Claimed By the Forest Reaper (Feral Bonds #3)

The Sacrifice

They don’t even let me scream.

Rough hands shove me forward, fingers digging into my arms hard enough to bruise. The smell of torch smoke and stale fear clings to the mob around me. I thrash, but there are too many of them—always too many.

“You brought this on yourself,” hisses Marta, the butcher’s wife. Her breath reeks of ale.

I snap my head back, hoping to catch her nose with my skull. She jerks away, and I taste petty satisfaction. “Bitch,” she spits.

“Original,” I mutter. My voice shakes, but not enough for them to notice. I won’t give them that.

The forest looms ahead, a wall of shadow and twisted pines.

The villagers stop at the tree line, their courage melting like butter over a flame.

Old Man Crayford starts chanting that same stupid rhyme kids sing at festivals—*Beware the Reaper, he walks in the gloom, steal your last breath, drag you to the tomb*. His voice cracks.

Idiots. All of them.

Someone yanks the sack off my head. Cold air slaps my face, and I squint at the moonlit clearing. The trees here aren’t right. Their trunks bend like broken spines, branches clawing at nothing. Fog pools around their roots, thick and unnatural.

“Should’ve burned her,” someone mutters.

“The forest takes what it’s owed,” says Father Durran. His robes smell like incense and rot. “The curse demands a life.”

“I didn’t *curse* your damn sheep,” I say, twisting against the hands holding me. My heart hammers, but I lock the fear down tight. Anger’s safer. Anger’s familiar.

A boot kicks the back of my knee. I drop hard, gravel biting through my dress. Marta rips the necklace from my throat—my mother’s stupid good-luck charm, a carved oak leaf. She tosses it into the dark.

“Go on, witch. Pray your forest god shows mercy.”

The mob surges forward, pushing me into the underbrush. I stumble, catching myself on a thorny vine. It slices my palm open.

“Assholes!” I shout, whirling around.

But they’re already gone, their torches retreating like cowardly fireflies.

---

The forest eats sound.

My breathing’s too loud. My footsteps crunch like thunder. I walk for what feels like hours, my legs shaky, my bare feet numb. The fog clings, damp and cold, seeping through my thin dress.

Everything looks the same. Gnarled trees. Moss-covered rocks. Shadows that twitch when I’m not looking.

*This is fine. You’ve foraged worse places.*

I press my bleeding hand to my side. The cut’s shallow, but it stings. My mother’s voice flits through my head—*Yarrow for wounds, lavender for calm*. Useless now. All my herbs are back in the village square, burning with the rest of my life.

A twig snaps behind me.

I freeze.

Nothing moves.

“Just a deer,” I say aloud. My voice doesn’t sound like mine.

The fog thickens. Shapes blur. I touch a tree trunk to steady myself—and jerk back. The bark’s wrong. Slimy, like wet leather. It leaves a grayish residue on my fingers.

*Don’t rub your eyes. Don’t lick your lips.*

I wipe my hand on my dress and keep walking.

---

Something follows me.

Not an animal. Not the wind. It’s in the way the leaves go still when I pause. The way the air prickles, like before a lightning strike. I catch glimpses sometimes—a flicker of movement, a shadow too dense.

“Show yourself!” I shout.

Stupid. But fear’s starting to win, anger fraying at the edges.

The fog shifts. For a second, I see eyes.

Not human. Glowing silver, like moonlit ice.

I bolt.

Branches tear at my hair. Roots rise to trip me. I fall, my knees scraping rock, and scramble up again. The forest blurs. My lungs burn.

A low sound hums through the trees—a groan of bending wood. The ground *moves* under me. I scream as a root wraps around my ankle, yanking me off my feet.

I dangle upside down, blood rushing to my skull. The world spins. Shadows writhe.

“Let go!” I kick at the root. It tightens, and panic claws up my throat.

Then—it releases.

I crash into the dirt, gasping. The root slithers back underground.

*Run. Now.*

I crawl, then stagger upright. My ankle throbs. The fog parts ahead, revealing a small clearing. In the center stands a massive oak, its trunk split down the middle. Something glows inside the crack—a soft, pulsing gold.

Magic.

I shouldn’t approach. I know better. But it’s the first warm thing I’ve seen here.

The glow brightens as I near. Inside the split trunk lies a nest of moss and twigs, cradling three eggs. They’re pure black, shot through with veins of gold.

“Don’t,” I whisper, reaching anyway.

The second my fingers brush an egg, the gold veins flare. Heat floods my hand, soothing the cut. The forest holds its breath.

A twig snaps behind me.

Slowly, I turn.

The shadows *ripple*. A figure steps forward—taller than any man, cloaked in darkness. Silver eyes cut through the fog.

My body locks.

He tilts his head, studying me. His face is all sharp angles and pale skin, glowing sigils swirling across his collarbones. White hair spills over his shoulders.

The Forest Reaper.

I should scream. Pray. Run.

But his gaze… it’s not cruel. Hungry, yeah. But hungry like the stray dog I fed last winter—desperate, trying to remember kindness.

The egg’s heat still pulses in my palm. The Reaper’s eyes drop to it. When he looks back at me, something flickers in his expression.

A choice.

I hold out the egg. “Take it.”

He goes utterly still. For a heartbeat, the forest feels alive, watching.

Then—

A hand, cold and clawed, wraps gently around my wrist.