Warrior Read online

  “Anna, why are you here so early?” he asked, his lips compressed. It was obvious he was upset with her, but she didn’t see why her early arrival bothered him so much. He led her over to the couch.

  Looking up at him shyly, Anna gave him a small smile. “I didn’t think you’d mind,” she said, softly. “I just thought we could spend some extra time together, that's all.”

  Jesse stood still and stared at her silently, his expression dark. She looked back at him in confusion. He wasn’t the same sweet and flattering man she’d come to know, and the feeling of unease continued to grow inside of her.

  With a grimace, he said, “It’s fine. I’ll bring you something to drink.” He quickly rushed off before she could tell him she wasn’t really thirsty.

  Momentarily, he returned, carrying two small glasses. Smiling, he handed her a glass and said, “Drink this, it’s my own special recipe.”

  “Thank you.”

  Turning, he slid his athletic frame into a high-backed chair across from her. She flushed at the obvious cut. They were all alone and in love. She’d hoped Jesse would sit next to her and hold her hand like other lovers did.

  “Where’s everyone at, Jesse? Who do those cars belong to?”

  He didn’t immediately respond. Instead, he raised his glass towards her in a silent toast and chugged it down. Finally, meeting her eyes, he said, “You haven’t even drank yours yet. Don’t you like it?”

  When she didn’t respond, he glared at her and said in a cruel voice, “Drink it, Anna. Otherwise, I will start to think that maybe you don’t like me as much as I imagined you did.”

  She felt her heart stop at his words, and tears stung her eyes. She didn’t want to fight with him. Raising the small glass to her lips, she took a sip and struggled not to gag. The drink tasted terrible.

  He continued watching her, his face hard. It was obvious she had angered him, and she didn’t want him to break up with her over a drink. Tilting the glass back, she forced it down her throat.

  “That’s better,” he said, once she set the empty glass down. His black eyes seemed to gleam with satisfaction in the dim lighting of the room. “Now, just relax.”

  Coughing at the bitter aftertaste, she tried to speak again, “I thought I was going to meet your friends tonight. Where is everyone?” Dizziness made the room spin, but she was determined to ease the tension between them. He was unhappy with her, and it hurt.

  Jesse leaned forward in the chair and rubbed his hands together. “You’ll get to meet them soon,” he replied, watching her as if he were studying her. “Believe me, they are very eager to meet you. Does anyone know you’re here?” he asked, his lips curling up in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

  Anna gently shook her head no, surprised that the motion made her feel slightly nauseated. She ran a palm across her forehead. Her poor mom would be worried sick. She hadn’t thought to call her and let her know where she was.

  Although they’d been dating a few weeks, Jesse had never asked to meet Iris. Looking back, it struck her as odd, especially considering he wanted her to go to New York with him.

  He slowly stood back up. “I’m going to let my friends know you’re here, then we can get this party started. Just sit here until I get back.”

  Anna could barely understand his words. Her eyelids felt very heavy. She realized something was wrong, but it was hard to hold onto the thought. Her mind simply couldn't work right. Her body felt extremely weak, and she knew she needed help. Without another word, Jesse turned and walked out.

  Her purse was beside her, and Anna managed to slide her hand into the cell phone pocket. Easing her phone out, she tried to push the speed dial for her mom. The room reeled as the phone began to ring. Some rational part of her mind told her she only had seconds before she lost consciousness. It was a terrifying feeling.

  Her tongue was thick and frozen inside of her mouth, and she was scared of the paralysis and her inability to talk. Iris answered the phone, but it was too late. A tear slipped from the corner of Anna's eye as the cell phone slid from her lifeless fingers.

  SOMETIME LATER ANNA regained consciousness. Minutes could have passed or maybe hours. She was still alone in the den of the hunting lodge, the temperature hot enough to be an oven. Her stomach churned, impossible to ignore. Holding her mouth, she stumbled to her feet and quickly looked for a bathroom.

  Anna couldn’t take Jesse seeing her like that. The last thing she wanted was the man she loved watching her vomit. She rushed towards the door, barely making it to a snowy spot behind a bush before the vile liquid came back up.

