Chapter 176: Lingering resentment...
[ Old World - Deep inside the unknown woods ]
The trees and the landscape were already beginning to change yet again.
Autumn wandered ahead, her fingertips trailing over bark textured like dragon scales. Everything smelled richer here...deep earth,wet ferns and that peculiar sweetness of wild honeysuckle curling around ancient trunks.
She paused beside a thick tree with roots that rose like twisted old fingers, and squinted up at the sun barely slipping through the dense canopy.
She paused... more like her feet rooted on the spot by themselves... it felt like she had seen these woods... in some distant dream... or nightmare.
She blinked a couple of times, trying to shake off that awkwardness... and then...
"Hello, ancient one," she whispered, patting its base. "What secrets do you keep buried down there, hmm?"
Cerbs padded beside her, tongue lolling, ears alert. She looked down at him and grinned.
"Don’t worry, I won’t climb it."
Cerbs gave a low chuff.
She giggled, the sound light and almost childlike...but then it faded. Just like that.
Her laughter always faded too quickly lately. Like it didn’t have enough strength to echo anymore.
She crouched down to examine a patch of tiny indigo flowers nestled beneath a fern, brushing her fingers gently against the velvety petals.
"Would you like these?" She murmured aloud, not even realizing who she meant at first.
"Kieran..."
The name floated up in her mind and settled behind her eyes like dust in a sunbeam. Unshakable. Unwelcome. Or... not?
She frowned, standing up slowly.
"Why can’t I remember who it is?" she whispered to herself. "I know that name...whose is it? "
Cerbs tilted his head at her voice, as if listening.
"I remember the burn...the fire in my chest.But... What did I say before that? Why was he looking at me like that? Why do I feel like something was taken from me and... Ahhh!!!Why does it feel like I can’t remember a lot of my life...so many things?"
She shook her head, letting her braid fall over one shoulder.
"No. Not today. Not here...Breathe,Autumn,breathe!! Don’t start overthinking and don’t spoil the moment...you just dodged those guards...at least have some worthwhile adventure before you are caught..." She coaxed herself.
To shake the heaviness off, she suddenly puffed up her cheeks and let out a series of odd, warbly bird calls...completely nonsensical, like a child mimicking what they think birds should sound like.
Cerbs barked once, tail wagging, probably more out of alarm than amusement.
"Don’t judge me," Autumn said with mock haughtiness, sticking her nose in the air. "You have no idea what language I am speaking. I could be summoning a squirrel army right now."
She tossed a pebble in his direction and twirled once under a low hanging vine that brushed her forehead...tickling a little.There was mud on her boots, her shoulders were tired, and still... something inside her moved...inside her lower abdomen...yet her heart felt oddly light.
Even if only for a moment.
Autumn and Cerbs walked for what felt like hours.
The deeper they went, the quieter the woods became. No birdsong. No chittering. Just the rhythmic crunch of leaves beneath their feet.
Autumn kept her eyes forward but her thoughts elsewhere...looping through the fragmented images her mind fed her.
An obscured face... Her hand gripping his tunic.His voice calling her name.
The smell of petrol and a bike ride...passion and the rising heat...And something else.
His words... like a promise... " I will find my way back to you... always... "
Hanging there,just out of reach.
She almost turned to ask Cerbs something...
But then a heavy mist began to descend.THICK!
It came softly at first...thin streaks of white drifting across the path like silk ribbons.
Then it grew heavier all of a sudden.
It felt like a breath of clouds, curling around the trees, swallowing trunks and branches whole.
Autumn stopped walking.
She reached her hand forward and couldn’t even see her fingertips.
"...Cerbs?"
No answer.
She turned, but there was no one behind her. No Cerbs. No sound of boots. No birds. Not even wind.
The silence pressed in so tightly she could feel it in her bones.
"...Cerbs?Stop playing around!!"
Nothing. Just fog.
Her heart began to beat faster, breath catching in her throat.
"Okay," she said aloud, voice wobbling. "Okay, this is fine. I just wandered off again and Cerbs is just... behind. Or ahead."
She took one step. Then another.
The ground felt suddenly too soft, like moss covered...no velvet covered glass.
She paused, placing a hand against the nearest tree for balance...but even the bark felt strange. Slick. Cold... Still textured like dragon scale...
