And worse…she’d come. In her sleep. She could feel the moisture between her thighs, soaking her underwear. Her body thrummed, and her sex still pulsed with the aftermath.
“Wow,” she rasped, pressing a hand to her face as she caught her breath.
She’d had dreams of sex before, but this was wholly different; she rarely dreamed with such intensity. This had felt real. She tried to recall the details, but all she could remember were shadows, mist, and immense pleasure.
Gingerly, Sophie maneuvered to the edge of the bed and slipped off. She bit her lower lip to suppress a grin.
“What a way to start the morning.” She chuckled.
Her blankets were already on the floor — she must’ve kicked them off in her sleep again — so she stripped the remaining bedding, including the mattress cover, and dumped them in the washing machine in the bathroom.
She paused while lowering the lid and returned it to the upright position. Hurriedly, Sophie pushed down her pajama pants and panties, pulled her shirt off over her head, and tossed them all into the washer. She shivered, her skin pebbling with the cold as she added detergent and set the dials. But her skin prickled with something more — awareness. She stilled, her chest suddenly tight, convinced there was someone — or something — behind her. Steeling herself, she glanced over her shoulder.
There was nothing there but her flower-patterned shower curtain.
Shaking her head, she pulled open the shower curtain — still nothing there — and started the water. It seemed to take forever to get hot.
After she’d showered and dressed, she built up the fire and made breakfast. The interior of the cabin was lit with a golden glow by the morning sunlight streaming in through the windows. How had this place looked when it was first built? Had the wood shined, or had it always possessed this distressed, rustic aesthetic?
She settled her throw blanket over her shoulders and stepped onto the porch to take in the crisp morning air. The more time she spent here, the more she was coming to love it. She could envision the exact place outside where she’d set up her worktable in the spring. It would sit in a shady spot facing the woods, surrounded by the sounds of nature; the perfect spot to get some writing done.
Sophie smiled. She was already planning for the future, making this place her home. That was a good sign.
She went back inside, grabbed her laptop, and settled on the sofa to write. The day flew by; even though she knew each minute was neither longer nor shorter than the last, they seemed to tick away faster and faster. The presence she’d felt since that morning remained a constant, and the sensation grew steadily stronger through the day. It was enough of a distraction to break her concentration by the evening.
With a sigh, she saved her work, closed the program, and set the computer aside. She tipped her head back and stared up at the ceiling.
Why had she been so skittish when the internet tech had come but retained her calm while this presence lingered around her at all hours? Something lurked within her home, something unseen, unknown, impossible. Ghosts, entities, phantoms, spirits…none of that was real. Was that why she felt no fear? After her time with Tyler, she knew all too well that the real world hurt a hell of a lot more than the imaginary one. The only real monsters were humans, and it was the face of one of those humans that haunted her every day.
She closed her eyes. She’d been incorrect; when left unchecked, her imagination could do quite a bit of damage. Whenever she heard a sound outside, whenever she saw a shadow move from the corner of her eye, she envisioned Tyler. The effects of those imaginings lingered for a long while after they occurred. She was just glad she hadn’t dreamed of him since she’d moved in.
A puff of air brushed against the side of her neck and teased the loose strands of her hair. But it was too focused, too concentrated, to have been a breeze — and all the windows were closed.
Sophie sucked in a sharp breath, opened her eyes, and raised her head. A dark form moved at the edge of her vision. She swung her head to the side to follow its movement, but the shape vanished before she could get a good look at it.
Fear stole the breath from her lungs as she leapt off the couch and crossed the short distance to her desk. Her laptop slid onto the floor behind her, but she ignored it. Yanking open the middle drawer, she grabbed the gun, tore it out of its holster, and twisted to aim it toward the bedroom. That was where the shadow had gone.
Despite her two-handed grip, the revolver trembled.
“Who’s there?” she demanded. Her heart pounded, echoing thunderously in her ears.
