Page 56 of The Girl in the Forest

I panted as fingers plucked and teased my swollen nipples.

Palms pressed against my thighs, urging my legs to widen.

Fingertips traced over the delicate, untouched parts of me. Reverently. Yet… hot, carnal, dominating… driving the desire that scorched my inhibitions into ash.

Every touch became welcome. I grew eager for each sordid need they aroused. Fragile, as if I’d shatter beneath the pleasure. Tongues lapped at my body, in my body. Fingers probed, unleashing a passion I’d never known. Raw, beautiful. I opened my mouth against the many male lips, tongues. Shuddered beneath the decadence.

The chant in my head was more, more, more.

So many… did I care?

Should I care if vampires were ravishing me? I felt them in every orifice. Wanted them deeper, more intimately, darker, more cravenly.

My body throbbed, a begging plea, ravenous while… there… a mere whisper in my mind… “sorry.”

I gasped. The cool stroke of regret made no sense. But then my thoughts disintegrated.

I wondered how I’d gotten to my back on the sand.

Wondered why vampires circled around and I trembled, not from fear, but from the waiting… for the brush of fangs against my inner thigh, the first sharp piercing, then the sweet rush.

But I was greedy, whimpering and desperate. Wanting to writhe. Pant and cry out. Arch and beg with my breath catching on my lips, luxuriating in each second of excruciating anticipation.

The sounds were there. I recognized my voice, plaintive and familiar in this cave filled with mind-altering fumes. The sand was gritty against my back as I arched, a restless, yielding lover… offering… when, inalterably, the hands, tongues, fingers, bodies withdrew.

The illusion dissolved, and I was alone, still fully clothed. I rolled to my side, pulling my knees to my chest. The anguish was punishing, the unfulfilled ache… until growls sparked an atavistic alarm.

Around me, wolves circled, their canines dripping slaver, while the malice lurching from them became a fiery rush. I shoved myself upright, reached instinctively for the bow, my fingers clamping around the shaft. My arm straightened against the strain as I yanked back the bowstring. Let the arrow fly true—

Oh, gods—

Mace was lying in a pool of blood, my arrow still vibrating as his chest heaved. Light caught in his blonde hair. He arched in pain, his hands gouging the black sand, over and over. Blood bubbled from his lips—

Not real, not real, not real.

Not Mace!

Mace’s wolf was golden—as golden as his hair. I remembered him running beside Mace, and the wolf I’d shot had been dark gray.

No time to think. More wolves closed in. I could feel the wet in their hot breath, smell the bitter stench.

I aimed at the wolf sinking into a crouch.

The arrow thwapped into the animal’s quivering side, and as it fell—

I was looking at Levi’s tortured face, his brown hair drifting—

Agony ripped through me.

I nocked another arrow and sent it flying. Not toward a wolf, but toward the nearest witch. The one in black.

The arrow sailed past the witch and splintered against the white pillar. The pillar wavered before snapping back into place, while the witches remained unmoving, their grotesque smiles still twitching.

I staggered to my feet. The wolves were gone. Levi was gone. Mace—he was gone, and no trace of his blood remained. The arrows I’d shot lay useless on the sand, as if I’d merely dropped them.

Illusion on top of illusion.

Magic, Noa!

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