Though the knocking had ceased, I never got the sense anyone left. And when I looked through the peephole again, the paper was gone. I made a decision. “Yep, fuck this. Time to leave.”
I’d studied for years. I took notes, conducted interviews with the locals, and I managed to find out this world was connected to something much larger. The one tough truth everyone seemed to know was that, once you entered the zone, you could never leave on your own accord.
The phone rang, forcing me backward as a shrill gasp escaped my throat. I looked down at the old phone, but it only rang louder. Tears fell from my eyes. I was stuck here. What the fuck had I done?
I stepped away, but the phone rang even louder. As if it needed to be answered, as if I was required to answer that damn phone.
Timidly, I reached down and closed my palm around the rounded edges of the black receiver. I closed my eyes and brought it to my ear as tears rolled down my lips. I could hear breathing.
Slow, deliberate masculine breathing. Heavy enough to feel. Deliberate enough to make your skin crawl and your pussy wet at the same time. Oddly, I felt connected to it.
I didn’t know how to react, but there was an inner pressure to reply to the sounds. “H-hello?”
A voice as rough as gravel responded. “Room 415?”
I felt like a confused and stupid child lost without a trail of breadcrumbs to guide me. I didn’t have my team of scientists. I didn’t have Zane. I only had myself.
“Y-yes, um, it is,” I whispered.
“Someone will be coming to your door in five minutes. Do not leave.”
The call clicked to an abrupt end, and though I wanted to respond, it would have been a fruitless action. Instead, I let the phone fall until the cord wrapped aro
und my finger.
“Well, Adeline. Great job. They know you’re here.”
2
Adeline
I propped my body against the door, eye nearly clasped around the peephole. I had been waiting in that position for the last ten minutes, hoping to catch the doorman by surprise, but he never seemed to come. Finally, fed up, I opened the door.
There he was. A man?
No. He was something different.
Completely different.
His body was massively built, and he wore practically nothing. I should have been horrified, and maybe part of me was, but I felt his heated call against my ear and slumped against his warmth. “Sweet Adeline.”
The weirdest part was I actually felt turned on…
His hot mouth fell across my cheek as he growled low and commanding. He extended his wickedly long tongue until it touched the center of my lips. When I clenched my mouth shut, his growling intensified, and he forced his hand low until he propped me against the wall and dug two fingers inside me. He arched them for his control and I gasped out in sudden pleasure.
“Who sent you? This place is not safe,” he snarled.
My words caught against my vocal cords, and I let out a shrill squeal of horror. “N-n-nobody sent me.”
He drove in deeper, and, strangely, I was wet. “Shut the fuck up and open for me, slut,” he said.
Body completely tense, I went into shock. I managed to open my mouth, but he would not remove his fingers. He drew his body closer to mine. No matter how hard I fought against his brutal body, he subdued me. I tried to scream, but his fiery glare was enough to shut my trembling mouth.
He was so strong, so terrible and wicked but I could not look away. A part of me was enthralled, though I should have been horrified. His skin glowed red, and his eyes shifted, predatory and alien. I knew exactly who he was. One of them, the beasts from the legends. The beasts I had seen as a little girl. Though he looked human, he was clearly something else entirely.
“W-w-what are you?” I asked, shutting my eyes.
“Your god.”