There was no answer, no sound at all except for her ragged breathing. Her chest constricted. She was on the verge of a panic attack.
She swept her gaze over the dimly lit room. Nothing moved.
Her laptop was face down on the floor, the light from its screen shining on the carpet. Sophie approached it cautiously, crouching nearby and reaching out blindly to take a hold of it. She kept her attention on the doorway to her bedroom.
Easing onto the floor, she settled the computer on her lap and risked looking at the screen only long enough to call Kate on Facetime. Sophie took a deep breath and held it as she counted the rings, silently praying for her friend to accept the call.
Just when she was convinced there would be no answer, the screen changed, and Kate’s face appeared.
“Soph—”
“Where is he?” Sophie asked.
“Tyler? He’s home. His car is sitting in the driveway.” Kate frowned deeply. “Why?”
Sophie squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, dark blotches lingered in her vision for several seconds, but no shadows remained after they faded. The room was the same as it had been a moment before.
“Sophie, what’s going on?”
Sophie was going insane. She was unstable, paranoid, suffering hallucinations, unable to cope on her own. Things had been great with Kate, but by herself, Sophie was…broken.
“You’re scaring me, Soph. What’s wrong?” Kate asked, voice rising.
“Nothing,” Sophie said softly. She shook her head and lowered the gun. It was outside the camera’s field of view, so Kate would never see it. “A bad dream, I think. I thought…”
“You’re safe, sweetie. He’s still here.”
Sophie nodded.
“You okay?” Kate asked.
“Yeah. I just…need a little time to calm down. Thank you, Kate.”
“Call me if you need me. Anytime.”
“Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Sophie closed the laptop, set it aside, and stood up. She scanned the room again before making a sweep of the entire house, checking every lock, every room, even the closets and cabinets. It was extreme, but it helped put her at ease.
Closing her eyes, Sophie took a deep, calming breath. “I dozed off,” she said. “My eyes were tired, and I dozed off for a second. It was just one of those half-awake, half-asleep things.”
Walking to the desk, she holstered the revolver and returned it to the drawer. She stood there for a time, leaning her hands on the edge of the desk, replaying Kate’s words in her mind. Tyler was there, not here. Sophie was safe.
Lifting her head, Sophie looked out the window. The sky was awash with color, the clouds overhead painted in vibrant reds and golds with the approaching sunset.
Maybe it was cabin fever. She’d been cooped up in a hotel room for weeks, and even though this cabin was in the middle of the woods, she’d done little to enjoy her surroundings since her arrival. A walk would do her good. It was still light enough for a little easy exploration. She could get some exercise, clear her head, and be home before dark. Then she’d pretend none of this had happened. It had just been her mind playing tricks on her.
She put on her shoes, a sweater, and a long scarf before stepping outside. She jumped when the screen door slammed shut behind her.
“I’ve got to get that adjusted,” she muttered, shoving her hands into her pocke
ts as she started toward the woods. She’d have to look up some internet videos on how to change the tension on the self-closing hinges.
There was a faint trail off one side of the driveway; she assumed it had been used by the hunters who’d often rented the cabin. Months of disuse had left it strewn with broken branches and overgrown with vegetation. She set out along the path, twigs snapping and leaves crunching beneath her sneakers as she walked. The trees here were tall and thin, their lower trunks mostly bare of branches. The sporadic beams of sunlight breaking through the canopy cast a glittering, golden glow on the forest floor. Sophie extended a hand and brushed her fingers over the rough bark of a tree as she passed.
Her mind wandered with little provocation; she pretended she was in a whole new world and immersed herself in absorbing the beauty all around her.
She realized abruptly that the sunlight was gone, and the forest was cast in gloomy twilight — she’d lost track of time while her head was in the clouds.
“It’s okay. I’ll just head back.” She stopped and turned around. “Just have to retrace my steps and I’ll be home. I didn’t walk far… Right?”
