The answer was obvious.
No one ever would find them.
Fear galvanized Alicia. She got out of bed, pulled on a white robe, and went to the window that overlooked the front yard. Ground lights faintly illumined the driveway and front porch. The burgundy Accord was a rich red in the semidarkness. A black Bentley was parked behind it. The elegant luxury car hadn’t been there before, and the sight of it made Alicia frown.
The frown deepened when she realized the night sky was clear and the ground below was drier than Death Valley.
What the hell happened to the inclement weather? she wondered.
She was contemplating this when she heard the sound.
Shrill but abrupt, it might have been a scream. A woman’s scream. Alicia spun away from the window and went to the bedroom door. She placed an ear to the door, held her breath, and waited to hear the sound again, but the only thing she heard was her heart kicking into overdrive.
Warring factions of her mind debated.
That was a scream.
No, you’re imagining things.
She hoped she’d imagined it.
Then the sound was repeated.
Alicia was propelled by instinct, with no regard for her own safety. She cinched the robe shut around her with the sash, pulled the bedroom door open, and stepped into the dimly lit hallway.
Which way?
The next scream, longer in duration and more anguished, provided the answer. She went left, her bare feet scampering across the cold floor. The sound grew louder and was punctuated with sobs. Though there were no words, something in the tonal quality was recognizable. One of her friends was making that sound. She came to a stop outside a room several doors down from her own, grasped the doorknob, started to turn it-
-and hesitated.
Karen was on the other side of this door. Something horrendous was happening to her. Alicia wanted to come to her friend’s rescue, but the mystery of the situation gave her a moment’s pause.
She was weaponless.
Karen wailed again.
Fuck it.
Her bare hands would have to suffice.
She turned the knob and stepped into the room. She was several feet inside before her mind registered the reality of the insane thing she was seeing.
A previously ordinary wall composed of drywall and paint had been flipped around to reveal manacles set in stone. Karen was suspended above the ground in these, her legs and arms spread apart in a Christ-like pose. A neck bracket kept her head flat against the wall. She saw Alicia and sobbed.
Ms. Wickman’s whip hand paused in mid-lash, and she turned around to greet Alicia with a wide-eyed grin of pleasure. “Why, it’s your little Negro friend. Come on in, dear. We don’t discriminate here.”
Alicia wanted desperately to take the old bat’s whip and insert it firmly up her tight fucking ass. She would have done it, too, if not for the specter of the thing crouched at the end of the bed.
Dark, matted fur covered its foul-smelling flesh. The thing looked at her, and the enormous nostrils at the end of its long snout flared. A rumbling snort emanated from somewhere deep within it. Its mouth opened, leathery lips peeling away from gleaming rows of razor-sharp fangs.
It growled at her.
And loped off the bed.
Alicia wilted, the sense of righteous fury spiraling out of her like dirty water down a storm drain. She backed away, but her shaking legs betrayed her, and she tumbled numbly to the floor. The thing loomed over her, dripping saliva on her face.
Too late, she believed.
Monsters exist, she thought.
They really do.
And I’m just another goddamn dead pragmatist.
A spine-scraping sound sputtered out of its hideous mouth.
Lupine laughter.
Alicia fainted.
Dream had somehow known there would be no drawn out process of seduction. The chemistry between them was so powerful, their desire so obvious, that an unspoken conclusion was reached-they would dispense with the niceties, forgoing even the merest pretense of accelerated courtship, and get right to the fun part, the enthusiastic exploration of each other’s body.
Even so, she was shocked by just how swiftly this developed. There were a handful of one-night stands in her past, though not nearly as many as other people believed, but she hadn’t fallen into bed with any of them quite as hastily.
She supposed she should feel bad about it.
Perhaps feel cheapened, an easy lay.
But she didn’t care.
Not now.
And maybe never.
Dream screamed into the mattress.
She moaned. “Oh … God …”
Her face was pressed sideways against the tangled bedsheets. A sheen of sweat covered her sun-brown body. She panted. Strands of blond hair fell into her open mouth, and she spit them out automatically, not thinking about it. Her fists knotted handfuls of bedsheet. She cried out again as another precise thrust pushed her forward. She turned her mouth into the mattress and loosed another muffled scream. Her knees wobbled on the edge of the bed, but King’s hands were firm at her waist, holding her in place.
He stood poised behind her, rigid behind her upturned ass.
Making her wait again.
“Please … ”she breathed.
So he gave it to her again, one more swift, brutal shove. She felt faint. White light crowded the edges of her vision. She was sure the next thrust of his cock would rupture her vaginal walls, maybe pierce her uterus. He was that endowed. That powerful. It was incredible. No man she’d ever had could compare. It was like being fucked by a god. Each stroke was like an exorcism, banishing forever the ghosts of Dan Bishop and Chad Robbins, rendering them meaningless. He earned her adoration for that feat alone. He looped some of her blond hair in a hand and pulled her head back.
He leaned over and whispered in her ear. “What would you do for me, sweet Dream?”
She struggled to form coherent words. “Any… anything … you want. …”
He pulled her straight back and his other hand, so muscled and strong, roamed over her hanging breasts, pinching her nipples, squeezing. “Would you kill for me?”
He arched up into her and tears rolled down her face. “Yes.”
She meant it as she said it. It was insanity. It was sinful. It was wrong. A part of her even felt an echo of shame. Later, when she was no longer under the spell of Eros, the memory of the exchange would horrify her. That didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered. All she cared about was this extraordinary thing he was doing to her.
Because it was extraordinary, of that there was no doubt.
Dream could think of no legitimate comparison with anyone from her past. The whole experience was a series of erotic revelations, exploding epiphanies of carnality. She’d been fucked a variety of ways by her former lovers. Gently. Roughly. Passionately. She’d had beautiful experiences, indifferent experiences, even some fairly exotic experiences. King was a different species of lover altogether, a man for whom the word “exotic” seemed barely adequate. No word was adequate. He used his organ to manipulate her, punish her, and she loved it. It wasn’t like making love, with that term’s connotations of intimacy and rhythmic, gentle coupling.
