Chapter 11: Elunara

I drift into sleep before my head even touches the pillow. The house is silent around me. It’s familiar and strange, as though even these walls have grown used to having me here.

When I next open my eyes, I know I’m not awake.

* * *

I’m walking through fields I’ve never seen before, but I know it. The grass under my bare feet glows softly with the impending dusk, each blade shimmering as though it’s dusted in moonlight. Fireflies drift around me like tiny lanterns in the night. The air smells of sweet hay, distant rain, and something musky.

Each step, each movement brings awareness that I am naked. My breasts are full, heavy with an aching need to provide and offer.

I feel the intensity of their gaze on me before I see them.

Eyes glow: multiple, half-hidden in shadow, their light stirring the surrounding grass. They’re intense, ancient.

I shiver and step forward, heart racing, my breath catching. The fields open into a hollow under a full moon—hauntingly mesmerizing, intoxicatingly addictive.

And then I see them.

Darius, tall and dark, with horns cresting his skull. They’re smooth and curved, pulling the moon’s light toward him. He stands beside Vastian, who looks regal in the moonlight, arms crossed, commanding. Between and behind them, a shadow moves, fluid and silent. A third presence.

Horns vanish from Darius’s head. I blink, doubt surges through me that they were ever there to begin with.

Then, I’m kneeling in front of them.

They’re milking something—me? Or something beside me. I can’t tell.

The ritual unfolds, and I don’t flinch. I feel instead a widening inside, a yearning blooming in my chest. My breasts ache with indulgence, and when one of them brushes a hand over me, I gasp.

A steady drumbeat drifts from the treeline, echoing through the soil beneath me and deep into my bones.

My breathing is shallow, my skin glistening with cold dew.

Fingertips brush along the swell of my breast. Not hurried or rough, but possessive. The touch lingers, heating my damp skin, sending tiny shivers across my chest.

My breath catches. A thumb grazes the underside, deliberate and slow, as though learning me. My skin blooms where he touches, nerves sparking with electricity.

The weight in my breasts deepens, full and desperate. My nipples tighten under the cool night air. Every breath becomes a silent plea.

Another hand—larger, rougher—glides along my thigh.

The drumbeat continues. The heat between my legs pulses with it, low and steady, syncing with the beat, syncing with them.

I feel them without seeing them—circling me, coaxing me open with nothing more than the gravity of their presence. My knees part. My back arches. I want to be touched, taken.

Something unseen exhales against the shell of my ear, breath warm, voice like velvet wrapped around steel.

“Your body knows its masters even if your mind doesn’t yet.”

I glance upward. Darius’s horns flicker again under the moon, then fade. His bright amber eyes, full of ownership and hunger, flick to mine.

Behind him, Vastian’s gaze is sharp and heavy, almost protective—yet I sense a controlled strength.

That third presence slips through me. It’s nothing more than a silhouette, a conscious awareness. He sees me, though. He sees all of me. Through secrets I haven’t whispered. Dark parts I’ve buried.

A voice—soft, rasping, very male—near my ear: “It’s okay, little hucow. You’re home now.”

My body burns. Need pulses beneath my skin, visceral, opened.

A hand fuses to my hip, fingers splaying like a brand across my skin.

It isn’t gentle.

It claims.

Another hand—different, colder—presses against my upper arm, pinning me in place with nothing but the weight of dominance. My heart hammers. My thighs tense. I’m held like prey, but I don’t run. I don’t want to run. My body arches, offering more. My pulse thrashes against their touch.

Breath fans against the side of my neck. Not one of them. All of them. Surrounding me. Feeding off the energy rolling off my skin like heat waves.

Teeth graze the curve between my shoulder and throat. Not biting. Not yet. But promising.

Some primal part of me lifts its head from a long slumber.

Yes, it whispers. Yes. This is what I was made for.

Fingers slide down the inside of my thigh, dragging the wetness between my legs into the open air of the dream. I shudder. The sensation doesn’t end. It coils in my belly. In my breasts. In my throat.

The shadows hum. My nipples harden. My womb pulses.

I ache.

“Let it take you,” someone growls. Maybe Darius. Maybe not. “Let the Hollow have you.”

And I do.