ChapterEight
Something is following me.
I don’t know what it is or if it’s a threat, but I try my best to appear strong, despite the exhaustion clawing at my limbs. Lack of sleep and pure terror have sapped my strength in a way I haven’t felt since my first time in the fields. Then, I’d barely crawled home as well. My first day spent working fourteen hours in the fields as a six-year-old drained me in a way nothing should. I’d only made it halfway through the door then and had suffered my father’s anger at leaving the door open, but now I have no place to hide. There are no more houses that I can see, no caves or crevices. I’m just walking into a dark forest, the trees a combination of dead limbs reaching for life and trees that are still alive but host to strange fungi coating their bark. Some of it glows.
Some of it reaches toward me as I pass.
It seems like everything in the Dead Lands wants to eat me. For a moment, hopelessness nags at me before I push it away, unwilling to allow myself to give up.
I don’t know where I’m going. I can’t imagine there are better things than the strange monster in any direction. I’ll continue to stumble forward, desperate for a safe space, until I find it or something eats me.
My chances aren’t great, but I’m determined to survive and return to the Shadow Lands.
Somehow.
In the Shadow Lands, we don’t have trees like these. The trees we do have are thirsty things always reaching for the sun. They regularly lose all their leaves, and we think they are dead until they sprout new foliage the next season. It’s as if even the plant life is suffocated by the shadows of the Dead Lands. The Gilded Lands, however? I’ve heard they have golden trees, as well as trees that never lose their leaves and stay green year-round.
I’ve heard they even have flowers there in an array of colors.
In the Dead Lands, there are no flowers, not in the traditional sense. The fungi almost seem to serve that position, glowing slightly in the darkness of the trees overhead. I don’t dare touch the trees as I stumble through them, keeping my distance as much as I’m able.
The feeling that I’m being followed grabs my attention again, and it takes everything in me not to turn and look over my shoulder, both afraid I’m losing my mind and of what I might see.
Something howls in front of me, and I freeze, the mud on my legs and arms cracking as it begins to dry. I’m leaving behind a trail of mud as I walk, so I’m easy to track. Maybe it’ll mask my smell a little and hide me from the worst monsters.
My foot is still sore from where I cut it, but the slippers I managed to save through the marsh were never meant for survival. The longer I walk, the flimsier they become. I can feel a small tear in one, the beginnings of the material failing. Soon, I’ll be having to walk through the Dead Lands on bare feet.
The howl echoes again, this time farther away, and I blow out a breath. It’s going away from me, not coming closer. That thought has me relaxing. I let down my guard for a split second to gather my bearings and prepare to continue forward—that’s my mistake.
A man appears in front of me, peeking from behind a tree trunk so I can only see his torso and face. He’s handsome, strikingly so, with skin that shimmers in a way I’ve never seen, as if jewels are trapped within his flesh, and white hair hanging around his shoulders. I blink in surprise. The more I stare, the more I realize his skin isn’t true skin at all, but iridescent scales. Pointed ears peek from his hair, and the hand he curls around the tree trunk sports sharp nails, but I don’t immediately stumble back. I’m a sucker for a pretty man. Or I blame the exhaustion. Either way, I just stare at the glimmering man.
When he doesn’t immediately speak, I clear my throat. “It’s impolite to stare,” I say, because that’s what I should do. I know nothing about this…man. Chastising him probably isn’t the way to go.
He smiles, revealing sharp teeth, particularly two extremely sharp fangs like the mean old snake I accidentally found in the field when I was working. It tried to bite me, and I have the distinct feeling this man wants to do the same.
My eyes widen as I gulp.
“Food that insults me,” he purrs, and even his voice is sensual, smooth, and silky, like wrapping me up in the softest furs. “How refreshing.”
“Not food,” I reply, taking a step back, but I’m stopped by something large. I reach behind me, feeling what seems to be a tree trunk at first, only to realize it’s…warm. Frowning, I glance behind me to see a white, scaled body. No, not body. Tail. A fucking tail that’s larger than my body. It shimmers just as the man does. Only then do I truly realize the trouble I’m in.
Gasping, I turn to run, only for the large white body to move so quickly, I can’t track it. It curls around me before I can take two steps, wrapping me in shimmering coils to keep me still. They don’t squeeze, not yet, but I know he’s capable of crushing all my bones.
A snake man.
“Let me go!” I snarl, beating at the snake body as if that will help. He’s massive, and when he uncurls from the tree and comes around to face me, I see what I missed before—his achingly human torso meets with the body of a snake. He’s another monster.
He chuckles at my struggle as if this is just some big game. “Squirm all you like, firefly. It only makes you more tender.”
I stop struggling, stubborn to the core, and bare my teeth at him. “Let me go, or I’ll carve you into strips and have snake for dinner.”
He throws his head back in laughter, roaring his amusement. I hate to say that even that sound is beautiful. As far as monsters go, he’s far more beautiful than anything I might have imagined. His scales are white, his skin is a smooth cream where his torso is, and the only flare of color on his body are those magnificent eyes.
“Intriguing little firefly, aren’t you?” he muses, tilting his head as he comes closer. The coils around my body don’t budge as he moves his upper body closer, studying me as if I’m the oddity here. “What magic flows from your flesh.” He hums under his breath, a sound that does things to me in a way it shouldn’t. I’m about to be eaten, for fuck’s sake, and here I am, wet for a monster.
“Let me go, and I’ll show you just how intriguing I can be,” I purr, purposely making the words sensual, and his eyes flicker at the innuendo. Of course I don’t mean them, even if he’s so fucking beautiful, it would be a shame to carve him up.
He reaches up, and I jerk away from him. I have nowhere to go, wrapped as I am in his coils, so I only manage to jerk back a few inches before his sharp nails cup my chin and force my eyes back to his.
