Chapter Five – Taran
Chapter Five
Taran
Her skin was like alabaster. Droplets ran down her arms and back as she splashed herself with water, and I found that I couldn’t look away. I should’ve. This was an intimate moment, and I hadn’t been invited to participate. I felt like a voyeur. Thea didn’t know I was here. She thought she was completely alone, and it was wrong of me to watch.
Low in my trunk, something stirred. One could say the stir happened in the part of my body that was equivalent to the loins of a human male. There was hardness, excitement... And then there was pain. A sort of pain that I’d never felt before.
I blamed it on the fact that I hadn’t been with a female in well over five years. Loneliness was tough. That was why I decided to join Monster Security Agency. After the loss I’d suffered, after I realized I was going to be alone for the rest of my long leshy life, it was either work for me, a career dedicated to protecting others, or slumber. The leshy had extensive lifespans. So extensive, that we sometimes got tired of living. When that happened, we had a choice to make: find something to live for, or find a place to plant our roots and fall into a deep sleep that almost resembled death.
It would’ve been so easy for me to check out. I refused to give up, though, realizing that if I chose slumber, when I woke up, the world wouldn’t have been better. On the contrary, there was a good chance for me to wake up to something worse than what I was living. The MSA saved me. The jobs I did for the agency gave me a reason to push on. However, I’d never expected to get a job like this, where I’d end up watching a beautiful human woman bathe in a stream.
She wasn’t naked, and I thanked the leshy gods for this small mercy. She was in a black bra and black panties, both pieces of clothing so small that they barely covered her. The cold water peppered her skin with goosebumps, and her nipples were as hard as pebbles, poking through the thin lace. Once again, I tried to look away. My branches trembled and rustled, but my eyes stayed glued to Thea. The stir in my loins was back, along with the pain. I had to be strong and ignore it.
The vines that hung from my canopy reached towards her. I couldn’t help myself. Her presence, not just her body, enticed me. I was intrigued by her, curious to know her. Who was this beautiful creature whose name was Thea Everhart, but who was nothing like her family? Why was she so scared? So anxious... How could she be so frail, yet strong enough to sacrifice herself like this?
Because I knew she didn’t want this. She didn’t want to be here, alone in the woods, hiking towards a life that would certainly imprison her. Otherwise, she would’ve behaved differently. She’d cried, she’d sobbed, she’d talked herself into pushing forward. When I saw how lost she was and how much she needed my protection, I couldn’t hold it against her that she was the daughter of the most despicable man on the continent. She hadn’t chosen her parents, I had to remind myself.
I shouldn’t have been attracted to her, which was what baffled me. She was human, and I was leshy. I was attracted to my kind. We were made of wood and leaves, we were tall and strong, while humans were made of flesh and bones that broke easily. If you poked them too hard, blood gushed out.
As Thea sat on a rock and waited for the sun to dry her skin, that was what I told myself. That I had no reason to feel attracted to her. Her body was silly. It didn’t make sense. Where I had roots that helped me move quickly and stealthily, barely making a sound, she had two long, lanky legs, and when she walked, her feet thudded heavily, crunching twigs and leaves. I had countless branches and vines, and I could do a dozen things at once with them. She had two arms, and even those were useless, as she didn’t use them to push away the vegetation to advance through the forest.
Her body was nothing like mine, and the last thing I wanted was to feel her smooth skin against my bark.
I caught myself thinking about that. The image invaded my thoughts, and I chased it away.
Thea was rummaging through her backpack. She pulled out a square package, unwrapped it, and started eating. I’d been around the humans who worked for the MSA enough to know it was a sandwich.
That was another thing that differentiated us. All I needed was the nourishment of the air, water, and earth, and the warmth of the sun to fill me with energy. The humans’ diet was so complicated. The worst part was that they killed living beings to feed themselves. And to build the houses they lived in, the beds they slept in, and the tables they ate at, they cut down trees. Even though trees weren’t the same species as the leshy, we could say they were our distant cousins.
There were so many reasons why I shouldn’t have been attracted to Thea.
So, I thought about it. I thought hard. Maybe this wasn’t attraction. Maybe it was simple curiosity, because she was such a strange creature. Freaking out because of some dirt on her fingers... Hyperventilating because an ant had climbed her leg... I was too curious for my own good, that was all. It didn’t mean I liked her.
Thea finished her sandwich and started putting her clothes back on. I watched her as she pulled the pants up her thin, long legs, then covered her upper body with the sweater. Her boots were next, and she was ready to go. She studied the map again. She seemed more relaxed and collected. Maybe she’d needed to eat. My handler, Harrison, could become quite annoying when he was hungry. Once, he was forced to take a late lunch break because of a meeting, and he yelled at me. That had left me stunned. Humans didn’t usually have the guts to yell at me, or at any other monster, for that matter.
Thea crossed the stream, and I followed her silently. She didn’t look back once, so she missed the moment when there was no tree in the middle of the stream, then there was a tree, then no tree again. The cold water ran over my roots. It felt invigorating, but the thought that Thea had bathed in it just minutes before sent heat through my core.
Gods, it was getting difficult to focus. Even now, my eyes – which were hidden under ridges of bark – were glued to her round hips, swaying delicately as she walked.
I groaned to myself and slowed down my pace, letting her put some distance between us. If she was too close, my branches had the tendency to reach for her. Earlier, at the edge of the woods, I’d brushed her hair briefly. I decided that was the first and last time. I didn’t need to touch her to protect her.
Thea Everhart was off limits.