I briefly thought of Fenris alone in the woods and felt pangs of guilt and regret. Staring at my phone, I stifled the need to text him. What would I even say? Stay safe? He’d only take that as a sign of affection from me, and that was the last thing he needed.
Rather than text Fenris or Eugene, I answered Mom that I was okay then snuck up to my room. The world might be falling apart around me, but I was cold and exhausted. Everything else could wait until after I had a hot shower and some more sleep.
The voices from the office surged loudly enough that I recognized Raiden. I couldn’t make out the words and didn’t care to get any closer to try. After finally seeing the truth of what I’d accidentally done to his son, I no longer held any resentment or hurt over how Raiden had treated me. Only shame. And I didn’t want to face Raiden and admit he’d been right to tell me to leave.
Fenris would be fine if he stayed away from me for a few days. I clung to that desperate thought as I hurried down the hall.
Safely in my room, I stripped from my inadequate pajamas. The shower, even when it started out cold, was warmer than my feet. A hissed breath escaped me as the water slowly heated and created a painful burn as my feet warmed. I lifted one foot to make sure standing in the snow hadn’t caused any permanent damage. The skin looked red but otherwise fine.
A yawn ripped through me, and I frowned. It was the middle of the night, but I was beyond “normal” tired. The run through the woods had taken too much out of me. While I could hope that sleep would help some of it, I recognized the level of my exhaustion as the warning sign it was. I would need to feed soon.
With that depressing thought in my head, I stumbled to my closet for warmer, clean pajamas then crawled into bed.
It didn’t take me long to slip into my recurring dream of the woods. There weren’t any cakes hanging from the barren branches, though. Instead, Fenris was leaning against one of the trees.
His beautiful brown gaze tracked me as I approached him. I opened my mouth to apologize for leaving him alone in the woods, but no sound came out. He straightened away from the tree and stalked toward me. His slow prowl triggered that tingle on the back of my neck.
“You’re slowly killing me, Eliana.”
I tried again to apologize for what I’d unintentionally done to him. Still, no sound emerged.
He stopped in front of me and cupped my face. The feel of his hands made my heart hammer painfully.
“I’m not sure how much more time we have. I’m trying, kitten, but I’m so in tune to everything about you that staying away is impossible. You exhale and I inhale. I breathe you in because you’re the only thing sustaining me.”
Hearing what I had suspected broke my heart for him. For us both. As much as I wished it wasn’t true, I ached for Fenris. I wanted him in my life. I wanted his hugs. I wanted his playfulness. Gods help me, I wanted all of him for myself.
Since I didn’t have the voice to say anything, I let my tears speak for me.
“Shh. Don’t cry. Take what you need.”
I shook my head, and he drifted away.
In his place, the branches shook. The small squares that dangled from the strings weren’t any type of cake they’d offered before. I tentatively took the piece of baklava. The honeyed sweetness caressed my tongue, and I smiled at the nuttiness. Then I licked the stickiness from my fingers. It was different, but it was still good.
Taking my time, I ate my way through several desserts before sitting against the tree. The food was filling, but not what I wanted.
“That’s not enough, nibbles. A little more,” the trees said, sounding oddly like Fenris.
I frowned up at the branches and noticed other options swaying in the light breeze. Boston cream pie was back along with lava cake. My two favorites. Ignoring the part of me that said something wasn’t right, I stood and listened to my hunger. It demanded I inhale cake after cake. My ravenous appetite seemed as endless as what the trees offered.
Gradually, my hunger faded, and I lazily ate because the food was there and I liked it.
“How many people know about this place?” an unfamiliar voice squeaked.
“Far too many. He needs to find his own woman and stop hiding in the trees. Hey, don’t touch her,” a familiar squeaking voice said.
The cake I’d been eating fell from my fingers, and I frantically looked for skunks. One peeked at me from around a tree, its faint aroma filling my nose.
“No,” I said firmly.
“Stop touching yourself,” Piepen’s voice scolded. “We can’t do that here. There’s a better place for that.”
I’d had these dreams enough to know what the sound of Piepen’s voice meant. He was in my room.
“Your woman, your rules,” the unfamiliar voice said right before the skunk and the faint smell disappeared.
I waited for what they would do next, but there was nothing. Only silence and the lingering scent of cakes. Part of me knew I needed to wake up and make sure I was fine. The other part of me was tired of constantly struggling with everything. I just wanted five minutes of peace and relaxation. Five minutes of simplicity. The gods could at least give me that.
Rather than fight against the dream, I gave in to the part that needed peace and curled up on a soft patch of grass. The light breeze caressed my skin, and I stared up at the sun-dappled canopy.
Prior to Megan leaving, I’d never been much of an outdoors person. Yet, even without the cakes, the grove comforted me. With a sigh, I relaxed. My eyelids closed, and I began to slip away from my grove into that place of deeper sleep. However, my next inhale ripped me from that serenity as I choked on the sudden, cloying skunk smell.
Gasping and coughing, I tried to inhale a clean breath, but the toxic mix was inescapable.
I woke with a start and scrambled out of bed toward the open window. The cold, fresh air was a reprieve from what clouded my room. Without leaving my position of safety, I scanned the area, but there wasn’t a brownie in sight. Despite that, the scent was so strong my eyes were watering.
If Piepen wasn’t in the room with me, he had to be nearby.
My gaze landed on my partially opened bedroom door, and I growled in frustration. It had been closed when I’d gone to bed, just as the window had.
With one last cleansing inhale, I hurried across my room and slipped into the hallway. The scent was even stronger there. Faint sexual groans and high-pitched laughing filled my ears, drawing my watering gaze to the light emanating from the game room.
For a moment, I wavered. I could return to my room, shut the door, and go back to sleep with the window open. Or, I could be responsible and march into the game room and stop whatever activities had the house reeking of brownie lust. I desperately wanted to remain ignorant of what was going on but knew, if I didn’t put my foot down, Piepen would only see that as an invitation to continue these horrible invasions.
The need for air motivated me. I hurried forward, nudged the door open, and froze. It took a moment for what I was seeing to register.
Two brownies hovered in the air above the couch. They wore cowboy boots and western hats and nothing else. Arm in arm, they hooted and swirled in the air while they frantically tugged on their tiny toothpicks to the sounds emanating from the porn that played out on the television.
Sparkles burst from the new brownie and rained down on the already shiny cushions beneath them. Oanen’s gaming couch. The one he’d slept on with Megan the night he asked her to be his girlfriend.