A Whisper in the Woods (Fated Folktales #1)

35. Chapter 35

Chapter thirty-five

Leena

“ W hat is she talking about?” I asked. The longer he took to answer, the more my stomach twisted.

“Leena, I’m so sorry, but I had to do it. He tried to rape you—he could have left you for dead, and I’m sure he wouldn’t have stopped that night. There was a determination in his psychotic face. His soul wasn’t there, and when he fled, I could sense a vengeance that couldn’t be ignored.”

I shook my head over and over. This wasn’t happening. He hadn’t lied to me. This couldn’t be real. He pointed at his chest and stared straight into me. “It’s my job to protect my people—you above everyone. I was doing what I was supposed to do.”

“You did what you wanted,” I said between clenched teeth.

“Yes! I did! Why does that upset you? He was a waste of flesh and air—he wanted to rape you, Leena! He was worse than the hounds that escaped with Melora from hell! They have more humanity than that bastard did! ”

“It upsets me because you lied and went behind my back! I understand that we’re supposed to protect our people, and my perspective has changed since I first begged you to spare him. But you’d promised me that you’d respect my request, and not only did you go behind my back, but you lied to me and never came clean.” He started saying something, but I cut him off. “You had every chance to tell me what you did! We’ve fallen in love. You could have talked to me.” My voice broke. “Why didn’t you?”

He went still, and that weight in the pit of my stomach felt like a bag of rocks. “I’d have forgiven you in a heartbeat,” I whispered. “I understand our roles and what kind of monster he was—what kind of threat he was. But how can I trust you when you hid something so monumental from me? When you went behind my back?”

“I’ve changed too, Leena. It’s not as clear-cut as you’re making it out to be.” His voice wobbled as his dampening eyes matched mine.

“It is! You just had to talk to me.”

“Leena.” He moved in a flash to cradle my face, but I backed away. “Leena, I—” A crack of thunder eclipsed his voice. It was too loud to be from the clouds; I’d never heard something like it.

Without missing a beat, Bratan transformed, and almost simultaneously, a mass of crows flocked to him, seeking refuge on his branch-like arms. My brows furrowed as I watched the human-like expression in the crows’ eyes and how they knew the Leshy would protect them.

What would make them act like that? The answer was soon behind my fleeting thought as a ripple of black smoke left a thick film over the town.

Fear was an emotion far behind me now. I had no idea what to expect, but I’d come to terms with the reality that I would die today. Instead of cowering, I stood numb, watching the old woman I could only assume was Melora approach Bratan. The sinister woman leapt forward and sunk something into his leg. The unexpected attack tore a gasp from my throat. Bratan let out a fractured wail, bending back and staggering until the odd, sizzling object was removed from his thick skin. Black blood slithered down the strange blade, oozing with green fumes. Something pulled me toward it, not physically, but something inside. Like it was calling to me—to the subtle power simmering in my veins.

Bratan almost tripped over his own form, but he quickly recovered, lifted one hand, and blasted Melora across the square. She skated to the edge of the village but not before sinking another attack into his thick hand. It happened in half a second before the devil flew into the forest without a sound.

The Leshy shrunk back to his usual size, clutching his hand and examining it as he steadied himself on one leg. I rushed to him, carefully grabbing hold of his hand.

“Are you all right?” When our eyes met, my chest squeezed. That inexplicably strong connection we shared pumped through my blood. I truly loved him, but I was so upset. He may have done the right thing in killing Casimir, but he’d lied to me. He’d betrayed my trust.

“I’ll be fine.” He studied his bleeding hand, his face twisted in pain. “But if she gets me with that blade a few more times, the poison she’s embedded into it might kill me.”

“What’s in it that could be so powerful?”

“An ancient magic that only exists in her world below. She’s from a cursed realm filled with darkness, corruption, and chaos—and only those things. Even she can’t be happy there. It’s why she wants a place in this world so badly.” He winced as something dark slithered through his veins, and the color beneath his skin turned black. He hovered his other hand over it in an attempt to heal it, but it only made him grunt in pain and did nothing to remedy the wound.

“Bratan, I…” He might die here today—we both might. Things couldn’t end like this. “We need to be a team. We need to fight together. But to do that, I need to be able to trust you.” I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t know how I should feel or think, especially since the rules of the mortal realm didn’t apply to us in the same way. Humans shouldn’t take each other’s lives so easily, but we were deities in this forest, sentenced to protect these woods and the creatures within it.

“You may have been right in killing him, but you should’ve told me.”

“I know,” he whispered, “and I am so deeply sorry for that.” Our eyes remained locked until he bent down to kiss me, and amid chaos and the unknown, I let his lips welcome mine. He held me tight, desperately clinging to me and burying himself in our kiss. He pressed his hand hard against the small of my back as if I might slide from his grip and die this very instant. He was desperate to keep me—to hold me—even though I knew the pain of his hand must have stung something fierce.

“You don’t have to hold me,” I said between kisses.

“Yes, I do.” He took my face with the tips of his fingers, kissing me once, twice, three more times before a voice crackled through the space around us, forcing us to part.

“What a touching display,” Melora croaked. The villagers hadn’t moved, still as statues and either standing or crouched in their various hiding places. Some were standing near the middle of town, likely too frightened to move, or maybe they knew hiding would be pointless. If either of these powerful beings decided to decimate the entire village, they could do so without breaking a sweat. I knew Bratan wouldn’t do anything to innocents, but they didn’t believe that. And Melora was as unpredictable to them as she was to me.

