Manny leans forward, and I realize I drifted into his personal space at some point. His lips hover close to my ear. “Tie me up whenever you want to.”
All the saliva in my mouth dries up, and I have to clear my throat. The taunting wolf straightens just enough for me to meet his eyes. To see the heated glint in them.
“What do you mean?” I rasp when, really, I want to say,Why are you doing this to me?
Did Heather finally spill the beans on me? After she came out and introduced Papa and me to her first girlfriend, I realized she wasn’t in love with Manny. That they weren’t destined to be together. After that, I guess I got lax about covering up my attraction to him. She caught me staring at the werewolf one day when he was shirtless and helping Papa haul pumpkins out of The Patch for a large order.
Heather can be relentless when she wants, and my sister badgered me until I admitted that I’d always thought Manny was handsome. Too handsome for his own good. And that I knew he didn’t see me the same way, so I refused to let him know how I felt.
Did she break our sister pact and tell her best friend that I’d had a crush on him the entire time I claimed to loathe everything about him?
I do loathe Manny. Hating the fact that, even while he teases me and growls at me, I want to strip him down, cover him in melted caramel, and lick his chest.
At least, in high school, I could claim adolescent hormones were the issue.
What’s my excuse now? Misfiring horny spell that makes me want the closest asshole?
Whatever the reason, my body still responds to Manny in inappropriate ways. My skin heating in anticipation of his touch. My brain convincing itself that kissing him is the perfect kind of revenge.
Manny reaches out to tug on a lock of my hair before I can swat his hand away. “It means that I want you to truss me up, peel my clothes off with your teeth, and have your witchy way with me.” His devilish grin slowly curls across his lips as I choke on my breath. “But only if you catch me first.”
He’s gone. Turning so fast that he seems to vanish into thin air. But deep in the shadows of the forest, I hear a pained grunt.
He’s changing. The wolf is coming out.
He wants me to chase him when he’s in his wolf form? So I’m guaranteed to lose?
Maybe that’s why he made those suggestive remarks. Because he knows they would never come to fruition.
I grit my teeth, annoyance sparking through my veins that Manny might know about my crush and be using it against me.Suddenly, I want to catch him more than anything in the world. I want to toss his body to the ground and strip him like he said. I want to bind him to the forest floor with thick roots.
Then, I want to leave him there. I want to walk away as he pleads for my forgiveness.
Pajamas aren’t the best for a middle-of-the-night sprint. Neither are bare feet.
At least for someone who isn’t a wood witch.
I bend one knee, then the other. Rubbing my bare soles before twisting my fingers in coaxing gestures. My power unfurls under my skin, a light-green glow emanating from my pores, and I feel my body respond to the spell. My feet touch the ground, and the connection is instant. This is more than my spur-of-the-moment conjuring in the corn maze. My magic is full of intention.
I am one with the earth.
It cannot cut me. Cannot bruise or harm me. Nature is a gentle cradle under my soles.
I don’t know if this will make me any faster, but it’ll keep a stray thorn in my heel from slowing me down.
“Ready or not, here I come,” I mutter, dropping my blanket and taking off into the dark woods at a sprint.
My plan was to listen for the soft, thumping footfalls of a loping wolf, but the moment I start running, the race fades from my mind as I’m overwhelmed by the joy of finally letting myself go wild.
Letting myself run free.
Where I live, there are paths and trails in local parks I can jog on. And I do. But never with true abandon. Never with laughter bubbling from my throat and my arms stretched wide to brush my fingers against the foliage.
I wonder if this is what wood nymphs feel like when they dance through the woods. Those mythics commune with naturein a way I could only hope to achieve. I’ve seen them fully disappear inside trees as easily as stepping into the waters of Lake Galen.
That’s a feat I haven’t managed, but with my hand gestures and a force within my spirit, I can coax the natural world to move and respond to me.
We are friends of a sort, and now, I flow among them.
