Chapter Fifteen
She knew.
I’d gotten reckless, been distracted by my hurt doe friend. The creature hadn’t been taking the healing well, driven crazy by the pain.
I hadn’t noticed Shea waltz into my woods. I hadn’t heard the rhythmic hymn of her pulse, announcing her arrival. It hadn’t been until I’d heard her gasp that I’d known my whole world had altered.
In a way, I guessed I was glad it was over and out in the open. I didn’t have to hide. Sure, I’d been deceitful and cunning, but she’d always been free to tell me to leave or stop.
A part of me was almost relieved she knew. I hadn’t spoken to anyone about what I was for decades. It was lonesome. The weight of my secret grew with my isolation.
I shifted into my buck form and ran around the forest to clear my mind. I needed to get out of my skin, literally. It felt too restrictive. I charged through the trees, away from her cabin, and made it to a wide river. My hooves scuffed on the riverbank. This was the farthest I could go. Trust me, I’d tried. I could never cross the river. It was a useless reality, one I’d tried to deny multiple times.
Feeling foolish but desperate, I reared my front legs, trying to charge into the water. An invisible wall knocked me backwards, my antlers gouging the cold dirt. I let out a loud roar in frustration, causing all fauna nearby to cease their noise. Feeling in command, I let out another snort. I couldn’t even find peace in my deer form. Angrily, I shifted back into my human guise and curled up on a river rock, staring at the mostly frozen river for the rest of the afternoon.
By nightfall, I had to fight the urge to flee to her cabin to watch her, to see if her lights were on and if she sat beside our Yule tree. As a distraction, I made myself useful by spreading seeds for my birds and tending to the land.
Taking a seat beneath a pine tree, I licked my lips, tasting her cunt and missing it. I combed my fingers through my hair, unable to stop comparing it to how soft hers was. As I stared up at the sky, memories of her laughing and singing replayed in my mind. I twirled my necklace made of her IUD in my fingers, sad that it was the last part of her I had.
She was it for me. I wanted no other but her. I’d talked to many humans over time, but she was special. She was humble and thoughtful, funny and brave. Where many desired wealth and power, she yearned for a simple life and things I could happily give her.
I could give her countless children, heaps of fruit and meat, and all the firewood she’d need to make it through harsh winters. I could bury my face between her legs every morning and stick my cock in her each night. I would spend the rest of her days thinking of silly jokes and naughty observations I could mutter to make her blush beneath those freckles I loved so much.
I could be it for her, too.
A part of me knew it would be selfish to force her to live alone in that cabin for the rest of her mortal life. Sure, she could drive to town and talk to the people there, but they’d suspect her after a while. Her story wouldn’t add up. We couldn’t be seen together. Even if I shapeshifted gradually into an aging man, humans would catch on after a while. The air around me gave me away. Their intuition and subtle senses picked up that I was something . . . else. Something not entirely human. Then they grew fearful of me. I hated that. There needed to be balance between faith and fear. When fear took over, it wasn’t life-affirming. As a fertility god, that served me no purpose.
And what of our children? They’d be bound to this land as well. Shea had spoken of judgmental children at her school in the city. They’d been cruel to her for being different. I could only imagine what boorish things they’d say to my descendants. I couldn’t subject them to that.
It would be a life no one could really relax into. There would always be suspicions, rumors, and exclusions. Shea didn’t know the harsh realities of living this remotely. I couldn’t subject her to that with the added layer of separation that came with being my mate. And as much as I’d love to take her to my home world, I couldn’t do that to her.
I snapped a twig in half. An owl in a tree across from me let out an annoyed hoot.
“What?” I all but snarled.
He shifted his wings restlessly.
“You would feel the same way if you were me.”
Opening his beak, he gave me a condescending squawk.
“Oh, do not start that again.”
The next afternoon, I crouched on a ledge overlooking my land. Snow was falling at a steady pace, making the valley silent. Bored, I followed the path down to the basin. A vague sense of annoyance filled my awareness. I looked around, trying to place it. I hadn’t been that annoyed since a woodpecker had tried to nest in my forever tree a few seasons ago.
The closer I got to my life source, the more commotion I could hear and sense. A high-pitched shriek pierced my ears, followed by a thud. I quickened my pace, making it to the glen just in time to see Shea hurling an axe into my tree with a scream rivaling a banshee’s.
“Shea! What are you doing?” I bellowed, and with it a gust of wind that blew her hair back.
She stood wide-eyed, adjusting her hands on the axe handle. “You!” Tears pooled in her eyes. Her face was red and blotchy, and her nose was running. “How could you do this to me?” She attempted to hack into the tree again.
A deep rumble caused the forest floor to rattle. Shea’s back went ramrod straight as several moose and deer trailed up behind me, edging to stand around the clearing.
She sucked in a breath, looking them up and down while she clutched the axe.
I demonstratively rubbed the hump of a moose to my right, reaching my hand to his rack with a playful shake. His most recent mate was on my left, with two calves growing inside her from their last rut. I tenderly petted the cow moose’s head, earning an appreciative huff.
“What the fuck?” Shea whispered in pure panic.