I found myself frozen as Melora approached us, a growing scar spread across her face like a porcelain doll slowly cracking apart. Her clothes matched Bratan’s usual attire with black leathers and a collar that covered her throat, but she wore no cape. Her silver hair was held tight behind her in a low braid. The old demon looked me up and down. She spoke directly to Bratan. “It didn’t take long for your whore to forgive you. ”

He grabbed Melora by the throat, his hand snapping, fingers growing into roots as they curled around her neck. The woman didn’t writhe, but she visibly struggled. Something like dust crumbled down the side of her neck as she looked at me. “You only know a small portion of it.” Her voice was hoarse as it fought to reach me. “He was planning to kill you. He only needed to wed you to keep the forest alive and to ensure his bloodline stays in power long after he’s inevitably destroyed. He never loved you. He felt great lust for you and satiated those desires as long as he could, but that’s all. Once you produced an heir, he was going to toss you aside. And if you both survive today, that’s exactly what he’ll do.”

“You’re wrong.” I was surprised at my own voice; it was braver than the rest of me. “Every word you speak is deception.”

“How could you be so stupid?” Melora managed to bark out a laugh. “You just found out that Bratan killed someone he’d promised you he wouldn’t touch, and you saw him kill more men before your eyes moments before. And you still deem him good?”

“He must protect us! To protect—”

“Who? You? You really are na?ve.”

“She’s lying, Leena! Don’t listen to her. She’s trying to turn us against each other.” Bratan’s grasp tightened, but still, the woman spoke.

“You didn’t even notice I was there all along.” The moment my brows furrowed, Melora’s appearance melted, and she slipped from Bratan’s grasp, simmering in a puddle before rising to form the image of my junior maid. Though her neck was purple and still sported the grooves Bratan had split into it, there was no denying that what Melora claimed, at least about herself, was true. She was Ani.

“He didn’t tell you anything about me, did he?” Her voice was young, her form small. She condescendingly skipped to me, her hands clasped behind her back. “If he’d told you more—if he’d valued you more—you might have recognized who I was instead of letting me fool you so effortlessly day after day. You wouldn’t be here now. You—” Bratan grabbed the demon by the braid, whipping her back. She let out a wail of pain; He held her arms so tightly behind her back that they looked like they’d snap off with one more effortless pull.

“One more lie, and you’ll be torn apart,” he hissed, but Melora’s expression didn’t change.

“See? He won’t even kill me. He needs me. He has the power to kill me but chooses not to. He needs me to help him—to show him how to rule once he gives you his seed and kills you without mercy.”

“ENOUGH!” Bratan tugged on her arm, half-tearing it from the socket; she shrieked as he threw her aside, casting her back into the forest. “Leena,” he lightly grabbed me by the arms. “Leena, she’s lying. You know I’d never kill you. I love you. You know I love you.”

If I’d doubted before, I’d have known the truth now. Everything Melora said was a lie; I felt it .

Bratan tried to hurt Melora just now. I saw him try to rip the devil’s arm from her socket, but he couldn’t. He only managed to partially remove it. I didn’t doubt Bratan wanted the woman dead. He just wasn’t strong enough, nor was she to kill him. If he didn’t have claim to this land, I wondered if she would have usurped it long ago.

“It’s all so much,” I said.

“I know, little dove, but I’ll protect you, and if it makes you feel more at ease, I’ll make sure a contraceptive tonic is given to both of us each day. We can take it together. But please know you’re everything to me.”

“I know,” I whispered. He let out a relieved sound like a half-sob and let his forehead rest on mine. “I love you. Nothing will change that.”

“I love you, too. More than anything. I worship you, Leena.” He tilted up my chin. “I’ll worship you forever, little dove. From now until our corpses feed the earth.”

Heat bubbled in my veins at the declaration, but I was soon cooled by the cruel reality we faced. “That day might be today,” I said.

“It won’t be. I won’t let it. I promise you that, and I will never break any promise to you again. I never want to hurt you. You deserve so much better than that. Truly, I don’t deserve you, but I’ll strive to be every day.”

Tears fell from my eyes, and I reached up to grab him, wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing him with every tender hope and feeling I possessed. He eagerly accepted it with a furious passion, holding me like everything was on the line—like we could breathe our last breath at any moment. Because we very well could. Wild flames sparked between us, a passion that pulsed between our bodies and souls. It rushed through me with an intensity beyond understanding. And awakened the power I’d been pushing aside.

A scream rattled from my throat—an unearthly one that ripped my voice in two. My back arched in pain as the surging power consumed me, and something rippled beneath the surface of my flesh. I heard Bratan call my name before my body snapped, pain throbbing in my joints as my form stretched and shifted. Bones cracked, pulling apart, growing, and reconnecting as the wind stung altering wounds. The calls of the crows were close, and the light from the moon kissed my eyelids just before they opened. I looked around frantically, trying to make sense of what was going on. The pain was severe, but it lessened enough that I could focus. And what I saw was incomprehensible.

My hands were slender roots, more feminine than my husband’s when he was in his monstrous form, but just as long and terrifying. My skin was thick boards of bark, and I could only imagine what I must look like to the horrified villagers fleeing with screams into the thickness of the woods.

Fear stoked in me like wild flames, but Bratan grew too, his eyes planted firmly on mine until he was fully in his corresponding form. Even as I was, he still towered over me, but together, we were above the treetops. Covered in crows and shadowing the world beneath.

He lifted his branch-like fingers to my rough, newly transformed face. “My love.” His body creaked as he let his hand fall, and despite his otherworldly voice, the words came out tender. “Let’s go protect our home.”