by Amber Burns
“Well? Where the fuck are we going?”
The man stared at her still, for one moment longer. Then, without so much as a word or facial reaction, he turned and began to walk quickly forward again, as if their interaction had never occurred at all.
Nina stood rooted to the spot for a moment, staring in disbelief, mouth hanging open. How could he react like that after she had stared him down with such strength, fitted him with such sass? No man had ever before proven so immune to her powers of control, to her concentrated suggestion of action. The fact that this stranger had the nerve to completely ignore Nina’s rage made her even more enraged than she had been when she had first realized that she had become lost in the tangled paths of the forest. After a moment of standing frozen in shock, Nina jumped back to life and began dragging her blistered foot through the trees, following the stranger.
“You think you’ve won?” She found herself mumbling as she walked into tree after tree, her naive city girl eyes unaccustomed to the night time light, or lack thereof, of the forest. “Oh, fuck that. You have not even begun to taste the feeling of a fight, woodsman boy. Just you wait until you really get a taste of Nina!”
She must have spoken the last bit louder than she had intended, for the stranger turned around just then. In the light of the moon, Nina noticed that a twisted half-smile curved its way across his bearded face.
“Hmm,” he smirked, his eyes unreadable. “I have never been one to have just a taste.”
He turned his back to her again and continued to trudge forward at an impossibly quick pace, his agility and knowledge of the path so impressive that Nina swore he would be able to navigate this journey even if she were to somehow overcome his muscled form and punch both his eyes blind. Which was something she had definitely been concocting in her mind’s eye. For the more time she spent trailing this stranger through the darkened forest, the more she had begun to question his motives.
“So who are you anyway?” She heard herself say as she stubbornly dragged her stiletto over a particularly burdensome patch of muddy undergrowth.
She thought she heard him cough, but it may have been just the crunch of crisp leaves protesting being squashed by his heavy steel toed boots. He did not turn, did not so much as flinch. The strange man continued to walk onwards, putting ground behind him, pushing on blindly towards some destination Nina was no longer sure she truly wanted to discover.
“Who are you?” she found herself repeating, her voice slipping out of her lips more whiney and shivery than she had wanted it to.
She cleared her throat as the dark stranger began to carve the way up a steep incline in the path. The trees pressed in so closely that Nina had to shimmy sideways in order to fit her curvaceous form through the small slit of a path. It was so dark now that Nina could not even see the hill they climbed; she only knew they were climbing upwards because of the pull of the ground against her bare foot; because of the way her breath began to push and burn her stomach with effort. She toppled forward as her stiletto twisted in the grip of some unseen rock or stick, and in anger, she tore the shoe from her foot and hurled it again forward. But this time, there was a loud thwack followed by a scuffling sound, and then a yelp.
“OW!”
The man had tripped over the shoe and tumbled to his knees, sending himself scuttling down the steep incline. His heart raced as he gripped for something to grab ahold of, to stop his mad skitter down the incline, but found only dead leaves, slick with the night’s dewy darkness. His feet skittered, gaining speed with the lubrication of the shed leaves, and he found himself sliding unstoppably downward until he smacked directly into Nina. She grabbed him with more muscle than he had thought possible from such a skinny girl as her and she stopped his downward tumble.
Nina knew that this was her only chance. She stood perfectly still, listening to the slithering sound of his body tumbling down the hill. When the noise neared, she was ready to pounce, and she threw herself upon the stranger as he slid down the hill and into her path. She landed and thrashed at him wildly, digging her bare toes into the wet muck of the forest floor in order to gain traction and keep them from sliding further downwards. She drove her elbows, hard, into his chest, in order to prevent him from being able to fight her off. The result was a shocking success, even to her. She found herself panting and shivering slightly with adrenaline as she straddled this strange, dark man in the middle of a landscape that was even more of a dark stranger to her than the body she clenched beneath her.
She felt his breath, hot and quick, against her cheek and turned her face to face his own. Blinking rapidly, she felt her green eyes begin to find tiny bits of light within the vast darkness. A few moments passed and, as she gained her breath, his chest sliding her slightly up and down as he too struggled to again find the air to fill his lungs. Pieces of the night time scene began to edge into view. She saw, with heightened clarity, the lay of the hill stretching forever upwards, rimmed by trees placed so close together that the pass made her feel sickeningly claustrophobic. She was able to pick out the gentle sway of individual leaves as they silently clung to life, gripping the branches of the trees that curled their bodies above. And, she realized, she was able to make out the shape of the man’s face. For it was no more than two inches, now, from her own.
His cheekbones were the first things that came into her vision. Sharp, like knives, the perfect match for a chiseled jawline that wore a beard so dark it blended into the night itself. His mouth hung open, framed by plump lips. As he struggled back and forth beneath her tight and stubborn hold, his shoulder length black hair whipped her gently in the face. Then, his eyes, black and glinting with the tiny slivers of moonlight that every now and then managed to flash through the trees. His body was pure muscle, and Nina could feel every fiber, taut and desperate, straining and pulsating under her own form. She straddled his abdomen, and she could feel each individual, perfectly carved muscle working beneath her ass. She swallowed, struggling to maintain her cool. She closed her eyes, reopened them. The night still hung dark and heavy. His breath still flushed her cheeks. She took a steadying breath through her nose and felt her anger and fear flutter to life again in the pit of her stomach. And she spoke.
