Page 5 of Big Bad Wolf

“You will wear this beneath it and nothing else.”

So the forest has a kinky side. Got it. Either that or public humiliation is part of the rite of passage to get through Blackmoor—or maybe the village council gets their kicks making the petitioners do whatever they want to earn their wish.

Sucks for them. That won’t work on me. I had any shame I might’ve had knocked out of me when I was a kid, and more than a decade-and-a-half of therapy to deal with that.

“Got it.”

“Do you?” she asks. “Do you really? Because I’ll give you one last warning, Charlotte: the forest is forever hungry. But if you give the beasts of Blackmoor what they need, you’ll get everything you desire.”

There’s something in the way she says that—coupled with the slip of a dress she’s still showing off to me—that makes me rethink the dangers that the monsters in the forest might represent.

So what is it? I whore myself out to something out of a myth or a legend or a fairytale and I get my wish? Again, after all those invasive interviews, the council should’ve figured out that there isn’t anything I won’t do to get that wish. If it comes down to sex, I can deal with that. I’ve slept with plenty of men just to feel something, hoping that they might be the one who will stick around. What’s a little hide the sausage with the big, bad wolf or Krampus?

And, okay, maybe I’m being facetious, but really: what can the forest hold that I can’t handle? Besides, why would one of the monsters in the woods want me when I haven’t found a human man who was interested enough to offer me forever?

But if I get my wish… three days for forever. So long as I think of Blackmoor as Las Vegas, I’m willing to do anything to get through this.

Hey. What happens in Blackmoor, stays in Blackmoor…

“Gotcha. And, just checking, I start tomorrow?”

When Sandy nods, I know that that was the last chance to change my mind that she’s going to give me.

Good.

I’m ready.

CHAPTER 2

RUN

NOW

Considering I’m half-naked in this slip of a dress, I don’t mind the cloak so much. Without it, I’m exposed, and I don’t just mean how my nipples are playing peekaboo through the flimsy fabric. It drapes over the top half off my body, curving right below my ass cheeks, almost like I’m wearing shadows for as much covering as it gives me.

It doesn’t help that it’s all I have on. Sandy meant it when she told me that I couldn’t bring anything else into the forest. I figured underwear and sneakers were a no-brainer, but she took one look at my panty lines, my socks, my shoes, and escorted me back to the hostel to get rid of them. Only the reminder that Emily was still in her room, waiting for me to have second thoughts and pass the opportunity over to her had me kicking off my sneakers and shimmying out of my bikini-cut underwear.

If I returned in three days’ time, the village council members would return them to me along with my backpack.

If…

I’m feeling the weight of that ‘if’ right now as I step carefully through the forest, tugging the cloak closed around me for some kind of protection. As warm as it was in the village of Blackmoor, the forest itself has an undeniable chill to the air that isn’t doing my nipples any favors.

The three council members were there at the crack of dawn this morning to see me off. One of the men reminded me that, to earn my wish, I needed to make it the full three days in the woods—my debt to the monsters, I guess—before walking through the same entryway on the morning of the fourth day. Only then would I complete the contract that I signed.

Sandy reminded me not to remove the cloak. I’d secretly been planning to do just that because, hello, it’s August and I figured I would be sweating before long. Within the first fifteen steps past the opening to the woods, the chill had hit me and I realized that keeping the cloak on wouldn’t be a problem.

That might be the only thing that isn’t…

The first thing I noticed about the forest besides the unusual chill is how… normal it feels. You’d think that would be comforting. I’ve been in the woods before, making out with guys, lighting up where my foster parents wouldn’t see, or even cutting through the trees to get from one neighborhood to another. But this… after all of the warnings that the council members had given me, I expected something more.

The tall, dark trees stretch high over my head, thick with late summer leaves that shield a lot of the sunlight from reaching the forest floor. It smells like earth and pine and something musky, with the mud packed and a scattering of old leaves covering the ground.

The grass is slick under my sensitive toes. I’ve been poked and jabbed with countless rocks and sticks already, and I’ve moved from walking flat-footed to carrying my weight on the balls of my feet to limit the damage. It’s slow-going, the trip through the woods even more delayed because I’m searching every nook and cranny I can find for somewhere I can bunker down and hide out for the next three days.

Just because there’s no sign of any monsters yet doesn’t mean they’re not there. If I were a monster straight out of a children’s story, I’d lurk when it was dark, and definitely not on the edge of the forest, so close to the village.

I’d like to think that I’m a fairytale aficionado. When they were the only happy endings I figured I’d ever get, I clung to them for most of my childhood, and I’m holding onto the hope that magic is real—that wishes are real—as tightly as I can.