“I protect them. I am their friend, not their foe. I meant what I said when I told you I was a warden of this forest.”
A hawk screeched above us, flying in circles at the same time as a fleet of foxes bolted around us, gekkering before taking off. Shea mumbled something about dreaming and, without warning, tried to hack into my tree again. The wood was rock-hard, clanging against the metal of her tool.
As she lifted to swing again, I caught the wooden handle. “Cease this!” My voice boomed all around. Shea gasped, staring at me towering over her, both of us grasping at the axe handle. To make my point, I urged the wood to violently sprout at either end. The metal head plopped in the snow with a thump.
Now holding a branch together, I leaned in closer, seething. “Why do you try to end me, woman?”
She gathered her thoughts, licking her lips while her doe eyes locked with mine. She was a maiden, that was sure, but she had the bravery of ten thousand warriors.
“I thought, perhaps, this could free you. If you were caged to your tree, maybe by chopping it down, you could . . .”
“Lies! Even if you did mean to help me, it is obvious you did not think this through.” I let go of the branch and reached up to the neighboring tree, plucking out one axe then another, dropping axe after axe from my collection until they were a pile at our feet. “You think you are the first one to try? Several lumberjacks have over the centuries. They were gored before they could even make a dent.” I flashed her a cocky smile. “My wood is just that hard.” I gestured at all my creatures. “And they will protect me. They are very territorial.”
A buck snorted at Shea, lifting its rack in defiance.
She shot the deer a wary glance then brought her attention back to me. “Dianus, this tree—” She audaciously splayed her hand on the trunk, fighting a slow blink. Touching it alone, she could surely feel its power. “This tree,” she resumed, “is the only thing keeping you in this predicament. You talked all the time about being lonely. Don’t you want me to end this imprisonment? I can’t walk away knowing you’re trapped.” Her mouth went in a firm line. “Even if you trapped me.”
“You can leave at any moment. I did not trap you.”
“You did.”
“We went over this. I might have kept things from you, but I never lied about how I felt. You were always safe with me. I knew what I was doing when I started interacting with you. You were a stunning maiden sojourning in my forest. It was a blessing to see you, to be around you. You fed me. It had been so long since I had had sex with a human, let alone a witch with strong energy.”
Her mouth opened like she had a question but didn’t know where to start.
I continued, “I matched your pursuit and your passion. Yes, I know mating with me is like no other, but I had every intention of letting you leave here. It is my experience that after a couple of days of not being around me, a human’s memory gets hazy. Details slip. You wonder if you imagined everything. I figured I would send you back to the city a little puzzled but properly sated.” I dug a finger in my chest. “It was I who would be forced to remember it all, for eternity. Do you not see that? It was selfish of me, yes, but it was also a sacrifice.”
She let out a dry laugh. “You’re unbelievable.”
I crossed my arms. “On the contrary, most people have believed in me just fine. That is why I am in this predicament.”
She flung her arms wide. “I’m not some ancient follower of yours. I’m a modern woman—”
“Your modern intentions have ancient consequences. You fucked a god. It came at a cost.” I pointed at the ground in fury. “There is always a cost.”
“W-w-what did you do to me?” Her hand clutched her belly.
I rolled my eyes. “You are not with child, if that is what you are asking. The cursed contraption inside you saw to that.”
I hadn’t been inside her since it had fallen out. I had brought her pleasure only with my mouth to ensure her wishes remained her own.
When she continued to hold her womb, I eyed her hand pointedly. “But you would like that, would you not?”
“You don’t get to stand here and tell me—"
My voice roared, “What am I to you? Just a virile cock?”
She side-stepped toward the edge of the glen as I continued.
“Talk about using someone. You are just as guilty as I am!” My accusation rang around the trees, creating an echo chamber.
I finally saw it, the fleeting look of terror. She stumbled, falling on her ass only to stare up at me, wide-eyed, as she scrambled backwards in the snow.
“Shea.” I reached out my hand to help her up, and she flinched.
She flinched .
My chest squeezed at the sight of it. I would never hurt her.
I crouched, lightening my voice to the softest of tones. “Please, let me help you up.”
Still seated, she pointed at me with a trembling hand and a lethal squint of her eyes. “You stay the fuck away from me, you hear?”
“Please, let me get you back to your cabin safely. You rolled your ankle.” I shifted closer to her, hovering my hand over her foot. “Let me heal you.”
With blinding speed, she picked up the axe head and held the sharp side of it to her throat. “Don’t come near me! If you so much as touch me, I will slit my own throat. Do you hear me? You don’t get to touch me!” Her eyes were wide with lunacy, her breaths ragged as pain surged up her leg. It reminded me of when a bear had its paw in a claw trap, purely reactive stubborn desperation.
Holding my hands up in surrender, I sat crisscross applesauce on the packed snow, allowing her to stand. “Shea, I know the pull of my love can be consuming and that my betrayal has deeply hurt you, but please, do not make any rash decisions.”
She threw the chunk of metal in front of me, then grabbed one of the unbroken axes I had in my collection and hobbled off, sniffling.