  Still disoriented and dizzy, Anna remembered her phone and decided to call Iris again. She carefully made her way back inside, too sick to worry about everyone else. Checking the entire room, she sat down in puzzlement. Her phone and purse were gone.

  “Jesse?” she called, as she made her way slowly down the hallway. It was still as dimly lit and as quiet as it had been when she first arrived. Everything felt wrong. Moving deeper into the bowels of the house, a terrible, obnoxious odor overcame her, increasing the churning and queasiness in her stomach.

  A muffled sound broke through the quietness. Following the noise, Anna discovered a doorway that led down into the basement. The steps were fairly steep, adding to the vertigo she was already experiencing. A draft swept the odd odor through her nostrils, and she quickly shoved her hand against her mouth to keep herself from gagging. It smelled like roadkill mixed in with something even worse. Something rotten and decaying in the heat of the house. Whatever the smell was, it originated in that room.

  In another time and place, Anna would have left. She wanted to leave and never come back. Instead, she made it halfway down the old wooden stairs before sinking down to rest. The basement itself was as dark as the rest of the house and just as hot. It was large and ran across the length of the lodge. Sconces were mounted along the walls, lit with torches. They provided the only lighting. It was very medieval for a modern-day hunting lodge in Alaska.

  Anna's eyes finally adjusted to the darkness. Around a wall and across the basement, she saw three men gathered around... something. She was shocked to see it was a very large bed, with a blood-red comforter spread across it. It had two spotlights directly above it, illuminating the bed and the naked blonde in the middle of it.

  Head thrown back and legs spread wide, she moaned loudly in between the throaty pants that escaped her lips. Her hands moved between her legs as she masturbated, while the three men stood silently watching. When her head turned in Anna’s direction, Anna gasped. It was Suzi Zellers. Thankfully, Suzi didn't spot her. Too sick and dizzy to move, Anna watched in horror as the scene unfolded in front of her.

  The men wore hooded red robes, similar in shade to the comforter found on the mattress. They hadn't bothered closing their robes in any way, and they were nude underneath. Nude and aroused. They stood in the shadows, just watching the woman as she pleasured herself. Not a word passed between them, the only sounds coming from Suzi as she gasped and moaned.

  Suzi smiled, enjoying their attention as they watched. “You boys better get a nice, long look at what a real woman looks like before you have to see that fat, bloated whale naked upstairs,” she said, throatily, a sneer crossing her face. Anna was stunned that the other woman even spoke of her, considering the circumstances. Suzi continued, “I was showing Jesse a real good time until she had to knock on the door.”

  “Quiet, bitch,” a harsh, distorted voice rasped out from one of the three. To Anna's ears, it didn't even sound human. “We aren't interested in hearing you speak.” Simultaneously, the men moved into the light as if it were orchestrated.

  Suzi reached out towards the man standing closest to her. Her hand began to move up and down. The other two men pleasured themselves. Suzi laughed in delight at the sight.

  One of them moved to the foot of the bed and yanked Suzi to the edge. He smiled coldly, revealing a row of razor sharp teeth. They were bloody. Anna watched in s
tunned disbelief. In the light, she identified him as the man who had answered the door. His lust-filled gaze centered on the slit between Suzi's legs.

  Anna gaped in horrific shock as his image began to change, his body lengthening and stretching into impossibly large dimensions. His skin tone changed, darkening into a disgusting shade of green and gray. Horns erupted from the top of his skull, one on each side. They were solid and thick at the base, narrowing into a sharp and lethal point at each tip. Anna trembled in fear, certain of what she saw. It wasn't a nightmare. He was the very image of a demon from Hell, and she was trapped in a lodge with them.

  Grabbing his dick, he stroked furiously until he reached his release. With a loud roar, he ejaculated, his neck muscles bulging as spurt after spurt shot out from his body. Suzi moaned as the semen hit her between her legs, and then she begged repeatedly for more.

