AllFreeNovel
Share Us
THE SATYR’S WOOD
S.J. SANDERS
A Dangerous Monsters Romance
In a world changed after the Ravening, safety is rare. For Tiffany, when she is forced into marriage by her parents for her unnatural fascination with the monsters, it means the loss of everything to whatever man claims her. Choosing the dangers of the open world over those confined within the town, Tiffany flees and finds sanctuary with a satyr who offers to hide her away where no one will find her. Yet, when what is meant to be a temporary reprieve hidden deep in the woods suddenly becomes something more, Tiffany must decide if this is the forever that she has been searching for.
Barbasa survived the labyrinth, but he did not escape the taint. It clings to him, flooding him with madness to escape his pain. Seeking peace, he has isolated himself within an abandoned human dwelling in the midst of the woods. But a satyr is not meant to be alone. When the sweetest scent he has ever tasted draws him to a frighted human woman, he tempts the gods and the taint within him, to protect and possess her. Does a broken male deserve a happy ending? Perhaps not but is willing to grab what little he can. When the nature of the taint begins to change around the female in his keeping, he begins to wonder if happiness is possible, even for a male such as him. And what he would do to keep it.
This fantasy romance has some dark themes and horror elements, and is a part of the Dangerous Monsters series, a spinoff within the Dark Spirits world.
Barbasa reclinedagainst a tree as he rubbed a thumb across the carved reed pipes. It had been long since he had fashioned an aulos but he had little to do with his time as of late and it proved him with some small pleasure. Besides, he had nothing but time on his hands. He no longer had a flock to guide and provide for. There was just him and the woods where he’d chosen to make his home.
Tilting his head back, he breathed deeply, drawing the sweet air into his lungs. Sunlight dappled through the trees as birds sang to each other from where they fluttered among the branches. It was good. Better than good, actually. After centuries trapped in the labyrinth, he had forgotten the taste of fresh, clean air and water. Of proper food prepared in a proper home that he’d found abandoned in the depths of the woods he claimed for his own. Acorn bread had almost wiped out the memory of the taste of human flesh. He wished for it to be gone more than anything. Although his kind took pleasure in frightening humans, that was a feast that they’d never indulged in. The labyrinth had turned him and his flock into monsters in truth.
Somehow, he’d managed to hold on and remember himself. He never descended into the craven madness of his flock. That knowledge had been a source of guilt before he even left the labyrinth but more so afterward with the murder of his kin staining his hands. But he hadn’t been able to risk bringing them out into the world. As much as he’d hoped that maybe he could save them, he’d realized that the taint had to die in the labyrinth with them.
By all rights he should have died as well but he’d been unable to carry it out no matter how his conscience whispered to him.
Placing the reeds to his lips, he pushed his breath through the instrument, the double reeds of each pipe picking up his song. His fingers slid over the holes, the melody of one pipe counterbalanced of the drone of the other weaving in his mind threads of memories of ages past. Time before the labyrinth which was faded and little more than a shadow in his mind, diluted from the horror that became his existence.
The last note echoing, he lowered the aulos and sighed, his eyes glancing restlessly among the beauty of his surroundings. How was it that he was free and possessing such a territory and yet his music possessed such melancholy? Was he… lonely? His skin shivered as he felt a dark emptiness close in around him, muting the splendor of nature. The poison of the labyrinth that he always feared he contained still within him, rushed through his blood, heightened his senses, and made his cock swell and pulse within its sheath.
Chuckling wildly, he tossed the aulos, his green eyes following it as it sang its last hollow note as it whipped through the air before landing with a splash in the pond. Leaping to his hooves he began to pitch into primal dance, his hair streaming behind him. Round and round he danced among the trees, his hooves tapping a lively rhythm. His breath rushed in and out of him as his heart raced and for a moment it was as if he was chasing prey among the dark corridors once more. Leaping with a turn, he laughed again. He was not in that place, he was free, and whatever he desired or needed he would chase and claim.
With a deep howl he spun and dashed through the woods. Running. Running. His nostrils flared, a hunger crawling up from within his belly. Pleasure ran up his spine as his cock extruded and released threads of cum that dripped from its tip. It flexed, seeking to burrow deep and slake the need within his prey.
Running until exhaustion claimed him, Barbasa gripped his cock hard within his hand and stroked it viciously, his natural lubrication making his hand glide slick over his shaft so that each pass caused his hand to curl tight and tug at the head. His hips kicked and pumped as he forced his cock to burrow repeatedly into his tight hold as it swelled further, growing as the veins bulged in the way of his kind as his pleasure grew. That pleasure wound deeper as a hot thread coiling through him, contracting and stretching until it unraveled and his howl terminated on a roar and his hot seed pulsed in thick jets from his tip along the fronds of ferns and sunlit leaves of the bushes before him.
He stared at evidence of his lust, his seed wasted upon the ground, and felt emptier than ever. As he would until the madness caught him again.
Tiffany crept from the house;the strap of her backpack firmly gripped in her hand until her knuckles whitened around it as she listened intently for any hint of sound. It was ridiculous. She was twenty-seven and forced to sneak away like an errant child, but she had little choice. She refused to get pressured into marrying some dull leading citizen. Especially not when the town seemed to be festering as it slowly declined. The gates were barred as they hunkered within the ruins of houses that they attempted to repair and maintain—most poorly. And yet the creatures beyond the gates who passed freely stirred a yearning within her.
