Chapter Nine – Taran
Chapter Nine
Taran
How did the human saying go? Follow someone like a puppy?
That was definitely not what was happening here.
I was following Thea because I’d been hired to guard her. It was my job. My duty.
Ugh! Who was I kidding? She’d touched me back there, at the cabin. Touched me. With her gloved hand, but it had been enough. Now I wanted to feel her skin on my bark. She’d made me... hard. Now I was walking with a stump protruding from my lower region, and as much as I willed it to retreat into my body, it refused to do so. It felt swollen and throbbing, and if she touched me again, it would only grow bigger and thicker.
To be fair, I hadn’t thought my body was capable of doing that anymore. Getting hard for a female. And she was human, too. Her frail body should’ve left me indifferent. Maybe it was because I hadn’t experienced any sort of intimacy in too many years. I’d forgotten how much I needed it. How much I craved someone else’s touch.
The leshy were a cool and rational species. We weren’t known for our lust and desire. We weren’t made of flesh, so we weren’t carnal. We mated once in our lives, and once the male found his female, a seed started growing within him, at the base of his cock, so to speak, and he would plant that seed inside her, and from her body, a leshy sprout would grow. Usually, the male produced a single seed in his life. It was rare that a male could produce two seeds and impregnate his mate twice. The leshy lived impossibly long lives. If we multiplied too much, we would’ve taken over the world, and that was something we weren’t interested in. We liked our small, tight communities.
It could’ve never worked with a human. Our anatomies were too different. I had to stop thinking about Thea in that way. It wasn’t healthy. Now that she’d made me hard and I was thinking about how the leshy mated, I had this sensation that something was growing at the base of my cock. It was only my imagination. Only a true mate could make a seed grow within a leshy male’s reproductive organs, and even then, it wasn’t instant. Two leshy mates could be together for years before being blessed with a seed.
I followed Thea’s swaying hips, making sure to send telepathic signals to the vegetation around to gently move out of her way. My leaves rustled to the rhythm of her singing. When she found the clearing and decided to stop, her song stopped too, and I missed her voice within seconds. More than anything, I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to know whom she was sacrificing herself for. She was so young, so beautiful and kind, and I needed to know who this person was, this person who dared to ask so much of her. I hoped to all the leshy gods it wasn’t her father. Or her mother. That woman wasn’t any better than her husband.
Thea dropped her head in her hands and sighed a few times. She was exhausted, struggling so hard to stay awake. She was supposed to take care of her wounds, but I could tell she didn’t have the energy. If only I could reveal myself to her, I could’ve helped.
I moved closer to her. My branches and vines reached towards her, wanting to touch her hair. I held them back, but after another minute, I couldn’t help myself, and moved even closer, until I was standing right behind her. I was rustling and shivering at this point, and I expected her to look up and see what was happening, but she didn’t. Then I saw her tip over, and I realized she was falling asleep. My branches shot out to support her body. She was so light, like a leaf blowing in the wind.
I decided the log she was sitting on was uncomfortable and inadequate, so I wrapped her gently in my branches and carried her over to me. She didn’t wake up. I was moving so slowly, only a few inches at a time, not wanting to startle her awake. I cradled her in my branches for a few long minutes that I knew I’d remember for the rest of my life, then carefully placed her on my roots.
I shaped my roots in such a way that she was leaning against them and against my trunk comfortably. I basically made an armchair for her, reclining just right to support her back, her neck, and her pretty head. I knew she would freak out when she woke up. First, because she’d fallen asleep sitting on a log, and now she was resting in a nest of roots. And second, because she seemed to have a problem being close to... trees. Or anything else nature related. I would’ve loved to ask her a few questions about that.
I didn’t like thinking about her reaction, so I focused on her and her alone, trying to commit to memory every detail of her beautiful face, every breath she took, the way her hair smelled, and how her chest rose and fell evenly. Underneath her smooth eyelids, her eyes moved fast, and I didn’t know what that meant. At first, I thought she was going to wake up, but her body was relaxed against my roots.
The sun was getting up high in the sky, and we were exposed in the clearing. It was going to be a hot day. I inclined my canopy in such a way that it made shade for her, and I rustled my leaves to create a breeze to keep her cool.
We stayed like that for a while. She slept for well over an hour, and I just couldn’t get enough of her. I wanted her to sleep like that for hours, for half a day, just so I could watch her silently and marvel at the smoothness of her skin and the perfection of her full lips. When she woke up, it would be over. I couldn’t let her know I was here, so close to her, watching her every move, listening to her sing, protecting her on her journey. It was in the contract. Besides her father, who had hired me, no one was to know. So, I was going to take advantage of this moment and fill myself with her beauty. Then, I would deliver her to her husband-to-be and move on with my life, even as I knew she would be part of my soul forever.
She stirred, and sadness washed over me. She was waking up. I started retreating my roots from under her, not wanting her to see there were so many, touching her in so many places. Her fear of trees was incomprehensible to me, but I respected it and didn’t want to frighten her too much.
She let out a moan but didn’t open her eyes. She stretched and changed position, and one of my roots ended up between her legs. I froze.
Then the strangest thing happened. She started rubbing herself against me.