Ryan kept running, feeling his heart thud painfully inside his chest. He dashed through a series of empty chambers, lit by a ghostly, elusive illumination. Some of the chambers showed as black as the mouth of Hell, and he tried to avoid slowing down in these.
The long corridor abruptly ended in utter, impenetrable blackness, like a sepia sea. Ryan couldn’t stop running. Smoldering in the darkness before him, he saw a pair of crimson eyes, glowing like evil stars in an empty, sunless universe.
He tried to stop, to slow down, to change direction. Instead, he hurtled forward, all control gone. The crimson radiance grew brighter, more vivid, and he saw a face. It was a man’s face, undeniably human, yet with alien, hellishly glowing red eyes. Then the flesh seemed to melt away, revealing a mask of naked white bone. A grinning skull floated in the sepia sea, a skull of ivory in which sparks of livid red flame danced within the shadowed sockets.
Ryan was no stranger to fear. He lived with it daily, but it was an emotion he long ago had learned to bottle, to contain. Now it escaped and spread through him like a virus, consuming him with terror, horror and panic. He set his teeth on the scream rising from his throat.
The death’s-head leered at him, and the jaws of the skull opened. A peal of hideous laughter poured from the yawning jaws.
Ryan plunged toward that gaping maw, determined not to give voice to his surge of terror.
KRYSTY OPENED HER EYES and stared in wonder at the chamber around her. Silk tapestries adorned the walls, rich rugs were on the floors and the ivory chairs, benches and divans were littered with satin cushions.
The canopy over the bed in which she lay was hung with gauzy draperies, softly stirred by an intoxicatingly sweet breeze, scented like orange blossoms.
The delicate aroma made her feel languorous and lethargic, as if she had just awakened from a deep, soul-restoring sleep. Stretching, she turned over on her side, wondering why Ryan wasn’t beside her. She longed to feel his hard body pressing against hers, his hands fondling and caressing her.
At the thought, the nipples of her full breasts hardened, pushing against the thin linen covering them. She needed Ryan beside her, above her, behind her—
Krysty bolted upright in the bed, pushing herself into a sitting position, a sudden alarm casting all other thoughts aside, evaporating the sensual and lascivious sensations that had nearly consumed her. She remembered Ryan sitting beside her in the gateway chamber as the jump mechanism triggered.
She slid out of the bed and turned toward the great bronze double doors at the far end of the room. She saw no knobs or handles. She ran to it, and smote the thick metal with her clenched hands. The muffled beating of her fists echoed dimly.
Suddenly terrified, she cried, “Ryan! Help me! Ryan!”
Even as she beat and shouted, the great bronze doors swung noiselessly back on hidden hinges, revealing a heavy golden chain across the entrance. Then the chain dropped without a sound. Beyond the threshold was a long dim vista of hall. Framed at the far end was a powerful man-shape, looming gigantic in the gloom.
Krysty couldn’t make out any features, then two red flickering orbs appeared, right where a normal man’s eyes should be. Terror flooded through her, but she refused to scream.
As quickly as it crested, the wave of fear receded. The shadows slipped away from the figure or he stepped from them, she couldn’t tell.
A man stood in the center of the hall, towering well over six feet, nearly half a head taller than Ryan. His shoulders were incredibly broad, his arms long and bronzed, his hairless chest rippling with muscles. He was stark naked, and his fully erect member seemed as bronze hard as the rest of him.
Another wave of sensations flooded through Krysty—first, a rise of fiery desire, then a possessiveness, almost fiercely maternal in the urge to protect and nurture. The man beckoned to her with his right hand, a simple gesture, but somehow very sensual. The crimson eyes blazed upon her with an unremitting, hypnotic intensity.