by E. M. Fitch
Welcome.
Aidan stepped from the shadows beyond the herd, and Cassie saw nothing else. He walked toward her purposively, never letting his gaze leave hers. His eyes were the same insistent blue, and they hungered. When he stopped, right in the middle of the clearing, his stance was powerful—and yet he had stopped. He was leaving her this choice.
And Cassie realized she had a choice. Many choices. She knew what he hoped for, and she understood the consequences of turning around and bolting away from him. But she still had her choice; he hadn’t taken that from her, though she knew he could. The mist hovering at the edge of the clearing made that very plain.
She drew her last breath before committing. In that intake of woodsy air, she pictured Ryan and offered a quick apology. She thought of her parents, and Laney, and Officer Gibbons, and prayed she’d be home tonight, safe and with them all again. The knife fit snugly against her arm, and Cassie didn’t dare adjust it, for fear that Aidan might see.
She let out the breath she had drawn and stepped forward. As she moved, the mist crept closer. Cassie eyed it, and then looked to Aidan. He cocked his head, regarding her patiently.
“We don’t need that,” she whispered.
“I thought it might be easier for you,” he offered cautiously. She shook her head, her eyes never leaving his. He smiled. It started slow, the joy forming in his eyes first, but it spread over his face, pulling his lips into an impossible grin. White teeth flashed, and he laughed, a joyous sound that echoed through the forest. She stepped forward again, and he broke into a run. Aidan’s hands reached for her, and before she understood what was happening, Cassie was entwined in his arms, and he was kissing her.
His lips were warm and urgent and searching. They pressed against her mouth in a wondering demand that deepened as his hands found her hips. Cassie felt the dagger warm on her forearm, but he was close, too close. His mouth sealed over hers, prodding her to respond, and it was impossible not to move her lips, not to mimic his careful actions.
She pushed all other thoughts from her mind as he grasped her waist and his fingers glided up, feeling the contours of her body. There was no Ryan, not here in this hollow of the forest. There was no Laney, no family, no worries. There was only this: two bodies, touching and testing, and a hidden dagger between them.
When his thumbs caught the edges of her breasts, she gasped into the kiss. He moved impossibly closer, pulling her body flush against his, invading her mouth. He tasted of spring and soft wine. Cassie felt lightheaded. He stroked her neck, traced the lines of her back, grasped her wherever he could catch hold, as though he wanted to imprint his hands on her body. She let him roam, kissing him mindlessly, experiencing the rhythm of his lips, the pressure and release, the tasting of one another, as she brought her hands around his back.
She reached for the hilt of the dagger, ready to pull it free, when his teeth caught her bottom lip and bit gently.
“Cassie,” he murmured, releasing her flesh and pulling back slightly, just enough to gaze into her eyes. She had nowhere else to go, no way to escape, with his sweet breath on her lips and his intense gaze locked on her own. She felt lightheaded, her chest rising rapidly, and when he pulled her gently to the ground, staring directly into her eyes the entire time, she didn’t know how to resist.
“All this,” he whispered, lowering her to the mossy earth and hovering over her, “is yours.” He bent low and caught her lips with his own again, kissing her softly this time. The shift in intensity muddled her brain, and for the briefest fraction of a moment, she forgot to be afraid.
Aidan’s legs tangled with hers as he lay over her. Beneath her, something slithered. Flowers sprang up all around her as Aidan’s mouth moved down the column of her neck. Above her head, the trees thrashed against a clear blue sky, and leaves shone in the brilliant light like green jewels.
“You will be our queen,” he whispered in a hot rush of breath against her racing pulse, and Cassie shivered violently beneath him. All around her, vines burst from the earth. They snaked around the edges of the entwined bodies, tickled Cassie’s neck, her ankles, fingers, and traced lovingly through her hair. They caressed and moved with her, never grabbing hold but ever present. It was the forest’s embrace, and it felt that way, warm and wild and just a touch frightening.
Aidan’s own hands skirted her outline. The ground beneath her pitched and waved, and their bodies rode it seamlessly, even as a spasm of unease erupted at the thought of the dagger being found. Aidan seemed not to notice Cassie’s tight grip on his ribcage.
