“Ireadabout fucking monsters. I don’t actually fuck them.”
He laughed, and his arrogant grin returned to his face in full force. “Can’t say that anymore.”
“So…what are you, Titus? You’re not all human, are you?”
He made hard eye contact with me, that beautiful green eye and its bright-white twin boring holes straight into my soul. My gaze locked with them, and I felt every inch of me melting.
“No, I’m not all human.”
I waited for him to elaborate. When he didn’t, I swallowed down my frustration. It was possible that I was about to get some major answers to the mystery here. And if I wasn’t, I could only guess what Titus was going to do to me out in the woods.
If it was anything like what he’d done in the back of that truck, well, then this trip out of town wasn’t gonna be a total bust.
“Just show me what you’re going to show me.”
My stepbrother led us down a shifty-looking gravel path and onto a dirt trail just wide enough for the two of us. The ground grew thick with a fog that settled down from the treetops, making it hard to see in any direction.
“Where are we going? Are we lost?” I asked after a few minutes, panic spiking my voice.
“We’re not lost,” Titus assured me. “I know exactly where we are.”
“How? The fog is so disorienting.”
“Not for me,” he huffed, irritation scoring his voice. “The Leeds family has been navigating these woods for generations. I know them like the back of my hand.”
Suddenly he whirled around to face me, and I almost crashed into his hard chest. “There’s something you should know about the place I’m taking you. It’s not safe.”
As I peered up at him, my breathing grew shallow. “Why?”
“You’ll find out why. Just, keep your distance from them. Something tells me you get off on being a brat and defying me. But this isn’t one of those times not to listen, alright? The last thing I need is for you to get hurt and bleed all over the fucking forest. I don’t have time to be fighting over every stray spirit, monster and animal that wants to eat you.”
I had no idea what he could possibly be talking about. Something wicked, and totally beyond my understanding. Still, it sent a dark thrill down my back. I moved closer to him, but he moved away, trying to keep space between us despite his reluctance to do so being palpable.
“Um. We just had sex. It’s okay for you to touch me.”
“That was a mistake,” he snapped. “Just, keep following me. You wanted answers, so I’m giving you answers. This way you might finally understand what you’ve gotten into by coming here.”
After following him through the woods for another five minutes or so, he stopped and gestured to what looked like a crumbling building, lost somewhere between the trees. “Look up there. What do you see?”
“Um. Some old ruins? So what? Looks innocent enough.”
He scoffed. “Don’t be so naive, Lore. You of all people should know that innocent-looking things can hide dark secrets.” He reached out and tucked one of my brunette curls behind my ear.
Now that gave me chills. I had a feeling that he was talking more about me than the ruins.
It was weird how quiet it was here, considering how dense the trees were. Maybe animals didn’t like this place.That sure bodes well, I thought sarcastically.
“There are fates worse than simply dying,” Titus said, his voice dropping to a whisper.
“Like what?”
“I’m trying to say that there is something truly malevolent happening in this town, and the Old Faith. It’s destroyed hundreds, if not thousands, of human lives over the years.”
He grunted as he hefted himself over a small cliff, then held out his hand to help me up and over it. I took his hand, and he hoisted me over it. “So, like, people are dying here? What’s happening to them?”
“The forest claims them. Specifically, the Lord of the Forest. He’s called the Elder One here, but the outside world knows him as the Jersey Devil. He’s a dark forest spirit that was once human. He was the thirteenth child born of the Leeds family, who was said to be cursed by a demon. Now, he roams these woods. Bishop worships him as a god and feeds him the souls of the humans unfortunate enough to wander into Bishop.”
I almost laughed at that. “Right. That’s a cute fairy tale, bro.”
