Page 3 of Stolen By The Beast
“Juniper! Time to come out and play!” Telker’s voice had drifted through the open doors of the lodge.
Had he convinced them I’d wanted to stay? Why would they have believed anything he said?
Oh, right.
What girl wouldn’t have been falling all over herself to spend a magical night with a multi-millionaire? One who could take her to breakfast in Paris, and then a show in New York City for dinner, while showering her with trinkets and baubles.
Except I didn’t want that.
Telker could offer me the world, but he wasn’t offering love or devotion. He wouldn’t know what that was if it was stuffed up his butt.
Studying the twinkling lights in the lodge, I knew I couldn’t risk going back inside. Which had left me with only one other option.
And that’s how I ended up trekking through the woods in the middle of the night.
My heart jerked in my chest at the soft rustle coming from the bushes to my left, but I didn’t bother to look toward the noise. I already knew I wouldn’t see anything other than the flickering glow of fireflies.
I’d been stumbling through these woods for the last two hours, and it wasn’t the first time I’d heard the whisper of something brushing against leaves, or the soft snap of twigs in the thick underbrush.
But each time I stopped and tried to figure out if I was in danger, or if I’d simply disturbed a sleeping bird, I couldn’t spot anything. If I was being stalked by a wolf, it would have eaten me by now… right?
“Yep. Exactly,” I mumbled, trying to reassure myself.
Fifteen minutes later, the murmur of voices drifted through the darkness. After being alone in the woods for hours, my first instinct was to rush toward them. Maybe they had a cell phone or a car.
But after my experience earlier in the evening, I wasn’t eager to be alone with another group of possibly drunk men.
Leaning against a tree, I steadied my breathing. When the sound of a woman’s laughter filtered through the trees, relief washed through me.
Hot tears sprang to my eyes. I’d done a dang good job of keeping it together while wandering around for hours completely alone in the dark forest.
Laughing in joy that I was going to get out of these woods and not end up being eaten by the big bad wolf, I pulled my heels from the thick mud and tumbled into the small clearing.
The warm, welcoming glow of a blazing fire lit the five faces sitting on logs placed around the fire.
My stomach plummeted to the ground and kept on going.
Several sets of stunned eyes stared back at me.
Five men.
I desperately searched the clearing, but there was no one else.
A woman’s giggle rang out again, and my eyes landed on a man in the middle of the rest, who held a cell phone. Horrifying realization dawned on me.
They were watching videos, and that’s why I’d heard a woman’s voice—why I’d felt safe to rush into a group of strangers.
Biting my tongue, I held back a scream of exhausted frustration. I’d spent hours in the woods only to end up in the same position I’d been in before I’d rushed into them!
“Hello there, sweetheart.” The guy nearest me spoke first. His words were slurred, quickly cluing me into the fact that he’d imbibed more than a little booze.
“I’ve seen a lot of things in these woods, but never anything as pretty as you.” A man wearing a garishly orange baseball cap pushed himself off the log, grinning at me.
Except this grin wasn’t a welcoming ‘how can we help you?’ smile. No, it was a malicious smirk that lifted every hair on my body.
I stumbled backward, planning to make a quick exit, but my heel caught on the long train of my skirt. Thorns tore at my skin and clothing as I fell into a gnarly overgrowth of brambles.
The sharp needles of the spiky points embedded into my skin, but I felt no pain thanks to the adrenaline pumping through my veins.
