Mated to the Alpha and His Beta (Lanie Stanton) novel Chapter 490

Chapter 490
Stella

“Why do they call this place Paradise?” I asked Selena when we were through the front doors and standing in a vaulted entryway.

“It’s what the humans call the place they think they go to in the afterlife,” she said in a low voice. Her eyes were wide as she looked around. She grinned, looking excited. “But this place looks more like the opposite of heaven, if you ask me.”

I took a few seconds to scan my internal library for information about humans and their afterlife and then nodded. Human heaven was supposed to be white, high above the clouds, and filled with creatures they called angels playing harps. I had to laugh a little bit to myself. Angels existed all right, but they were not the way humans thought they were.

Selena was right about this place. Humans had an almost universal idea of hell that had been described by books, movies, and TV for so long that even people whose faith didn’t support an idea of a hell would’ve recognized that was the vibe this place was putting out.

“I don’t get it,” I said to her.

She laughed. “They’re trying to be ironic.”

Paradise was dark, with velvet draperies on the walls, covering up bricked-in windows. Dim, flickering torches lined the walls. A small alcove off to the left led to restrooms, and another on the right looked like a place to leave coats.

The music was louder in here but coming from a different room. Selena tugged my arm toward another set of doors. These were massive, made of carved wood with huge brass handles in the shapes of some kind of bird with a huge beak.

They weren’t heavy, though, and when I pulled one, I almost fell back from how easily it opened. Selena laughed at me, but I didn’t take offense. I was too eager to get inside and see what kind of paradise this place actually was.

“You haven’t been here before?” I asked her as we both went through the doors.

She shook her head, her eyes getting even wider as she looked around the massive space. The ceiling was so high it looked like it disappeared into the sky, and sparking lights and painted stars gave it the appearance of a galaxy lit up with hundreds of stars. Flashing lights swirled different colors across the ceiling and along all the walls. A giant silver ball covered in mirrors dangled from the center of the ceiling. The lights reflected off it, sending out shards of brilliant light in all directions.

“This place is fantastic!” Selena had to shout over the thumping beat of the music pounding out of the speakers. She clung to my arm.

The people on the dance floor were bumping up and down in time to the music, and I couldn’t stop my feet from shifting, too. The far end of the room had some black leather couches and chairs set up. The wall behind them had more of those dim torches, and also…

“Are those…shackles?” I asked Selena.