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The color in her face drained, and she stepped away from me. Before she could run, I looped my arm around her waist and hauled her inside, shutting the door behind us.
“Please—” she begged, but I stopped her.
“Listen to me, Faerie. I’m not going to hurt you. But I will tell your little friend out there you didn’t meet my standard if you don’t answer my questions.”
Her bottom lip trembled, but she eventually nodded.
Grabbing her upper arm, I led her to the bed and made sure the curtains were closed. “Tell me where I can find Deidamia.”
She sighed and began to swing her feet. “She lives in the Dark Woods somewhere. I don’t know the exact location.”
Sitting across from her in the hard wooden chair, I leaned my head back and stared. “Where can I find the Dark Woods? They sound so promising.”
“They’re located behind the King’s castle. I don’t suggest you go them,” she said softly. “You seem like a—” she gestured toward my body— “capable man, but the Dark Woods are littered with bad things. Things that will kill you.”
I watched the honesty on her face. “Why are you being pimped out by that man outside? What do you owe him?”
She chuckled. “My life. He found me half-dead in an alleyway, took me in, fed me, healed me, and now I’m repaying him.”
“By sleeping with random men? What a guy. Where is the king’s castle?”
She pointed toward the west. “It’s about a half day’s walk that way. Follow the cobblestone walkway out of here.”
“Thank you. You can stay the night if you’d like. I won’t touch you. I’m exhausted from my day’s journey, and frankly, I prefer brunettes.”
The corner of her mouth tugged into a small smirk. She caught my sarcasm and slipped into the left side of the bed as if she was tired.
When she instantly fell asleep, I knew he’d been working the hell out of her.
I tugged my shirt over my head and laid on top of the covers. The company, whether we spoke or not, felt better than I imagined it would. It’d been so long since I shared a space with someone.
My eyes drifted shut moments later, and black engulfed me.
The slinking edges around the Dark Woods seemed to move against the daylight around it. There was something alive about it but with no human life in sight.
My fingers twitched at my sides in anticipation of entering the mass darkness. My feet urged me forward, but I felt frozen in my spot. The fear on the faerie's face when I mentioned Deidamia’s name kept me there.
I knew why she was afraid. I’d lived it. Josie was living it.
I had to save this girl I didn’t know. I had to kill Deidamia, so no one shied away at the sound of her name again.
The trees moaned and whined the closer I grew to the tree line. A roll of nausea thundered through me like slipping through an invisible portal. Thorny vines and brush clung to my legs with each step past the barrier of normalcy. The Dark Woods were dark indeed.
The sunlight hardly made it through the thick canopy above me.
Noises of animals and little monsters echoed in the distance, and looming shadows around me attempted to swallow me whole.
A soft cry for help echoed to my left.
It sounded weak. Young. Like a child.
I ran toward it.
Blood smeared on my skin from the briars.
Each step dragged me further from safety and deeper into the forest. The trees began to thin, and a swampy mess pulled me down into the earth by my feet.
I clung to the nearest tree, seeing the silhouette of a woman in the distance. The wind tossed her ebony hair around her shoulders, and her scent twisted lust around inside of me.