  Anna’s eyes dropped down his body, staring at it in horrified disbelief. His dick looked like it was made out of stone, protruding out of his body in massive proportions. It, too, was the same color as rest of his body, his dick as grotesque as the rest of him.

  She wanted to scream at Suzi and warn her to get away, but Suzi was oblivious or uncaring of the demon in front of her. Had she known what they were all along? Regardless, in that moment, it had to be clear to the other woman that the men in the lodge weren't human. And from all appearances, Suzi couldn't have cared less.

  After ejaculating, he handed Suzi a dagger with strange markings along the handle. After she accepted it, he began to chant. The blade of the knife glittered brightly underneath the spotlights. Suzi smiled at the men as she pricked her finger with the razor sharp edge. Extending her finger, she moaned as the first man slowly licked the blood away. Repeating the procedure, she offered it to the second man. He grabbed her hand roughly, sucking her finger deeply into his mouth.

  At that point, it was clear beyond any reasonable doubt that Suzi was no stranger to the ritual. She was there by her own free will. Anna had seen enough. She slowly pulled herself up. A wave of dizziness hit her, nearly causing her to fall over the opposite side of the stairs. Looking down to catch her breath, she noticed a foot sticking out from underneath the staircase. Leaning over quietly for a better look, she nearly screamed. The concrete floor underneath the stairs was packed full of dead bodies.

  Anna turned and struggled to make it back up the old wooden stairs quietly. Witnessing the blood orgy and dead bodies made her ill. No one in that lodge could be trusted, not even Jesse. If she were to live, she’d have to find a way out of there without being spotted—and soon.

  The front door was in sight when she heard footsteps and voices approaching. She ducked into the closest room and quickly eased the door shut. They stopped just a few feet away. Breathing quietly, Anna listened intently.

  “That fat bitch will be knocked out for hours,” a man’s voice said, just feet from the doorway of the room she was hidden in. It was Jesse, and there was no doubt he was speaking of her. She was the only “fat bitch knocked out” from what she had seen. The rest were either dead or screwing demons, from what she'd seen.

  Anna quietly cracked the door open, just enough to peek out. It was definitely Jesse with another man or possibly a demon, like the ones downstairs. A shiver shot down her spine.

  “I didn’t sell my soul just to have to fuck something like that,” Jesse continued in a disgusted tone of voice. “I wanted fame, fortune, and hot women. There wasn’t any mention of fat virgins. I mean, how do you expect me to keep my dick hard?”

  Jesse had a shot glass in his hand, and he raised it to his lips. After tossing it back, he continued, “You tell them I can’t do it. There aren't enough drugs in this world to keep me hard. Tell them to find another man, preferably a blind one.”

  Anna heard the sound of flesh hitting flesh, as Jesse slammed into the wall. The shot glass fell and splintered into a million pieces. “The master says you’ll do that and more,” a cool voice replied. “Unless you’d like to spend an eternity without that tiny cock you’re so proud of. You agreed to the terms of your immortality. A pact was made, and it won't be broken.”

  Jesse’s lip curled up in a sneer. “Do you know how hard it has been to pretend to be interested in Anna?” He walked over to the table, refilling another shot glass. His features were twisted, and one side of his face was swollen. In that moment, Anna wondered how she could have ever been so blind and so stupid.

  Jesse had never wanted her. He had been completely turned off by her, which was why he could never bring himself to make a move. She shook her head as she puzzled it out. What did he have to gain from it?

  Hurt suddenly washed over her, and she quickly put her hand over her mouth to cover up a pain-filled gasp. This was how people viewed her, and she was so tired of it. Because she was overweight, they looked at her as someone to be pitied. Pitied but not desired. Jesse was her final straw. Her self-esteem was shattering with each word that came out of his lying mouth.

  Jesse turned back towards the unknown man. “Now that sweet piece downstairs is a completely different story. There’s nothing that she won’t try, and her body is enough to make the limpest cock hard. Why not her? Instead, you expect me to fuck someone as big as a cow until she gets pregnant? Let one of those other bastards downstairs do it.” He quickly swallowed the contents of his shot glass before shaking off the burn from the stout drink. With as much alcohol as he was consuming, it was a miracle he was still standing.