But she couldn’t see a path on the forest floor anymore; she couldn’t be sure of whether she’d wandered off it or it was simply so overgrown out here that it blended into the rest of the forest floor in the dimness. She had no idea how long she’d been walking.
Sophie was lost, and it was only getting darker with each passing moment.
Her heart thundered, cold perspiration beaded on her brow, and her lower lip trembled. The temperature was rapidly falling now that the sun had set, and her only warm clothing was a knitted sweater and a scarf.
“God, I am so stupid.” She laughed at herself. “Seems to be my lot in life. Poor choices all around.” She swept her gaze over her surroundings, searching for something — anything — that looked familiar, but nothing stood out.
“It’s this way,” she said with far more confidence than she felt. She walked in the direction she was facing. It took a few minutes for her to realize she was crying; silent tears streamed down her cheeks, leaving trails of cool moisture in their wake. She wiped at them with the backs of her hands.
She drew in a deep breath, seeking calm. “I got this. I’ll figure this out. The trees have to end somewhere, right?” She paused for a moment, then snickered to herself. “God, if this was a book, readers would be calling me too stupid to live.
“But that’s life, isn’t it? We’re human. We make mistakes — some of us more than others, and boy have I made more than my share. But we learn from them.” There was no way in hell she’d ever trust a man like Tyler again, that was for damn sure. “Next time I decide to take an evening stroll, I’ll leave breadcrumbs, or string, or…something.”
There was a huff of breath accompanied by the snapping of a branch to her right. Sophie stilled. Ever so slowly, she turned to face the noise.
Not thirty feet away was an enormous black bear.
She nearly tripped over her own feet as she started, her heart leaping into her throat.
The bear lifted its head and stared at her.
Sophie raised her hands, palms out, and took a step back. “Nice bear. You just stay right there.”
It huffed, scraped its giant paw across the ground, and opened its maw to release a roar.
Sophie whimpered and retreated several more steps. Why hadn’t she brought the gun with her? Maybe it wasn’t enough to down a bear, but it would’ve been something. “Please don’t kill me. Oh, please don’t. I don’t taste good, I swear.”
She struggled to recall a dozen articles she’d read on dealing with bears, but the information was too jumbled to extract, like gathered debris blocking the flow of a river.
The bear advanced.
Sophie turned around and hauled ass away from the beast, knowing even as she ran that it was the wrong thing to do. She might’ve screamed, but she was oblivious to everything but her impending demise. Her feet pounded on the forest floor as she wove through trees and leapt over fallen logs. The heavy, snarling breath of the bear alerted her to just how close behind it was. She knew humans couldn’t outrun bears. All the same, she hadn’t realized just how fast the big creatures were; the bear was quickly gaining on her.
She took a sharp left, bumping her shoulder into a tree, but she used the dull pain as fuel to push forward. She couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow.
The bear roared again. Sophie glanced over her shoulder; it was immediately apparent that it had been the wrong thing to do. Her foot struck something solid, and her upper half lurched forward. Crying out, she threw her hands forward just before she slammed into the ground. The breath burst from her lungs.
She rolled herself over as the bear caught up with her. She tried to scream, but she hadn’t yet caught her breath.
Pain exploded in her side as the bear smacked her with a huge front paw, sending her tumbling several feet away. She groaned as she clawed and kicked onto her hands and knees. She wouldn’t let herself die here, she couldn’t. The will to fight, to survive, was buried within her, she just had to draw upon it. Sophie hadn’t escaped one beast just to be killed by another.
Turning toward the bear, she drew upon all the willpower she had left and screamed as loudly as she could. The animal’s approach faltered. It took a step back before rearing up on its hind legs, roaring as though to answer her challenge.
Something moved at the edge of her vision. Fearing another bear, Sophie shifted her gaze to the side. A large, dark shape darted by, turning sharply toward her. The temperature took a sudden drop as the shape approached.
