Chapter9
RAYVEN
I fell into a deep,restless sleep. Even if this was a nightmare, at least it was a reprieve from Hell. Though, scary dreams had never bothered me before. I’d always loved my nightmares back home.
I wasthatperson—the creepy, weird girl. I liked horror movies, scary stories, and the macabre. I spent most of my childhood in cemeteries, but it didn’t start out because I liked them. My father died when I was young, and my mom was always away, working three jobs to support us. So I hung out with dad at his grave.
I found the company of the dead peaceful–I always had–but this realm was on a whole new level. It scared me.
I knew I needed to escape. I didn’t belong here. I was stillalive. My presence in this realm defied the natural order of things. But…there was a part of me that didn’t want to leave. The horny little goth girl inside wanted to stay in the realm of the dead and play the pet of the evil bone monster.
Obviously, good ol’ survival skills weren’t going to let that happen. If I wanted to survive, I could never submit to him that way. I had to keep my distance, had to escape. It was the logical thing to do.
But when the nightmare took hold of me, I welcomed it. This was a safe place to explore that part of myself. To indulge in the nightmares without actually living them, without having to deal with the consequences.
The first thing I became aware of was the collar still around my neck, pulled tight at my nape by the heavy chain fastened to the front.
The second was that I was sitting on something very warm. Something alive. I was in a man’s lap. No, a monster’s.The Lord of Bones.My skin prickled at the realization, at his closeness.
And the third thing I noticed was that a gauze-like dress was draped from my collar, giving off exotic slave-girl vibes. The material was even thinner than my nightgown, leaving nothing to the imagination.
The Lord of Bones sat in a throne made of–fittingly–bones, which stood in the back of a dark, dank throne room. Chunks of stone were pushed off to the perimeter of the hall where the pillars had begun to crumble with age, and cobwebs hung from every corner.
A procession of souls–corpses in various states of decomposition–stood before the throne. The line was so long it encircled the room and out the double doors at the end of the hall. I couldn’t be sure, but I had a feeling it wound through the entire castle.
The most shocking thing about the room wasn’t that I was sitting on the Lord’s lap, or the hundreds of souls waiting in the queue. It was the river of crimson red water wrapping around the throne. It had a slow current, moving lazily along, and there were thousands of decomposing corpses floating just beneath the surface.
My stomach flipped. Somehow, even though I’d never seen it before, I knew this was the river Styx. These souls were all awaiting their Judgement, and the Styx would carry them on to the next stage of hell.If, and only if, the Lord of Bones ushered them on.
The monster in question didn’t seem to be paying attention to anything around us in the room. His large fingers stroked my hair with slow, reverent motions. It was just a dream, but his touch did things to me, stirred dormant feelings buried in me that I hadn’t felt in so long. If I were awake, I’d… Well, I wasn’t sure what I’d do. Scream? Run? What good would that do, considering the chain around my neck?
My gaze followed the heavy links, my cheeks heating when I saw it looped around his wrist. He was holding it like a leash, and the end was secured to an iron hook affixed to the base of the throne we sat in.
I was the Lord of Bones’ little pet, and here in the safety of my dream, I didn’t want to escape.
“Next,” he summoned the next soul in line without bothering to lift his head.
His voice was so guttural and deep, even in my head. I lifted my eyes to his, to find his eyes sockets alight with soft blue flame. They flickered when he noticed I was staring.
The King of Limbo looked so terrifying in his throne, with his moth-eaten cloak draped around his broad shoulders. Underneath, all he wore were black pants, leaving his broad chest open to my curious gaze. It was muscular, with pronounced pectorals and rippling abs. But what drew my eye was his pale, almost blue flesh, with streaks of necrosis-like black patterning all down his torso. It almost looked like tattoos.
My mouth began to water. He was a horny goth girl’s dream. Mark always made fun of me for the monster romance books I kept in my room. Now that I was faced with one–-a very dangerous one that wanted to torture me for accidently decapitating the corpse of his last human pet—my “monster fucker” status came with some hefty implications.
But this was a dream, so what was the harm?
“You’re admiring me,” he mused, lifting his head from his hand which was propped on the arm of his throne. He almost sounded surprised.
“I guess I am. You’re not the real you. So it’s perfectly fine if you know the whole ‘bone daddy’ thing you got going on actually does it for me.”
A growl so soft it was almost a purr rolled from his chest. “You’ve admired your Lord with your eyes. Now let me worship you with mine.”
He slipped his wrist out of the chain loop and gestured to the floor at his feet. “On your knees.”
I froze for a beat. My mind said no, but everything else screamed yes. So with all the souls watching, I slipped off his knee and knelt at his feet before his throne. My heart lurched into hyper-speed as I felt the flames in his eye sockets scorch my flesh.
He slowly leaned forward, his skull head canting to the side as his black forked tongue painted a lick over his top row of teeth. “Turn around.”
I did as I was told, the fire inside me making my skin bead with sweat and my pussy drip. Holy shit. This felt soreal.
