Page 2 of How Does It Feel?

I leaped back in an aimless attempt to gain distance between the monster and myself. Hurriedly, I moved my legs back over the chain that bound my wrists to have more movement of my hands. Not that I could defend myself much anyway.

“What did I tell you, human? What did I tell you would happen if you woke me?” rumbled a deep raspy voice.

It was haunting. Not high and not low, just the right sound to shock your senses and make your bones feel weak at the pitch. Nothing human sounded similar.

But then again, it wasn’t human.

It shifted with a horrible tremble as it turned itself back into a squat tree-stump-looking creature no taller than my hips. Brown bark-like texture covered its long body except for the angry tan face, arms, and hands. Green and brown leaves rustled loudly at the ends of its long arms and legs while large expressionless black eyes stared back at me. The only other notable feature of its face was a deep cavernous hole for its mouth.

“I-I’m sorry. Please go back to sleep, I’ll be quiet. I swear,” I pleaded to the forest bog, willing him with every fiber of my existence to accept my offer.

It trembled again, this time sprouting pointed branches covered with sharp thorns.

“I will go back to sleep after I kill you and use you slowly, you human piece of shit,” the forest bog rasped as it began walking toward me.

The thorns shifted, growing fatter as they angled toward me, ready to sink into my skin like the barbs of a fishing hook.

“Please!” I cried out.

The tiny black dress I wore shielded none of the cold stone from my skin as I sank back farther against the wall.

“So, you haven’t killed her?” thundered a deep voice as he opened the cell door and stepped inside.

At least fifteen armored guards stood on edge as the umbra of a man lurked forward reluctantly.

The bog shrank away instantly, withdrawing all its thorns and returning to the shape of a boulder once again.

“Sir, the assassin is not safe to be around. We will extract her. Please leave her cell,” one of the guards shouted, stepping in front of the enormously muscular Fae.

The impressive Fae suddenly seemed to remember himself and left the cell to watch me from behind the iron bars as five other guards entered in his place.

“Please! Don’t do this,” I shouted as the guards grabbed me and formed a complete circle with their bodies, shoving me out of my cell and into the torch-lit aisle that ran between our cells.

“Where to, sir?” A different guard asked as they huddled around me, making certain to keep me as far from the Unseelie prince as possible while still forcing me to walk with him.

“To the chamber of blood. I am tired of the human, and it’s the perfect place to paint the walls with her pretty blood.”

Chapter 2

A Short Time Prior

Callie

I slid my hands over the sun-warmed leather with an influx of small prayers.

The old truck gurgled and shook at my attempted coaxing. I heaved out a sudden breath of relief, sliding down in the seat a few relaxed inches. I wouldn’t ruin my record. No late days, no call offs.

I was doing a good job.

The tires crackled haphazardly over the stray twigs that littered the gravel of my driveway as I pulled out of the winding trail and headed away from my beautiful cottage. Okay, maybe calling it a cottage was a stretch . . . and maybe so was calling it beautiful, but cabin made me think of some old hunting shack in the middle of nowhere. My house was much, much cuter. I’d bought it two years ago for a steal from a potbellied widower with a bald head and a penchant for pulling too many whitetails that he didn’t have tags for. Was he trying to bribe me? Possibly. It was rumored I was dating the game warden, and in a small town like this, the folks would do anything to get a leg up, especially when it came to deer tags. I almost couldn’t blame them, except that tagging was set up specifically to help control the wildlife population, and when people took it upon themselves to judge what numbers were okay to kill, the rehabilitation efforts and statistics always got skewed and caused problems. It didn’t matter because Cliff and I weren’t dating anyway . . . and also, Paul the potbelly had died a few days after I had bought the house.

My grip on the leather steering wheel tightened at the thought of Cliff, the handsome game warden, but I quickly brushed it away. In truth, we had never even been on a date, and we never would. When the state had hired me as the park’s environmental scientist, Cliff was one of the only kind faces to greet me. The small hole-in-the-wall town did not take kindly to a stuck-up fancy-pants scientist ruffling around in their business ( I actually heard this one with my own ears at the Sizzler in Maulberry), coming to their beloved town and ordering them to stop pulling out their milkweed and tightening the parks hunting regulations. Being the only woman to work the parks besides Cecelia at the wildlife rehab center, most of the men didn’t take me seriously, and the ones that did were accused of having an affair with me. I guess that’s small towns for you.

Though I can’t remember my town having the same mentality, I was practically a child when I left.

At twenty-nine years old, with no children, no husband, bright blonde hair to my waist, and a decent enough figure (you try hiking these hills all day), the women of the town seemed to think I had a secret vendetta to steal their out-of-shape, misogynistic, hillbilly husbands or take all the available wrangler-wearing, dip-chewing men. It was actually kind of flattering if I thought about it. Until two years went by and I still had to think about it. Then it grew less flattering and more . . . lonely.

I debated stopping at the local gas station for coffee but decided against it. I really didn’t want to risk the truck not starting up again. The coffee wasn’t very good anyway, even for gas station coffee, and if I had to sit and listen to the locals talk anymore about Crazy Earl, the town drunk, and his quest for Sasquatch, I was going to quit my job and move.