The bear’s call gained an uncertain note that quickly shifted to fear as the huge, shadowy thing charged. The black figure flared out impossibly wide, blocking Sophie’s view of the bear completely. The thing was too dark for her to make details of hide, fur, or skin; it was so dark that she couldn’t make out any details. Shadows seemed to bleed from the edges of its form to dissipate into the twilight.
The black thing quickly snapped itself closed, enveloping the bear completely. It reminded her of an octopus catching a fish in the net of its tentacles, but her mind — whether due to fear or lack of knowledge — couldn’t identify any land creature that hunted in such a fashion, especially not anything so big.
The bear’s sounds changed tone again, going from fearful to agonized. A chill ran through Sophie’s bones; the calls were so full of suffering that she couldn’t help but identify with them on some primal level. Her soul had made such sounds on her last night with Tyler.
She watched, frozen in terror, as the mass of darkness sank to the ground, and the bear’s sounds dwindled until the woods were silent save for Sophie’s panting breaths.
The shadows moved, rising like wisps of smoke from the motionless animal. The unnatural sight was enough to jar her out of her stupor.
Nope. Not happening.
Sophie’s fingers dug ruts in the ground as she shoved herself to her feet. She turned and ran. She didn’t know where she was going, didn’t care, so long as she got away from that. Her side ached and throbbed, her throat was raw, and her lungs burned.
When she felt like she could go no farther, Sophie ducked behind a tree and pressed her back flat against the trunk. She closed her eyes. Her chest felt ready to burst and her legs were on fire with exertion.
Please don’t find me. Please. Oh God, please don’t.
She struggled to quiet her breathing even as she sucked in great lungfuls of air to recover from her panicked flight. The remembered image of the shadowy entity rising off the bear forced a scream into her throat. Biting her lips to contain her cries, she strained to listen for sounds of the thing approaching. She pressed her nails into the bark behind her.
“You need not flee,” a voice — deep and resonating, at once like the guttural growling of the bear and the soft sighing of leaves in the wind — said from somewhere nearby.
Sophie gasped, eyes opening wide. A man? But she
’d seen… What had she seen?
Crazy. I’m going crazy. That voice doesn’t belong to a man; no person could sound like that.
This is all in my head.
Movement drew her attention to the space between two of the trees ahead; the darkness shifted subtly and seemed to deepen.
“You are safe, mortal.”
Mortal?
Sophie closed her eyes again. “This is a dream. This isn’t real. I’m dreaming. There’s no talking shadow, there was no…no bear.”
“Denial,” the voice said, closer than before. Something brushed over the leg of her pants, sending a whisper of cold through to the flesh beneath.
She whimpered and leapt away from the tree, nearly falling on her ass in the process, before turning to face the voice. As twilight gave way to full night, everything but the deep gray of the sky was black; she couldn’t see whatever was talking to her.
“Fear is survival,” the voice said, drawing her attention toward a fallen tree. A deeper shadow moved in the darkness, long and sleek, giving her the impression of a huge wolf or some sort of great cat — a panther, or a tiger. “But it will do you no good now. I will not harm you, Sophie.”
She reached up and clutched a handful of her sweater’s material over her chest. It was hard to breathe, to focus, while her body was suffused with terror. “What…are you?”
The thing moved again and was briefly silhouetted against the lighter sky; it seemed to be in the shape of a stag or an elk for an instant. Then its body changed, rising taller, into something almost humanoid — though the massive antlers remained in place — before melding into the shadows again.
“The spirit of this forest,” it replied. “Guardian and ruler. This is my domain.”
“W-What do you want?” She couldn’t stop trembling.
The voice came from immediately behind her. “To protect what is mine.”
Sophie spun around, searching with wide eyes for the deeper shadow, but she couldn’t distinguish it from the other darkness.
The icy touch slid across her back, from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. A chill ran down her spine, making her shudder, but an unexpected spark of desire flared with it. Where had she felt that touch before? “The forest? I…I haven’t done anything. I’m not here to harm your forest.”
His Darkest Craving Page 4