The fear was there. Yes, it lingered in her blood, cold and hard; but something raced past it, something stirred her beyond that horror. There was a twinge of desire. It lived in the pull of breath between kisses, in the longing for just one more press of her lips to his. His hands gripped her hips, raked up her sides, dragging the fabric of her tank top up, but her shivers weren’t born of loathing. The forest floor shifted them in a rhythm that felt entirely foreign to Cassie. It was a rhythm that felt new, and yet it was as old as the ages. The ground beneath her swelled and rocked; it pulled her body into the cradle of its embrace. Moss crept up her sides, flowers caressing with silky petals. Aidan remained above her, riding the storm that raged throughout the forest around them, his attention secured to her body.
“Every living creature in this forest will obey your command,” he continued. He skimmed her breasts before bringing his fingers to trace the contours of her neck, lingering over her bounding pulse point. He looked up at her briefly, grinning, before lowering his mouth to the tip of her breast and nipping playfully. She cried out, and he captured her mouth once more.
There was no space for fear and confusion. Roots slithered underneath her, and Aidan slithered above, and, worst of all, her thoughts twisted and wriggled. The forest whispered its welcome, and her own sanity hissed a warning, and yet …
She could feel the forest. She could always feel it, before Aidan, before Ryan, before all known memories; the trees had always spoken to her. She was at home under their canopies. She breathed easy in their presence. Aidan was offering her more than just a relationship; there was magic here, something eternal and mystical, something she knew existed but still couldn’t grasp. Though he could help her.
And she felt things with him. Terrifying things. Overwhelming and scary and raw things, but new and different and, yes—she could admit it to herself in this private, lust-filled moment—exciting things, too. Her body sang in the movement of the forest floor, in the push-and-pull rhythm that Aidan mimicked with his hips. His mouth was sweet, his fingers warm and attentive. He wanted to make her queen.
The knife on her forearm was all but forgotten. Laney and her baby were forgotten, her own parents, school, Officer Gibbons, her friends, Ryan …
It was a warm light in a forgotten house that brought Cassie out of her stupor. A warm light that was rarely lit, and only when the rest of the world was asleep and the inhabitants of the house could wander through like the ghostly waifs they had become. It was Laney’s mother that firmed the resolve that had withered in Cassie’s heart. Laney’s mother, and all the mothers who had lost their children to careless whims. Jessica’s mother, and then the unbidden image of her own mother, a woman who would become wandering and confused when she lost her child, a shadow of herself.
Beyond those drifting women, another lost soul fought for dominance. Cassie saw herself years from now, cut off from her old life, from all the things she wanted to know and experience and be—everything lost to her because she had made this one careless decision, knowing that there were some decisions you couldn’t come back from.
She didn’t want this. It was magical, but it was selfish and wrong. It was satisfaction at the expense of everyone else, desire regardless of cost. She would choose better.
As though Aidan could taste the steel that had streaked through Cassie’s veins, he froze above her, his lips stiffening on her chest. She stroked his ha
ir as she threaded her arms around his neck. Moss now covered one of her hips and trickled toward her navel, tiny white flowers bloomed throughout. He gazed up at her, looking a bit like a child, though he was older than everything in her world. His head cocked to one side, and he looked from her eyes to her lips. She pulled him closer, kissing him softly, and then more deeply. The earth around them stilled, everything stilled but the motion of their mouths, pressing and tasting and releasing. They snatched breaths against each other’s mouths, neither wanting to let go.
The dagger slid easily from its hiding place.
Aidan’s hands slid to her breasts and clutched possessively, his mouth moving insistently against hers. The earth pulled her slowly into its depths.
Cassie raised the blade above his back, two hands gripping the hilt. She tensed.
Aidan pulled back from his kiss slowly and whispered against her mouth, “It won’t take long.”
The final word came out in a gurgle. Dark blood stained Aidan’s lower lip, and for a moment, everything in the forest stopped completely. Cassie had enough sense left to rip the dagger from his flesh as a snarl formed in Aidan’s chest. His hands left her breasts and reached for her neck, and it wouldn’t be a loving caress this time; murder flashed in Aidan’s expression.
