom along the roots, a sweet floral scent invading my nose. My fingers and toes begin to tingle, white static moving throughout my entire body.
“Let me in.” He grips my jaw, prying my mouth open. “And I will show you why your soul has led you astray.”