“Is it normal for you to be so aroused in the presence of a predator?” His words twisted my insides. The urge to fall flat on the ground nearly overtook me.
“What?”
“Though I’m curious, Miss Charlotte.” He leaned forward again, brushing his lips against the shell of my ear. His voice fell deeper, darker. “Which predator brought you to your arousal?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He nuzzled his nose into my hair, sending a shudder through me. To my horror he said, “Your scent is overpowering, killer.”
I tried to regain control of my breathing, blinking hard. I shook my head. Perhaps I needed to be rattled, taken by the shoulders and shaken until my head fell back into place.
“I think talking time is over now.”
He leaned back with a deviant chuckle.
The oppressive silence was better than this, better than whatever unfurled inside me. It needed to be plucked from the roots, to rot and decay. Because, no, this was certainly not normal. To allow these feelings to continue would lead to everything I did not want.
* * *
We were nearing closer. I was growing tired of hearing my own breathing so clearly, the inner workings of my body. No matter how hard I tried to focus on something else, it was inescapable. I was close to snapping, wanting to scream into the woods just for another sound to hear.
“Stop.”
My spine stiffened at the sound. It was so faint. The tiny voice retreated far too quickly before I could process the word.
“Did you hear that?” I asked, glancing around to see nothing but an endless expanse of trees.
He gathered the reins in one hand, wrapping his other arm around my waist. “I did.”
“Take heed.”
I swatted at my ear. The whispers like the buzz of a fly.
“Turn back.”
I swatted again. Whoever this was whispered right into my ear before dashing away, the voice fading out with distance, only to come back sharply. I narrowed my eyes, scanning the scene around me.
“Come any closer and mistress won’t be pleased.”
My eyes finally caught sight of movement. A streak of blurring light, moving too fast to decipher.
“But keep going and we will be quite pleased.”
“Yes, then we can fill our tummies.”
Sebastian urged Nyx into a canter as a chorus of unsettling giggles followed after us. I squealed as something entangled within my hair. He grabbed what I still couldn't make out and tossed it aside. Whatever it was let out a tiny growl. We lurched to a stop as they finally appeared before us.
There were three of them, and they couldn’t have been more than five inches tall. They were floating before us. Their wings, a translucent black reflecting blue and purple, fluttered rapidly behind them, creating a shimmering effect that was quite mesmerizing to look at. Their skin was paler than mine, with an ethereal light like the surface of the glowing moon. Their clothing seemed to be made of thin, soil-stained roots woven together in delicate crocheted patterns. Hair black as ink flowed past their dangling feet. They had the face of a porcelain doll, though a sorrowful haze crafted their features.
But what was truly disturbing about them was their eyes that took up the majority of their face. They had smokey gray scleras and pitch black irises that blended into their pupils, leaving them appearing maliciously doe-eyed. And their lips were smeared with a faint red.
“What in the blazing oaks are those?” I muttered.
“Some type of faerie,” he muttered just as low.
I had to stop being surprised at what I saw now. No matter how much I claimed to expect the pages of my folklore books to come to life after all that I had seen lately, I was still taken aback with my ever-changing world.
“I get the gray one. She smells quite delightful,” one of them spoke.