  Jesse was slammed back into the wall again. “I’m going to tell you one more time,” the man growled in his face. “You made the bargain. Plow the tool until you release your seed. Throw a blanket over her face if you need too, but you’ll fuck her until she conceives. Once she has, she’ll be kept prisoner until the whelp is born. Then she’ll be sacrificed. You’ll keep your immortality, and she’ll be dead. Master has said it must be you, though, and this means you're doing it.”

  The unknown voice paused for a moment, to let it all sink in. Then he continued, “Do you want to see what I do to beings who argue?”

  Jesse knocked the other man's hand away. “Fine,” he said, sullenly. “It’s your problem, though, if I can’t rise to the occasion.”

  Hopelessness and despair washed over Anna, nearly bringing her to her knees. She was trapped in the lodge with people—demons—who wanted her dead. She had never felt so alone. With her hands clasped over her mouth, she stood there with tears running down her face, as she wondered if escape was even possible.

  “Now that you know what’s expected of you, I’m going downstairs. It isn’t often I get to get in on the action. Hopefully, there’s something left of that blonde-haired slut,” the voices started to move away. Jesse continued to beg until she couldn't hear anything further.

  It was still dark outside, the moonlight spilling in through the window. Anna had no idea how many minutes or hours passed. The silence was deafening. Anna considered her options. She had a choice to make. She could either remain inside the lodge and likely die, but at least she'd be warm. Or she could leave the lodge and more than likely die from the elements. Neither option was good, but within seconds, her decision was made. With the fear of discovery dogging her steps, she made it back out of the front door and into the cold night.

  The snow was thick and covered up the road, making walking difficult as she took off on foot. Anna knew Alaskan winters were nothing to play with, and many a person had lost their lives from being trapped out in it. Within minutes, the cold penetrated the thickness of her coat, and she had a strong suspicion she’d never make it back to town alive. Bitterly, she thought about how well Jesse and his friends had arranged her capture.

  By the time Anna realized she was lost, she was barely coherent and could no longer feel her fingers or toes. Doctors later said it was a miracle she had survived the harsh night temperatures.

  It wasn’t long before she lost the ability to keep trying. Finding an old and deserted shed, she huddled into the s
mall shelter. Her entire body shook from her efforts to stay warm. Slumping against the wooden wall, she finally gave up.

  Minutes passed. Perhaps hours. Out of the darkness, she heard a calm masculine voice say, “You’re safe, Anna. I am taking you home to Iris now.” She didn't know where it came from nor cared. A deep peace came over her body, easing the pain. The voice continued, “Don't worry. Everything will be okay.”

  Her body rose up into the sky, her neck and head falling back weakly. Still, she couldn't open her eyes. She'd died, Anna mused, and her soul was leaving her body. It was the only explanation. At a size twenty-four, nobody could have ever picked her up. Her thoughts were incoherent, but they made perfect sense to her.

  Anna felt the air move around her, but she no longer felt the chill. Heaven was going to be warm and pleasant, she just knew it. There would be no more pain and no more hurt and definitely no more fat taunts or demons. With a dreamy smile, she slipped into oblivion.

  ANNA JERKED AWAKE FROM the nightmare and sat up on the couch gasping. Her neck and face were wet with sweat and tears. It had been years since the nightmares of that night bothered her. Now, with the stress of her mother’s passing, they were coming every night.

  She wiped away the wetness and sat there shivering as she remembered the pain and humiliation she’d experienced as a result of Jesse. The months that followed weren't easy. Anna had fallen into a coma by the time she reached the hospital. For the first several days, no one was even sure she’d survive. But by some miracle she had, though now she wondered what for.

  Doctors had discovered a powerful drug in her system, one commonly used to render a horse unconscious. It had been given to her at three times the recommended dosage. Combined with the severe illness she'd picked up from the cold and exposure, her recuperation was long and difficult.