Guarded By the Leshy (Monster Security Agency)

Chapter One – Taran

Chapter One

Taran

I stood among the trees at the edge of the woods and watched her. She was clutching a map in her hands, so hard that her fingers were white with tension. Despite her efforts, she was shaking, nervous and anxious. Beads of sweat peppered her hairline, though the sun was in the clouds, and the morning chill still lingered in the air. Her long, dark hair was pinned atop her head. Rebellious strands had escaped the loose bun and were framing her oval face. When she looked up to study the woods, her green eyes shimmered with fear. She looked at me but couldn’t see me. Even as her eyes took in my body, I was invisible to her. Because I was not human. I was a tree.

Okay, that was an oversimplification. I was not a regular tree; I was what was called a leshy. Regular trees could not move or speak. They felt, yes, and they could communicate telepathically, but where they were born from a seed, that was where they died. They couldn’t change shape, either. My species, however, the leshy, was different and similar enough to regular trees that the untrained eye might’ve been deceived. We looked like trees, but we were so much more. We were living, breathing, moving, speaking creatures. We loved and lusted, we hurt and despaired. We felt the whole range of human emotions, and maybe more. I’d long had a theory that the leshy felt more than humans did. And therein lay the problem.

My attention was drawn back to the human female. She put the map in her backpack and drank a sip of water. I didn’t understand why she was so frightened. Yes, a long trek awaited her, but it couldn’t have been just that. Judging from the clothes she was wearing, she didn’t seem the outdoorsy type. She had the right jacket, pants, and boots, but the quality and make was superior to what usual hikers wore. Her backpack, too, was appropriate, yet too perfect and sleek. Unused. Luxury was written all over her things. This wasn’t her usual scene.

Which was fair enough. But why had she been given this challenge?

There was something not quite right here. As her bodyguard, hired by her father to protect her from the shadows, I didn’t like the idea that some information might’ve been hidden from me.

But then I had to remember – I didn’t care. Not about her father, and not about her.

Her name was Thea Everhart. The daughter of Bill Everhart. When Monster Security Agency briefed me about the job – guard and escort a young woman through the woods – my instant reaction was to say no. I didn’t work with humans. At all. I wasn’t interested. Frankly, I was surprised my handler even brought this job to me. I’d been working for the MSA as an elite bodyguard for five years, and they knew my one rule – no human clients. I was happy to assist any monster, but not humans, who, in my opinion, were the real monsters.

But then my handler uttered the name Everhart. I realized I couldn’t stay away. The MSA wanted me to take the job because I was uniquely qualified to escort Thea Everhart to her destination – a luxurious resort deep in the mountains – while not letting her – or anyone else, for that matter – know I was there. I was to be invisible. Because Thea wasn’t supposed to have a bodyguard.

It was the most ridiculous thing! Another reason I disliked humans. Their rules and traditions didn’t make sense. Apparently, Thea was supposed to be married in three days. The three days it would take her to cross the woods and reach the Celestial Pines Sanctuary. Her future husband was Soren Sinclair – another name that sent unpleasant shivers through my branches – who was well known for his involvement with politics, but not only. He was a spiritual leader of some sort, and his condition for taking Thea as his bride was that she had to prove to him and his family that she was worthy. Her challenge was to cross the woods in three days’ time, all on her own.

But Thea’s father, Bill Everhart, apparently loved his daughter enough to hire me. I’d honestly never thought Bill Everhart was capable of love. I still didn’t. He probably just wanted to see her married off, gods knew for what selfish reasons.

The Everhart family was a disease. They owned Everhart Furniture, a company that had single-handedly decimated a third of the forests in the US. And that was why, when I heard their name coming from my handler’s mouth, my branches reached out and grabbed the front of his shirt. Poor Harrison. He didn’t deserve the scare I gave him.

That was the only reason I took this job. Thea Everhart of Everhart Furniture. Given how her father had cut down entire forests, it was silly how she was standing here, at the edge of these beautiful, dense woods, hesitating. The family that chopped trees left and right. Here was their daughter, shaking like a leaf in the storm, unable to convince herself to step into the forest already.

She didn’t know about me. Only her father knew. It was supposed to be a secret, or apparently, her husband-to-be might declare her unworthy. Soren Sinclair didn’t chop trees, but he was just as bad as the Everharts. All in all, two old-money families that were a plague to this planet. What man in his right mind asked his fiancée to prove herself by hiking through the woods to meet him at their wedding venue? Given his spiritual proclivities, it sounded like some kind of ritual. Humans and their nonsense. I sometimes wondered if they were all the same, and then my better judgement reminded me it was healthier to not ask myself such questions and just stay away.

As I watched, unmoving from between the trees, Thea started pacing back and forth and muttering to herself. I strained to hear, slightly leaning in, my branches heavy with vines and rustling leaves.

“I can do this.” She nodded to herself, then her hand went to her stomach as she cringed. “Ugh!” She seemed to be in pain. “No, it’s fine. This is fine. I can do this.”

She planted her feet firmly and faced the forest. She took one step towards the tree line, and then another. On her third step, she crumbled to the ground. The leaves in my crown rustled with intrigue. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand what was going on with her. She was behaving very oddly. She was in a heap on the ground, her knees drawn to her chest, her arms going around them as she rocked back and forth.

“I can do this,” she sobbed. “Come on, Thea. Come on. Get up, get up, get up. You’re wasting time. Just wasting time.”

I inclined my crown to the right in an inquisitive manner. I looked at the surrounding trees, but they were silent, as expected. I reached to them with my thoughts, only to find they were utterly unconcerned with the tiny human female. As long as humans didn’t pose a direct threat, the trees barely acknowledged them. Even when they were threatened, regular trees couldn’t do much about it, so they resigned themselves to living in their own world and ignoring the humans altogether.

Thea had a few failed attempts at getting up. It seemed that no matter how insistently she encouraged herself, she had no courage to speak of. Confused, I checked our surroundings once more, sending my senses deeper into the forest, trying to ascertain if there were any threats Thea might’ve felt and I hadn’t. Maybe there were things in the woods that were dangerous to her and not to me.

No. Nope. The coast was clear. No wild animals nearby. I turned my attention to Thea, who was wiping her wet eyes with the back of her sleeve.

“Okay,” she whispered to herself. “Mhm, okay...”

Then she said something else, but her voice was so feeble that I couldn’t hear it. Despite myself, I leaned in even more.

I shouldn’t have cared. She was having a freakout that made zero sense to me. Knowing who her father was, I wasn’t even sure I was going to honor my contract and protect her. Maybe it was time for Bill Everhart to lose something – someone – dear to him. Maybe this job had landed in my lap because I was supposed to deliver the karma he’d made for himself by cutting down the forests. Forests of regular trees, but not only.

It hurt too much to think about it.

Still, I leaned in until my branches reached for Thea. I wanted to hear what she was mumbling to herself. She wasn’t paying attention, so when one of my branches brushed the top of her head, it took her by surprise.

Her reaction was visceral. She let out a scream and scrambled to get away from me. That was weird. As far as she knew, I was just a tree. As she crawled backwards, her hands dug into the dirt. Then she screamed again as she held her hands before her eyes, palms up, and stared at the bits of dirt and grass on her fingers.

“No-no-no-no-no...”

I straightened back up, my branches cracking with indignation. I’d barely touched her!

There was something seriously wrong with Thea Everhart.

And here I was, starting to care, when I really shouldn’t have. She was the enemy. If there was something wrong with her – good! She and her father deserved it.

Except... She seemed so small, and fragile, and lost... Damn my intense leshy feelings! I was going to protect her, after all, wasn’t I?