The tequila must have been wearing off already; pain started to throb in my palm.
Before I could even lament the fact that I would be picking dirt chunks out of my cut for a week, a faint white glow emitted from the stone. My eyes widened as a deep buzzing worked its way down my arm and into my body. Then, before I could cry,or freak out, the white light turned a hazy hot pink.
What in the...?
All I’d had to drink was tequila … but I wouldn’t put it past Matt to drop acid into my drink or something crazy like that. It took my brain far too long to process that my hand was still pressed to the glowing, vibrating stone wall. When I finally pulled it away, I left behind a bloody handprint.
The macabre artwork from Yours Truly seemed to fade and blend into the images that had already been there, and I backed up slowly. What the hell was going on? Just as I was about to turn tail and run, the bloody handprint on the marble stone began to … melt or fade away, and in its place alandscapeslowly formed.
Acid, definitely acid.
I was having the craziest hallucination ever. Looking through this … hole in the cave wall, my gaze fell onto a desolate land of sharp rocks and red glowing embers.
“Maisey!” Shauna called out from below, her voice high and tinny.
I couldn’t move. I was rooted to the spot as a half-naked, gigantic muscle of a man suddenly stepped into view. Confusion crossed his face as he looked through the cave window and into my eyes, then that confusion turned into scorn as he raked his eyes across me.
I gulped in air, trying to figure out if there was any way this was really happening. I’d never seen anyone that looked like him—not ever—and I lived in a beach town full of hot surfer boys.
This dude was something else.
Hot as fuck … like smoking hot. But also … dangerous. He was nearly seven feet tall and looked like he could eat an entire cow for dinner. His hair was black as the night sky, his eyes a dark blue color with streaks of gold, and his skin was a few shades lighter than bronze. He was painted in dark shadows and shades of gold, making him look more like a sculpture than human. That half-lidded look of his was assessing me as hard as I was examining him.
When our gazes locked, I made a small screeching sound as my survival instincts finally kicked in.
Guy was hot as fuck but also looked like an axe murderer.
Run!
“Hey there,” I said weakly, backing away.
His eyes cut through me, biting … confused.
“Youreleased me?” he asked, his voice deep and gravely, his well-shaped eyebrows rising in surprise. He spoke with a mild accent that I couldn’t place, stumbling a little over the words like it was his first time speaking in a while.
I simply nodded. “I’m on acid.”
Because what other explanation was there?
As he stepped through the cave wall and stood before me, it all became too much for my brain. That’s when the darkness slammed into me and I passed out.
