The clouds concealing the moon part, flooding the room with silver light. I follow the tentacle to find his shadowy outline. I woke up in the middle of the night to find a dark figure standing at the foot of my bed. He claimed to be my soul mate, but I’m calling BS.

I tried to run, but he caught me around the waist and gagged me with one of his slippery appendages.The pulse between my ears pounds so hard that it muffles all sound, including the meditation I’d stupidly played to attract a soul mate. Had I heard him right? He can’t be taking me to his dimension. Dimensions are a thing of science fiction. They don’t even exist. I slip my fingers beneath the appendage to dislodge its grip, but it tightens. It looks like he wants an answer to his question.

I’ve never tasted anything finer,” he replies with a low moan that makes my nipples tighten. “Where can I find more?” With all my spare time spent painting watercolors in the hope that one of them will sell, it’s near impossible to meet decent men. Please,” I say through the gag. This time, the tentacle around my mouth loosens to allow me to make a sound. Heat floods the room, explaining why I’d woken up feeling too hot. He must have brought it with him when he entered through the portal. The air becomes acrid with a suffocating scent of sulfur. My eyes itch, then they water, then it feels like tiny claws are scratching my throat. I blink over and over, coughing, choking, gasping for air. The monster raises his arm in a slicing motion that causes the sound of tearing. My breath catches as a rip forms in the air. Shit. I’d heard of the fabric of time, but this is ridiculous.One thing led to another, and now I have a tentacle beast in my room who knows exactly how to make me moan.

He pulls me away from the rift in the air and loosens the tentacle gag a little further. “Explain.”Panic spikes in my heart, pushing me into action. There’s no way I can let a strange man, let alone a creature of unknown origin, put anything inside my body.