We’d been moving with the trees for two days total now and we were still no closer to finding Oz, or Juniper, or any of the others. The only reason I knew they were alive was because of the visions. Juniper couldn’t be dead because her fate wouldn’t allow it. Not yet, at least, and hopefully not for a very long time, but at least for now she was safe.
Or as safe as one could get in the middle of a deadly trial surrounded by an array of previously mythological beings that, from personal experience, I knew were largely unpleasant and just as dangerous as these trials.
Enid and I had stumbled across Daemons, Fae, Shifters, and Angels sporadically since we’d been transported to… wherever the fuck we were. The only ones that were even remotely kind were, surprisingly, the Daemons. The other three had been either rude, aggressive, or a combination of both, so we’d kept to ourselves and stayed away from any groups that had formed.
We hadn’t found any other Humans, which was concerning in more ways than one. There had been a few that had survived being kidnapped by the trees, but ever since so many of us had been infected with that mysterious black cloud, we hadn’t seen hide nor hair of them. As far as Enid and I knew, we were the only ones left…
Enid was snacking on some nuts while I munched on sweet berries that were like some sort of raspberry crossed with an apple and an orange. It was an interesting favour and I wasn’t the most keen on them, but they were edible, juicy, and weren’t like some of the other fruits we’d tried.
My taste buds would never recover from the vile, bitter, vomit-like flavour of what we had assumed were peaches but were, in fact, the devil’s fruit. Enid still chuckled over it, too, since she had seen my reaction and avoided them herself. I was hiding one to get her back eventually. I wasn’t going to be the only one to suffer.
‘Do you think they’re okay?’ she asked around a mouthful of nuts, and not for the first time.
‘I know they are.’ My answer was the same every time, but I didn’t begrudge her need to hear it. I was reassuring myself, too, every time I confirmed it out loud.
‘What do you think the trial is? We’ve just been wandering around for a few days while letting the trees fatten us up.’
I snorted, though her comment was only half made with humour. The trees could have very well been fattening us up before they devoured us, but I didn’t think so. Either way, Enid and I were no Hansel and Gretel. We weren’t easy prey.
‘From what I’ve seen in my visions, they’re having a blast.’
I’d had a few more visions since the one with Juniper and the Fae. Another occurred with an Angel that I’d purposely shoved to the deepest recesses of my mind, but then they’d switched up, and instead of Juniper, Oz was the star. They were also basically porn like Juniper’s were, though he was with a scarlet-skinned Daemon that looked like sex on a stick and drizzled with trouble, yet there was something about her that turned me off, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Perhaps it was because I’d been forced to watch her fuck my best friend, and we didn’t share women. I didn’t get the sense she was an enemy. It was more like a lack of attraction, despite her near-perfect body and expertly irresistible come-fuck-me eyes.
She just didn’t do it for me.
I kept stealing glances at Enid, though. While I had been struggling to get it up for anyone but Juniper lately, I knewexactly how stunning Enid was. I knew how she felt as I slid inside her wet heat. I knew how to make her walls flutter and clench around me. I knew how to draw sounds out of her that no other man had ever managed.
And most importantly, I knew how much she loved me, even if she did try to hide it while I pretended not to notice.
She was everything I should ever want in a woman, so why couldn’t I feel the same way? The answer was simple, yet so, so complicated. I had feelings for Enid. I enjoyed fucking her, dominating her, and sending her over the edge. We were friends and had been close for a very long time. On paper, we were the perfect couple, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing. Something only Juniper could give me.
To this day, I still hadn’t figured out what it was, just that it was there.
But was it really that important? Enid could be mine if I simply took that leap of faith. I could be content with her. We could have an amazing life together, and a part of me wanted that. I wanted to let go of my feelings for the woman who would never love me back and move on with the woman who did. I wanted to let my feelings develop beyond friendship, beyond the physical, and settle comfortably into the romantic.
But it was that word which stopped me every time.Settle.Enid deserved better than someone settling for second best. She deserved to be someone’s first choice and top priority. She deserved that all-encompassing love I was so stuck on finding with a woman who didn’t even know I existed.
If I chose her, I needed to let the rest of it go. I just didn’t know if I could.
‘What’s got you thinking so hard over there?’ she asked, jolting me out of my thoughts. I blushed, not wanting to explain to her the path my mind had taken, but I gave her a fond smile that she returned, even if mine was a little too tense.
‘What?’ she asked, cheeks spotted with pink.
‘Nothing,’ I shrugged. I could tell she didn’t believe me, but I still had a lot of thinking to do before I encouraged that conversation. We would have it eventually, but not until I could give her the answers she needed.
The trees stilled then, their roots frozen in place as the sounds of the animals that called them home immediately silenced. Enid and I froze along with them, having long since learned to follow their lead. They ran when danger was near and stayed relatively still when the coast was clear. However, this sudden, complete stillness was new.
I understood pretty quickly when I felt the vibrations beneath my feet.
‘Thorne…’ Enid whispered, panic lacing her tone and raising its pitch. ‘What’s going on?’
I gripped her hand in mine and pulled her close, quickly pocketing the rest of our fruit and nuts so that we had our hands free for whatever was coming our way.
The vibrations grew until they were full-blown shakes, the earth quaking so hard we fell to our knees. When cracks formed in the ground, stemming from a circular hole that spiderwebbed out, we scrambled away as quickly as we could. The trees were already on the move, rushing away from the hole in the ground that I realised with a gut-sinking sensation was rapidly expanding by the second.
‘Thorne…’ Enid shouted over the roar of the earth, her fear causing her nails to dig into my skin as she gripped onto me like I was her lifeline.
We continued to scrabble back, barely keeping ourselves from falling into whatever abyss that hole led to, and I sincerely hoped it wasn’t something’s gullet. Being swallowed whole was definitelynoton my bucket list.