Cassie brought her hands to his shoulders and pushed, hard. He cried out in anger as she flipped him, moving with his body as a lover might have, straddling his hips and bringing the bloody dagger with her. She raised her weapon and struck.
The tip of the dagger pierced his chest and tore a scream from his lips. His hands locked, vise-like, on her wrists. From every edge of the clearing, branches whipped out like lashes and raced for Cassie’s limbs. She felt their rough touch, ignored the tightening on her legs and arms, and used her own body weight to push the dagger further into him. She leaned forward, grunting with the effort, bringing her face close to his, her hair enveloping them like a flaming curtain. The dagger slid into his ribcage.
His face reddened with effort. His hands pawed at her arms, but not with enough strength to move her. Bloody spittle foamed on the corner of his mouth. “I would have given you everything,” he hissed. Flecks of blood landed on her cheek, painted her lips. Cassie could taste it when she drew a rasping breath. The branches tightened their grasp on her body. Her legs went numb. Aidan panted and gasped beneath her, and she pushed as hard as she could.
With a last burst of energy, Aidan cried out, flinging his arms to the side and digging his hands into the mossy soil. Trees erupted from the places his hands were. Massive oak trees burst from the soil and raced into the sky. Aidan and Cassie were tossed about in the creation of roots, the bursting of the massive systems that supported the life now towering over them. Cassie’s hands slipped, and the bloody dagger followed as she was thrown backwards. Aidan fell with her, limp and mostly lifeless, clutching the wounds in his chest, but gurgling still in the small snatches of breath he was able to manage. She fell back against a writhing tree; her hand, holding the dagger, was sucked into the bark. In the depths of the oak, her arm was suckled, the dagger parting from her needy fingers. She could feel the warm, pulpy life invading her skin, the prick of a million splinters racing through her veins. Her head swam, and she was yanked, pulled to her shoulder into the tree. Her vision swam in racing images, flowers bursting from tender stalks, green flashes over a liquid blue sky, water gushing from underground springs, wine, air, butterflies, and life—life erupting from every surface with every breath she stole. The tree sucked at her, pulled tender flesh firmly into its embrace. Her shoulder disappeared. The bark raced down her hip, suckled at the flesh of her thigh.
Aidan looked up from the earth at her feet. Blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth. “I’ll see you when we wake,” he murmured, laughing maniacally. “And then you’ll pay, little girl.”
Her vision blackened, and Cassie struggled and pulled. She put her free hand against the oak to use as leverage, but her fingertips were soon swallowed into the bark.
“No, no, no,” she murmured, panicking. Aidan laughed at her feet.
And then, from beyond the clearing, Cassie heard a scream. The forest froze at the sound. Every branch and leaf stilled completely. The tree that held her captive trembled and then burst into sawdust. The remnants of wood swirled up and around them like a twister, and when the dust was above the clearing, it scattered like a grouping of butterflies.
“What?” Aidan murmured from below her, struggling to lift his head. Cassie felt too stunned to move; she looked from his astonished face to the tree line. Every piece of the forest began to writhe, and the tree that had burst forth from Aidan’s other side shattered as it reached for Cassie. Shards of wood scattered like spears in the clearing. One caught Cassie’s cheek, and she whipped back, feeling the sting as it cut her flesh. They impaled the soft earth and rooted instantly, tender green buds shooting from thin trembling branches. Cassie put her fingertips to the wound on her face, shocked at the sensation of warm blood on her skin.
From beyond the clearing, a voice rang out into the stillness.
“Cassie! Run!”
Hearing that voice, the voice of her best friend, broke Cassie from her stupor. She took one look at Aidan, struggling at her feet. He was healing. She could tell as his breaths eased. She had injured him, but not fatally. She may have nicked his heart, but she didn’t destroy it. Her dagger was lost to the oak tree that almost consumed her, flung somewhere into the forest when the tree burst to pieces. She was defenseless, and he gained strength by the moment.
