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The door creaked open, revealing a massive dimly lit cavernous space.
What is this place?
Never had I entered a huge room like this.
We crossed the threshold and took in the eerie sight.
Around thirty feet before us, set upon a raised dais, a man sat on a wooden throne. He must have been in his early thirties which surprised me. All this time, I thought he would have been much older.
I further studied him. Tall, muscular, and draped in shadows, he was a hulking figure with eyes that glittered like shards of green glass. He had on jeans and wore no shirt. Of course, alligators were tattooed all over his muscular arms and chest.
I returned my view to the throne. It was a monstrous construction, probably hewn from solid oak, weathered and scarred. Time had darkened its once light wood, and the etchings and carved reptilian symbols gave it a chilling air of ancient power.
It was just as imposing as the man who sat upon it.
However, as unnerving as the throne and he were, that was not what gripped my attention or caused my pulse to quicken.
My heart pounded in my chest as I took in the disturbing view in the center of the space.
He is a mad man.
A massive pit lay between us and him. It was a yawning chasm that stretched across the cavernous room.
A horrific gap.
And inside of that pit, crawled at least forty enormous alligators, each one easily capable of turning a person into a memory. Their scales glistened. Their jaws snapped.
The sight was enough to make the bravest man piss himself.
Some glided in the liquid that must have been barely a foot high. Others lounged on pockets of mud or logs of rotting wood. All of their eyes glowed with a cold, predatory intelligence.
I assessed the dark, rippling water. In some places, discarded bones twirled and twisted on the surface. I spotted several broken femurs and a few humeri. A cracked pelvis bone lay upside down on a muddy hill in the pit.
Definitely human.
Our bones had distinct shapes that were unique to human anatomy. Our thigh bones were longer and straighter than animals as well as our upper arm bones.
Several skulls lay next to this monstrous alligator in the center of the pit. If there was a king in the pit, I would have pointed to him. I assessed the skull, spotting the large cranial area and forward-facing eye sockets.
Yes. Definitely all human bones.
On the right, an alligator raised its snout and hissed, and it was a chilling sound that echoed off the damp stone walls of the pit.
I frowned.
And Emily will not let me have three lions at the wedding? Meanwhile this idiot has a whole pit of alligators.
At least, I understood why there were no other men in this space with him. Who needed more men with guns when one had many alligators.
I glared at Rafael.
He whispered, “What?”
“With all the warnings, you could have mentioned the pit of alligators.”
He widened his eyes. “I thought that part would be obvious.”
Idiot!
