Page 68 of Strength of Desire

After a moment, I decided to follow the person I’d seen, whoever they were. They were well ahead of me, and moving perpendicular to the direction I’d been going. But I didn’t mind changing direction—it wasn’t like I really had a plan. And even if I didn’t join up with them, it was nice to know I wasn’t totally alone out here. It would be nice to see another human face, if only for a minute.

Unless it was Sean. I should probably be cautious, until I knew for sure.

A large mass reared up out of the night, taking me by surprise. That’s what I got for not looking right in front of me. I could just make out roots, inches from my face, and realized I was looking at the rootball of an enormous pine that had toppled over sometime in the past.

I squinted up ahead. The tree cover was deep here, but I could just make out a dark shape clambering over the massive trunk. I groaned. I’d been going around trees like this, when I’d come upon them, but I didn’t want to get too far behind whoever I was following.

With a grimace, I threw myself onto the trunk like a beached whale. I landed about a third of the way across, just far enough that my feet were lifted off the ground, but I couldn’t lever myself any farther. I shimmied instead, feeling my jacket ride up, little bits of bark digging into my skin as I wriggled my way up to the top of the log before sliding down the other side.

Full of grace, I was.

I was about twenty feet behind the figure now, still moving through the trees with a determined stride. Well, as determined as you could get in this mess. The figure ducked and dodged, weaving around thickets of brambles and tight stands of trees, and I poured on speed, gaining on them.

As I made my way around yet another boulder, I gauged the distance. I was about fifteen feet behind now, and surprised that the figure hadn’t turned around to see who was following them. I wasn’t exactly being quiet. But they never turned.

When I was ten feet away, the trees thinned out and created an open space in the forest. A birch tree with three trunks stood at the edge of the clearing, one of the trunks growing out practically horizontal. A large boulder sat next to the left of the tree, almost as tall as I was.

The figure clambered over the birch trunk and stepped into the clearing. Clearing wasn’t even really the word for it. That made it sound larger than it was. It was just forty feet or so of snow where there happened not to be any trees. But the forest pressed in from all sides.

I raised my hand, ready to call out. The figure pushed down the hood of their jacket, and I blinked. It was Erika.

“Hey!” I called, my voice carrying over the stillness of the snow. “Erika, it’s Cory.”

She didn’t turn to look at me. She didn’t even seem to have heard me. She just stood in the clearing, looking straight ahead, removing her heavy gloves. I watched as she shoved them into the pockets of her jacket.

I stepped forward, right up to the edge of the trees. “Erika, hey! It’s me.”

Then she pulled out a knife.

My eyes widened. What did she need a knife for out here? I mean, yeah, just a few minutes ago I’d been worried about hypothetical monsters stalking me. But there was something about Erika’s face that told me she hadn’t drawn it for self-defense.

It wasn’t just that she was ignoring me, or not hearing me. It was like she wasn’t hearing anything at all. Her features were slack. Her mouth hung open, her brows loose, her eyes heavy-lidded. She looked two seconds away from falling asleep.

She looks like she’s asleep already, said the voice in the back of my mind, and for once, I didn’t argue with it. Whatever Erika was doing, I didn’t think she was conscious of it.

“Hey, Erika,” I said, crawling over the birch trunk and joining her in the clearing. “Erika, are you okay?”

I slogged through the snow, my feet freezing. Nerves sang through my body. Something was wrong. I didn’t knowwhat, yet. But I knew something was.

I put a hand on her shoulder when I reached her. “Erika, it’s Cory. Are you—God, what am I even saying, of course you’re not okay. Can you hear me at all?”

I took my hand from her shoulder and waved it in front of her face. That, at least, got a reaction, but since the reaction was Erika shoving me so hard I fell on my ass, I wasn’t happy about it. She didn’t even look at me as I fell. What the hell was going on with her?

I still couldn’t control my incubus powers, but I had more experience than most people with trances and dream states, and I knew what it was like to feel trapped. I had no idea if the real Erika was still in there, trapped behind whatever force was piloting her body right now. But I knew she wouldn’t be happy about what was happening.

I pushed myself up and walked back to her. Worry spread from my stomach, radiating through my limbs. My whole body was infected with it. It felt colder than it should have been, even on a winter’s night in February.

I put a hand on her elbow. “Erika, can you look at me? Can you—can you come with me? I think we need to get you back to the manor.”

I looked over my shoulder at the forest. I didn’t relish getting her back through all of that, but my gut said neither of us should be out here right now. Who knew what else was watching from the dark?

I waved my hand in front of her face again, but she didn’t react at all this time. I stepped in front of her and grabbed for the knife, and the next thing I knew, she turned and brandished it in my face. For the first time, her eyes were focused and alert, but they were focused on bringing that knife to my throat.

“Easy,” I said, taking a step back, then another, trying my best not to fall on my ass again. I swallowed. “Easy, it’s okay. I won’t try to take it again.”

Erika kept glaring at me, her face twisted into a snarl, until I’d backed up all the way to the clearing’s edge. Only when I stepped back into the woods, drawing halfway behind a pine tree, did she turn away from me.

Fuck. I let out a sound that was half relief, half desperation. Would she really have cut me if I hadn’t backed off? Would she have been willing to hurt me? I eyed her nervously. I was starting to get a creepy feeling about this. Hell, not starting. I was all the way there.

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