Page 16 of The Hunt: Emerald

“I’LL ALWAYS KNOW WHERE TU DIG, AN’ I WILL FECKIN’ DIG! I’LL DIG TU THE CENTER OF THE FECKIN’ EARTH UNTIL I’VE DRAGGED YU OUT BY THE T’ROAT, TREMBLIN’ AN’ SCREAMIN’, AN’ REMIND YU EXACTLY WHO YU BELONG TU.”

Emerald

I can’t fight him. Iknowthat in the pit of my soul. So I did the only thing I could. I ran like I was running from death, because maybe I was.

I hear him chasing after me, roaring and howling into the night, but I don’t dare look back.I refuse…I just need to keep going, but I’m tired. I run and run and run until something snaps and I just assume it’s him closing in on me, but it’s not.It’s my fucking ankle.

A scream catches in my throat as I hit the ground hard, mud smearing across my face, chest, and thighs, and I claw at the ground.Fuck!I need to rest!By the Source, I don’t know how long I’ve been running. My legs feel like they no longer belong to me, all fucking numb, shaky, soaked in blood and dirt. My lungs burn with each ragged breath, and my heart feels like it might tear itself apart from beating so fast for so long.

And now my fuckingankle?!

Ahhhhh!I pound the dirt, angry at myself. I crawl as far as my body will take me until I reach a clearing, and I’m stunned by what I see. A massive tree, one so wide it feels unreal. It towers high into the sky well above the others, its branches themselves seeming the size of those trunks that stand beside it, worshiping it.

Its bark is wide and gnarled like the arms of a giant, thick with age and wisdom. Its leaves shimmer faintly with golden sap, leaving me afraid to approach it, but its mammoth-sized leaves rustle as if inviting me. As if it’swelcomingme.

I can’t think, so I just crawl to it, collapse against its surprisingly soft bark, chest heaving, yet the moment my skin touches its surface, warmth spreads through me. Soft, like a mother’s arms. Like I’m being cradled in the memory of safety.

Something spills onto my knee and I gasp at the tears spilling from my eyes, and hug it back. The tree seems to lean into me gently, as if it recognizes my pain, my exhaustion.As if it wants toholdme.

Beads of thick, sweet sap weep from the tips of its leaves and drip down slowly toward me.

My mouth is dry, and my throat aches at the sight of it. Nourishment.Relief.

I have a feeling that this is what I need to keep fighting. Just one taste, and can regain enough strength to keep going, to disappear again, maybe even forever as I did earlier when my power answered and I melted into the earth. I can let the dirt cloak me, the trees shield me, the wind carry my scent away like whispered secrets.Old magic lives here. I can feel it humming under my skin.

I want to live forever with this tree… in this forest… safe… alone… numb. I reach a trembling hand toward the nearest drop, but the moment the sap kisses my fingertip…

The wind stops.

The air shifts.

And the ancient tree buzzes with warning.

STAND MY CHILD!

I stand on trembling legs as every instinct in my body screams for me to flee, but it’s too late. I can hear it. Slow, deliberatesteps on the moss-covered ground. Not crashing. Not wild.Calculated.

HIM.

I turn just as he steps into the clearing, his eyes burning through the stillness, glowing like twin fires in the shadow, causing the tree to scream in pain. I cover my ears at the unbearable wailing, but I don’t take my eyes off his massive back that looks like a living nightmare. Tall, rippling with coiled strands, smeared with mud, blood, and something worse.Certainty.

This is it… he’s done playing with me.

He looks at me, not like a man who had just found what he was chasing, but like a god who had alwaysknownwhere his offering would end up. He steps over to me one heavy footstep at a time and I already feel like I’m choking…

I gasp for breath when one of the floating camera orbs floats by and I know it’s projecting everything to the spectators but I can seem to care… I can only focus n him…

“I was startin’ tu wonder,”he rumbles, voice deep and slow.“If the forest ’ad stolen yu from me.” His eyes drift to the sap on my finger, then back to my face, and his wild grin is nothing short of nefarious.

I step back, but the tree holds me firm. Not in fear, but in warning. My powers brought me here, and now I need to decide…fight, flee, or shit something! I can’t go out like this!.

The beast takes a step closer, engulfing me in hispheromones, causing my heat to burn hotter and sweat to drip profusely from me.

It’s in the air before I even know I’m breathing. Smoke… heat.Spice.It wraps around me, thick and heavy, dragging across my skin like claws, causing my legs to tremble, my breath shudder, and my aching pussy to pulse between my thighs.

My body sways and womb clenches tight and desperate. Every instinct in me screams to submit. To bare my throat, to show my belly, spread my pussy…to beg.I clench my fists. I fight to stay standing, but the scent presses harder, sinking into my blood. Into my bones. I can’t think… only feel. And all I feel ishim. His hunger. His need. His right to take, and Source help me… I want to be taken.

“Yu know up until t’is hunt I neva ’ad tu use me power… but fer yu…”he pauses and cocks his head. He growls and before my eyes I see his glistening black fur shimmer and turn ginger as his entire body flares with fire, shocking the air out of me, causing my uterus to scream and my pussy to flood.

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