She had failed.
“Now!” Laney begged, and suddenly there was a path out of the clearing. Cassie leaped over Aidan’s prostrate form and ran.
When Laney had first found Cassie hovering over Aidan, she was sure they were kissing. Her friend’s flaming hair hung around their faces, and the way they moved together, rocking with movements that matched the heaving earth beneath them, made Laney pause. But then she smelled the burn of iron, saw the tendrils of smoke that leaked from between locks of hair, and heard the grunt of effort and the bloody gurgle that followed.
Laney stayed hidden in the trees, wanting to rush and help, and cursing the cowardly impulse that told her to wait. She wouldn’t have to claim responsibility if Cassie acted alone; she could pretend this was just another tragic accident, that Aidan had it coming, and no one would be the wiser. There would be a new king or queen. Laney wondered, momentarily, who that would be.
Two oak trees burst from the ground, tumbling the entwined couple as roots fought for space in the earth below them. Laney watched as the two bounced together and then apart. Cassie went flying backward, and Laney jerked forward, then stopped herself again, pressing tight to the maple tree before her. The thought of losing the kinship of her kind produced sheer terror, though the thought of losing Cassie seemed infinitely worse. She was an innocent in all this, sucked in first by Laney and then by Aidan, seemingly unable to escape.
If I were queen, thought Laney restlessly, I’d let her go, once and for all.
Sap leaked from the maple where her fingers were pressed; it coated her skin in bitter sweetness. Cassie cried out, and Laney looked again across the clearing. Her friend was sucked to her shoulder, lost to the oak tree, almost swallowed. Laney knew what she was feeling, what she was experiencing. It was the same thing she had gone through; it was the same process of nature invading your veins that began your life as a new Fae. Fear struck Laney’s chest, and a fury unlike any she had known before strummed inside her ribcage.
A burst of energy flared in her chest, flew from every finger and each one of her toes. With a scream, a call to the wild, to the insects who swarmed from dead trees, the birds that scattered and grouped, and the beasts that scurried in the undergrowth, Laney directed every particle of energy at the tree that slowly suckled her friend into its depth. With an explosion of force, it burst into pieces, raining sawdust before a gust of wind swam in and swept the
pieces to the sky.
Laney saw Aidan’s confusion. He lifted his head, his troubled gaze fixated on the swirling bits of tree in the sky. She saw the other trees slither toward Cassie, and she ran into the clearing with anger so sharp and clear, she cried out with the force. The remaining oak flew into pieces, the shards of fresh wood flinging like spears into the mossy soil of the clearing. They rooted and settled, all at angles that pointed to the two people left in their wake. Aidan, gaining strength, and Cassie, stunned and bleeding and confused.
Laney shouted, and her friend heard and ran.
As Cassie disappeared into the forest, down a path Laney summoned just for her, Aidan stood on trembling legs. He thrust his closed fists in Cassie’s direction, murmuring under his breath.
“No!” Laney screamed, and the path she had created deepened. She could no longer see the winding path that cut through the opening in the trees, no longer see the human girl racing down its length, but she could feel it. The path grew, she knew it did, knew it would take Cassie home.
Aidan threw every bit of his remaining strength down that path. He urged the roots to trip, the vines to grasp. His knees buckled, and he fell to all fours—and still he reached out, still he tried to grab what was quickly escaping him. Laney’s energy was stronger. The trees had finally started to accept her, and she them. She blocked him, first in her mind, and then with her body. She stood in front of him, more strongly rooted than any tree, and very quietly she whispered, “Stop.”
Panting, he looked up at her, and his features twisted in rage. The ground Laney stood on fractured, a pit opened at her feet, and with the sound of rushing wind and manic laughter, she fell.
Light faded rapidly as she tumbled into the earth. Her arms stretched out and grasped, her feet kicked, but nothing held in her fists. Dirt rained in crumbles over the top of her head and into her eyes as she plummeted to the depths of the earth. She could barely see. The moisture of the earth saturated the air and invaded her lungs with every gasp of air as the opening above grew smaller and smaller.