Inhuman, powerful and primal in appearance, she had watched them from afar, desired them and all that they represented. While the people within the sad excuse for a town whispered fearfully of what such creatures could do to a human caught within their grasp, she was allured by the more carnal speculations of monsters hunting down innocent women to take as mates. It certainly presented a more interesting prospect than anything offered behind the walls.
And she’d been fascinated from the start, conjuring fantasies within the depths of her imagination at all hours. They haunted her, feeding into her dreams until, by scavenging and trading for paper and pencils, she drew the images of her fantasies, all the while her pussy wetting in ways that it refused to at the sight of any of the men she knew. Monsters with thick cocks, dripping cum, eager to spend their release into tight, willing human cunts had her masturbating frequently when she was alone. That was until she was caught and that quickly it was deemed that she would marry and find ways to utilize her interests in healthier ways.
That had been the end of her parents' patience. Where they had once been content to allow her to remain in the house without pressure to marry one of the numerous single men who shared their decrepit town, confident that she’d eventually find one that suited her, they now left her with little choice in a hope to curb her “unnatural desires.”
Tiffany’s lip curled contemptuously as she hurried stealthily toward the ramshackle gate. Unlike some towns she’d heard of that dwelt within several days’ travel that possessed better fortifications, their gate was pitiful enough that she had been passing back and forth through it with ease for weeks. It would serve as no obstacle to her in her escape. Truth be told, the fact that none of the monsters passing made any effort to bypass their gate gave her more confidence than was probably wise. There was a chance that it provided a false sense of courage, but she decided she would rather take her risks out there than among men whom she had to be on constant guard against.
Marriage supposedly would offer her protection from that—as her father protected her mother—but, as a child, she’d seen firsthand how things had changed. In the early days, she’d seen the women scream and try to fight off men who’d snatched them up as unwilling brides. She’d also walked in on the sight of her mother’s sister laying dead with a number of other women. Poison, her parents had whispered late at night. They had consumed poison together to escape that fate. And within a few years of that event, she’d seen men who were killed by other men to gain possession of their women within just scant years of their community forming. There was now an illusion of civility within their town, but Tiffany had caught glimpses of that same hunger and desperation barely contained within the eyes of the men who’d followed her in attempt to draw her interest.
Men, as a whole, were not safe. There were plenty of good men in town, like her father, most of whom were either elderly or happily married, but she couldn’t bring herself to trust any of the others. She was simply too afraid of them. Especially as she noticed the way many of her “neighbors” started to watch her more, with interest and what appeared to be a sort of sly speculation in their eyes as she matured, and her father began to show his age.
And now that he wished to see her “safely married”—those who wanted to possess her would begin circling like wolves. What had quickly become apparent was that there was no real safety for her now whether she stayed or left. It could be incredibly stupid, but she couldn’t shake the idea that if she were to find safety with a male, she wanted a monster who would not only satisfy her desires and fantasies but also ruthlessly destroy anyone who attempted to take her.
Approaching the gate at an angle, it only took Tiffany seconds to locate the loose board as she ran her fingers along the side of the gate. It didn’t give much but as the one next to it was so loose that she was able to pull that nailed board completely free by hand as she’d done countless times, it provided just enough room for her to wiggle through. Being short and lean had helped her to escape unwanted attention many times as it gave her a better ability to hide. And it was very useful in this case as well. She doubted anyone could see her at all since she blended in with the shadows of the equipment near the gate so well. The only thing that would mark her passage at all would be the small gap she left in the gate since, unlike other times, she wouldn’t be returning to pin it back in place.
Her heart pounded with exhilaration as she stepped out onto the road and a smile stretched across her face as a sense of freedom filled her. Although she knew it was really the same as the road that continued within the confines of the gate, it didn’t feel the same. Like every time—and perhaps this time more so than others since she didn’t intend to return—she felt like she’d stepped out into a whole different world. But she didn’t rush forward, no matter how that reckless freedom made her want to. She was willing to take a risk, but she wasn’t stupid. Danger was everywhere, and there was little to protect her from it. She was exposed to everything being on the road as she was but as far as she was concerned it was still better than in town where it was harder to spot. So many pretended that everything was perfectly normal despite the numerous arguments and protests at the meeting building that the town wasn’t doing enough to bring in more women.
Not enough women. They needed women. Each man should have a woman. They deserved it. Or so they insisted every month while they tried to make it sound reasonable that they wanted to send out parties to look for women on the road and bring them back to “safety.” All of it sounded sickeningly too familiar.
“Maybe, not the road for me,” she mumbled to herself as she took a quick glance around.
She was nearly at the edge of the old town, her eyes flickering along the wide open spaces that stretched ahead without a building in sight. She shivered, imagining how easy it would be for anyone just to come upon her walking there. Scavengers and other wandering people stuck the roads as they moved from town to town and to the larger cities where dangers multiplied. There was no knowing how many men had come up with similar ideas.
She gazed toward an open stretch of long grass and turned toward it, pausing at the edge of the road. The faintest blush of early morning light made the waving grass visible enough and yet contain enough shadows for it to appear ominous. She swallowed nervously. Scavengers who came to town spoke of new dangers introduced into their world that were spoken in hushed voices among the townspeople. She didn’t know exactly what they were since her parents refused to allow her to listen in on gossip that they said would only terrify her, but now she wondered what exactly they were.
