How much trouble can one erotic romance writer get into? Maybe I shouldn't have agreed to the Faustian deal with Loki, but you try turning him down! It's not like there's a writing course on preparing for your fictional character's sudden appearance...
This has to be a dream. God, at least I hope it's a dream. Nothing makes sense, except in the bizarre logic of that unconscious state where events lurch from one thing to the next. I'm sure I was eating dinner. A lovely meal of shrimp and mushroom fettuccine alfredo with a crisp white wine. Then suddenly I'm in a cedar-sided sauna, sweating. Way too hot and I've never been a fan of saunas. It's uncomfortable, sweat trickling down my back and between my breasts. How the hell do I get out of here? Despite my searching and peering through a thick hazy white fog, I can't find the door.
If there's no door, how did I get in here?
Fuck. I'm dying of heat!
My throat is parched, like I can't swallow. When I start pushing on the cedar walls to find a way to escape, a rumbling starts.
The room is shaking. Or I'm shaking? Maybe the floor is shaking?
Is it an earthquake?
No... wait. That's a vibration, and it almost sounds familiar. The walls of the sauna melt away as the sound pulls at me, at my memory.
Why is it so familiar?
The deep rumble finally triggers a memory. My childhood pet. Purring. It's purring.
But it's so deep. The oddness of that thought wakes me, yet that dream-like purr doesn't disappear. And gods, I'm still way too hot. Ugh!
In my half-asleep state, I shove the covers, but the fucking blankets won't move. Impossibly soft and luxuriously silky against my skin, but hot and heavy. Why the hell are these blankets so damn heavy?
My eyelids flutter open as I continue to push at the substantial weight. Blackness seems to surround me and that damn purr echoes loudly.
Weird. I'd swear the bed is vibrating with it.
Now that I'm more awake, it's clear most of the leaden mass is on my chest and across my hips. In the low light of the darkened bedroom, I squint at the silky, lumpy blankets. There's no moonlight coming through the window. Only the remnants of the fire in the hearth provide any light through the doorway from the main room, but it's burned down to bare embers.
Still, the faint glow is enough to discern the odd shape of the blankets piled on top of me.
Why does it seem like the vibration is coming from my blankets? I didn't bring any sex toys with me when I fled my home to end up in this cabin. There shouldn't be anything vibrating in my bed. And when I poke the blankets, they don't feel like blankets. No, it's more like a fur rug. But it's warm and solid.
And it's vibrating.
Not vibrating... purring.
The blankets shift on their own, and my breath freezes when puffs of hot air blow over my right breast with every exhale from my blankets.
Holy fuck! N—not blankets.
The last of my sleepy confusion burns away at the realization that there is an enormous panther draped over me, sleeping with its head on my chest.
Scared to move, I can scarcely breathe. It's Loki, right? Fuck, it's got to be Loki. Please be Loki? My pulse pounds so hard and fast, it seems like it should wake the sleeping cat. Despite my best efforts to control my breathing, I begin to pant, my chest heaving and shaking the massive head lying on me.
The panther yawns, the flash of white canines reflecting their deadly flesh-rending length in the low light, and I clench my teeth against the whimpers climbing my throat.
Oh god. Oh my god. If this isn't Loki, I'm so fucking dead.
The cat lazily rubs its cheek against my breast a few times, like someone trying to push a pillow into the most comfortable position, before laying its head down again and the purr resumes.
My muscles ache from the tension of freezing in place. Thoughts race hamster-like in my head, trying to decide how to get myself out of this predicament. Am I still dreaming? Is this real? What do I—
Another sensation has my skin flashing hot, then cold, then hot again with goosebumps breaking out and the hair rising at my nape. It's the stabbing-pricking of sharp points against the flesh of my side, just below my ribs. Rhythmically pulsing, they penetrate my skin in a painful bite, then retract, only to return once again.
Fuck. Oh fuck.
Like its much, much smaller counterparts have done when I had a pet cat as a child, this cat is kneading my belly. But its paw is the size of my face, based on what I can tell from the spread of pain slicing me. Razor-sharp claws that have got to be enormous. On my completely unprotected abdomen.
Unable to stop it, my muscles tremble and my breath speeds faster. I scrunch my eyes shut. But that just focuses my senses on the terrifying pricking of those claws.
A/N: Don't want to wait? Read the rest on REAM or you can preorder on Amazon.
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