It started as heat.
Not the gentle, sleepy warmth of Gunner’s arms. Not the way his chest radiated safety, or the furnace of our joined bodies beneath the quilt. This was a different fire—darker, raw, and so real it singed the inside of my skull.
I was on my knees, naked and sweat-slick, pressed against the flat stone floor of a room that looked like our bedroom but wasn’t. The air pulsed orange and red. The walls were built of rough, uneven blocks, mortared together by some tarry blackness that wept in rivulets down to the ground. There was no window, no door, just a low ceiling and the knowledge that if I looked up, I’d find nothing but infinite darkness staring back at me.
But I wasn’t alone. He was behind me—my wolf, my cowboy, my Gunner. He’d wrapped his arms around my middle and his chest was at my back, and he was talking to me, but the words dripped like hot wax in my ears. They burned, but I wanted them. Needed them.
I felt him move, the blunt weight of his cock hard between my thighs. His hand knotted in my hair, and he pulled me backward, making me arch. My mouth fell open, ready for whatever he gave me. I was hungry, desperate; I wanted to please him.
I turned, and Gunner’s face was in shadow. His voice rumbled through me: “You gonna be a good girl for me, Maverick?”
“Yes, Sir,” I said, but my voice didn’t sound like my own. It was smaller. More afraid.
He laughed—a thunderclap, rattling the stones under my knees. He reached forward and pushed my head down, bending me over until my cheek scraped the grit of the floor.
And then it changed.
I was still kneeling, but now the room throbbed with a low, red light, the air thick with sulfur and rot. The hands on my hips weren’t Gunner’s anymore—too long, too tight, with curved, digging claws that pierced my skin but didn’t bleed. I tried to move, to crawl away, but my legs were locked in place.
I heard a tail, the lazy thwack-thwack of something heavy on the stone, and I realized I was salivating, drooling down my chin as I strained to breathe. I looked back, expecting Gunner’s lean hips, the tan line I’d kissed a hundred times, but instead there was a mass of muscle and dark, glossy skin, glistening with heat. A tail the width of my wrist coiled around my thigh, squeezing, forcing my legs open wider.
I opened my mouth to scream, but something thick and slick was already between my lips, pushing in, filling my throat. I gagged, but the hand on the back of my skull held me in place, forcing my face down, grinding it into the grit. My eyes watered. The taste was acid and smoke and sex. I tried to bite, but my teeth didn’t work; I could only suck and swallow and sob.
Behind me, the tail slid higher, curling between my ass cheeks and up to my pussy. It was slimy, hot, alive. I felt it probe, circling my entrance, then slam inside in a single, punishing stroke. I screamed—soundless, airless—but the hand never let go. The tail fucked me, in and out, making my whole body rock and jolt. Every time I tried to pull free, the claws dug deeper into my hips, scraping bone.
And then, through the haze, I saw the wall in front of me shift and melt, revealing a mirror. In the reflection, I was still myself, but my eyes glowed bright gold, and my mouth stretched wide around a cock that was not human—ribbed, black, and leaking something pale and sticky that dripped down my chin. The tail inside my pussy thrashed until I came even though I tried not to, then pulled free, spraying a splatter of viscous fluid onto my back.
I looked up. It wasn’t Gunner.
The face was Maltraz’s—demon king, skin the color of iron, with rows of gleaming white teeth, eyes burning like open wounds. His mouth twisted in a smile, and he grunted, “Swallow, girl,” in a voice that shook the world.
I tried to spit, but the thing in my mouth jerked and spasmed, pumping heat and poison down my throat. My stomach clenched. I started to gag, to retch, to vomit, but the hand just held me down, suffocating me in the filth.
“Swallow,” the demon hissed again. “You’re made for this, aren’t you, slut?”
He slammed my face into the floor once, twice, and I heard something crunch in my jaw. I choked, vision flickering to black, but I still couldn’t escape. I was so tired. So full. So scared.
The scene repeated, over and over, cycling through Gunner’s face and Maltraz’s, the room growing smaller and hotter each time. Sometimes there were others, shadows watching from the edges, tongues flicking, claws scraping stone. Sometimes there was just me and the hands and the tail and the voice, always the voice, always telling me what I was meant for.
It built and built, until I felt my skin splitting, my insides unraveling, and I started to scream—not just in the dream, but out loud, a ripping animal noise that tore through my throat.
Then hands, real hands, grabbed my shoulders, shaking me.
“Brie. Brie! Wake up. Wake up, baby. I’m here.”
I came to on a wave of cold sweat, my mouth open and howling. My entire body spasmed against the sheets, limbs flailing, and I thought for one awful second I’d pissed myself or worse. I was tangled in the blankets,suffocating, but Gunner’s arms closed around me and pulled me up, rocking me, shushing me, his voice a lifeline in the dark.
“It’s okay. It’s okay, I’ve got you. You’re here, you’re safe, Maverick.”
My chest heaved. I clawed at his arms, desperate to prove he was real, to feel something solid. The taste in my mouth was sour, the back of my throat raw. My whole body trembled, but I couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t even slow it down. I felt like my bones had been hollowed out and filled with liquid terror.
“Don’t let him take me,” I sobbed, the words breaking apart in my mouth. “Don’t let him…don’t… please…”
Gunner just held me tighter, lips pressed to my hair. “No one’s taking you, Maverick. I swear. You’re with me. You’re safe.”
The world swam back into focus, a little at a time. The familiar geometry of the bedroom—my painting over the dresser, his boots by the door, the ugly old lamp he’d said was “classy in a Western way.” It was still night, the digital clock pulsing 3:08 in blue numbers. The only sound was my own ragged breathing and Gunner’s heartbeat under my ear.
I clung to him, feeling the panic recede by millimeters. My hands shook so badly I couldn’t unclench them from his shirt.
