I watched the two of them scamper off, all long legs and tentacles, running across the earth with bare feet, carefree until they reached the end of the cliff, both jumping off into the dark, frothy waters below like they didn’t have a worry in the world.
Instinctively, I ran after them; my mind not understanding the reality before me. My feet skidded in the dirt as I stopped myself from toppling over. I peered over the edge, down below, noting how high up we were. I could see them, their heads bobbing above the water as they swam freely, and my heart stilled a moment.
To befreelike that... must be such a beautiful, wonderful feeling.
As if the forest echoed my sadness, my remorse, the trees blew and faint droplets of water kissed my skin.
I sat in the dirt there, the soil wet and cold against my exposed skin, and I just watched them. Frolicking away in the waves below like children.
When I’d finally had enough sulking, I rose, finding my way back to the empty firepit. I looked around the forest, knowing I’d come from a mirror, so there must be one here that would lead me back to Blackthorn. But I saw nothing.
A strange sense of energy ebbed beneath my skin, almost as if my magicknewwhat I was looking for. I held my hand up once more, noticing the little pink swirls of energy dancing with the purple haze.
Fae.
Blackthorn had said I was descended from the Fae, and Wanda said humans couldn’t travel through the mirrors, and clearly I’d come out in one piece.
But what did it mean?
My entire life I’d been led to believe the Fae were evil spirits who would snatch up a wandering woman in the woods like hotcakes.
The wind rustled the pleats of my skirt as I turned my hand this way and that, watching the magic flow from my fingertips.
Violet...
The wind whispered the sound of my name like a faint wish, but I did not startle, no.
I only looked up in front of me, at the sight of a plethora of trees that all grew in an arch, producing an ‘O’. A naturally occurring, circle-shaped entrance into the deeper wood.
My mind immediately filled in the stories my mother had told me, of entrances not meant for mortals.
Entrances that led unsuspecting women into the world of the Fae.
Where’s your sense of adventure, Violet?
Norman’s words echoed in my brain.
I was already in a magical realm, in a magical forest, so by my mother and father’s account, I was already doomed.
What’s really the worst that could happen?
Curiosity bloomed within me like a flower unfurling its petals in the dawn.
Surely, a look around wouldn’t hurt...
And so I followed my burgeoning curiosity deeper into wonderland, my beating heart racing as the forest called me.
Home.
CHAPTER9
Bane
For the secondtime in the span of barely two weeks, I found myself in my dungeon. Only this trip was not as pleasurable as the last.
I dropped my backpack on the ground hastily, my skin practically crawling with heat as emotion took over.
As a creature of lust, control was always something that I was taught I needed to have. Letting my lust get the best of me could lead to dangerous things.