A whisper floated past her ear.
She spun.
Nothing.
"...Who’s there?" she called, louder this time. Her voice disappeared into the mist like it was being swallowed.
"I said who is it?!"
Another whisper. Clearer now. It was her name.
"Autumn..." It slithered past her.
She blinked. That voice...familiar yet from the nightmares she didn’t want to remember...
" Is that..." she whispered again. "Is that you...are you...?"
A hand touched her shoulder.
She gasped and spun around...but saw only shapes. A silhouette maybe, but it vanished as quickly as it appeared.
Her breathing quickened.
She closed her eyes, grounding herself.
"Ok, just breathe!!!This is just mist. Just mist. I have read enough to know mist doesn’t kill people. Unless it’s cursed. Or sentient over sacred soil...or evil..." She looked around, hands stretched as if to gauge all the possibilities.
Another whisper. This one was closer.
She stopped talking.
Silence. She closed her eyes... trying to listen with her ears.
And then she heard light footsteps.
Coming right towards her.
She backed up. "Cerbs?Orion? Father???Who...who is it???" she tried again.
Still no answer.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
Autumn’s breath hitched as the footsteps stopped. The air grew heavier, thick...something coiled low in her stomach.
And then she saw them.
Silver eyes... Gleaming through the mist like twin moons in the dark.
Her pulse spiked, her body locking in place. She knew those eyes. The same ones that had haunted her dreams just last night...luminous, hypnotic...hungry.
For a heartbeat, they simply watched her. Then, in the space of a blink, they vanished.
" No..." Autumn gasped, twisting around, her hands clawing at the damp air. "No, no, no...this can’t be real...where the hell...?"
But it was real...
And as if to confirm...she felt a touch.
Feather light.
Fingers trailed up the back of her thigh, skimming under the hem of her tunic, teasing the sensitive skin there. She jolted...a sharp inhale tearing from her lips.
"Who...Who is it?"
Nobody answered...only the hands moved.
They moved, slow and deliberate, sliding up her sides, tracing the curve of her waist before slipping around to her stomach.
A palm pressed flat against her abdomen, fingers splaying... not at all possessive but as if repulsed by something there... The hand moved around her abdomen as if it tried strangling something inside... Autumn even flinched... she even felt something move inside... Crawl inside her in fear... begging her for shelter... For protection...
She shuddered.
The touch was cold, like the mist itself, but then where it lingered, heat bloomed...a contrast that made her muscles tense, then melt despite herself...
"Stay back...don’t touch me..." she whimpered, but her voice was weak, trembling.
A low chuckle vibrated against her ear, sending a ripple of goosebumps down her neck.
"Why do you keep saying what you don’t mean at all...pretty little wolf?"
The voice was like a velvety shadow, curling around her senses like smoke.
She knew it... it was intoxicating...
She hated that she knew it.
Her breath came faster as those hands roamed higher, thumbs brushing the underside of her breasts, teasing,not quite giving her what her body craved.
"Please...Please let me go..." she didn’t even know what she was begging for.
The hands tightened.
Then, all at once, she was pulled back...her spine meeting his solid chest, her hips caged between strong thighs.
A gasp tore from her lips as a palm cupped her breast fully, kneading, while the other hand slid down, down...
Her head fell back against a shoulder she couldn’t see, her body arching into the touch despite herself... this loss of control wasn’t normal... yet it was so tempting...
"You remember this, don’t you?"The voice was a whisper against her throat. "How good it feels...you remember don’t you,little love?How I touched you just yesterday...where I touched you..."
She did. And damn it scared her even more...
Fingers dipped beneath the waistband of her trousers, tracing the very edge of where she ached most.
She bit her lip hard enough to sting.
Her mind spun. She struggled internally... to break the contact... To run... to get away...
But her body wouldn’t budge...
A frustrated whimper escaped her as those fingers teased lower, so close...
" Just give in already, little pretty thing... Why struggle so much?? "
The command was a dark caress, wrapping around her will, pulling it apart.
Her hips jerked forward, seeking friction, seeking more of the touch... The warmth...
And then...tearing through the mist came a loud growl...deafening almost...
The hands vanished instantly.
The warmth disappeared.
Autumn stumbled forward, gasping...her body throbbing with unspent need... Silence... And ache... Twisting...