“I said,” she said quietly, pressing her lips close to his cheek. “Who. Are. You.”
His shoulders heaved up and down under her elbows, and he grunted slightly in pain.
“Let...me go,” he gasped, and she was shocked to feel a stab of guilt spread its way through her middle. She forced her elbows deeper into his shoulder.
“Tell me who you are.”
The stranger breathed out in anger, blowing the hair back from her face. Nina began to sweat with the effort of smashing her elbows so deeply into his chest.
“It doesn’t… matter who I am,” he said. “What matters is that we get the fuck outta here before it gets too late and the coyotes come out. So let me fucking go.”
Nina stared down at him appraisingly, not sure whether or not she ought to believe him. She squinted at him and drove her elbows even deeper into his shoulders.
“Holy fuck!” he cried, trying to swat her off, but she would not let him go.
She squeezed her eyes shut, the sweat pouring down her face in rivulets, her hair sticking to her forehead, her arms shaking as she forced the answer out of him.
“Who...are...you…” she gasped, pressing down so hard into his shoulders that he gagged slightly and her body trembled with the force.
“I’m Rowan! I’m Rowan! Holy shit I’m Rowan!” The stranger screamed.
Nina released her elbows and rolled off of him, gasping for breath, exhausted. The two of them lay like that for several long minutes, side by side in the complete darkness, gasping, panting, their bodies trembling with exertion. After a while, Rowan finally spoke.
“Is that how you normally meet people?” He asked, his voice flat and level.
Nina stared up at the heavy blackness. She felt herself almost smile.
/> “No,” she admitted, her chest still rising up and down, recovering from the rush.
“Oh,” Rowan said, rubbing his shoulders and wincing. “Well then. You certainly had me fooled.”
“Yeah,” Nina heard herself saying. “I thought it was pretty good. You know, for a first time attacking someone and all.” Her cheeks flushed the instant the words left her mouth. Attacking someone and all? What the hell, Nina?
Rowan emitted a rough, low sound that Nina thought might be a chuckle.
“Yeah. Well. My shoulders are going to hurt for probably about two days so, I would say, yes, red-haired forest wanderer, that was pretty damn fucking good for your first time… attacking someone, as you say.”
Nina felt her blush deepen. She pushed herself up off the ground and began to walk again. She heard a rustling that confirmed that Rowan had wrestled back to his feet, too.
“Hey,” he called, rooted to the spot as firmly as a tree. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m going home.” She pushed onwards down the hill, slipping and grabbing at trees every few feet. The leaves were wet and cold under her bare feet, and she winced as she slid over a slice of jagged stone.
Rowan reached out and grabbed the back of her jacket, stopping her mid-slide.
“I don’t think that would work out for you too well,” he said gently. He carefully turned her around and grabbed her hand, guiding her back up the steep incline. “You’re about three hours of a walk from where I first found you, and I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that that locale is still lots and lots of miles away from whatever high class, city penthouse decked out in four million dollar paintings that you call home.” He dropped her hand and yawned, throwing his arms up towards the forest ceiling. “So,” he continued. “I would say that you’re best bet… in the case that you do not, in fact, wish to spend the rest of your night getting torn to pieces by vicious and starving coyotes or bears… is to follow me back to safety and then set out again tomorrow.”
Nina took a breath. She opened her pink lips to protest, but words failed her. She knew he was right. She was cold, starving, and flat out exhausted. The idea of sleep was suddenly so appealing to her that she felt she could likely curl up on this mud covered incline and fall into the most fulfilling and fitful rest of her life. But she would sooner risk being murdered by this frighteningly handsome stranger than she would risk ruining her hair by using a pile of animal excrement and rotting leaves as her bedtime pillow. She pulled in a shaking, dragging breath and stared ahead, up the incline, towards the place where Rowan’s voice had come from.
“Fine,” she said.
The word was short and tuneless, but its utterance pushed him forward suddenly and quickly again, like a sharp whip against a race horse’s flanks. She found them driving onwards, tackling the hill, and tumbling forward still, forward still, until she swore her legs would give out if she did not soon find a bed to call her own for the night.
“But only,” she gasped as they skidded down a rock overhang. “For the night.”
The forest suddenly disappeared. Small windows of light peered at them from the clearing ahead. Nina was blinded by the sudden brightness and staggered backward against Rowan, smacking her head against his hard, muscled chest.
“Woah there,” he said, his voice soft against her cheek. She shivered in spite of herself.
“Sorry,” she grumbled. “It is really fucking dark out here in…”
“In the middle of nowhere, yeah,” Rowan cut her off.
In the dimness of the forest night, she thought, for a moment, that she spied a half smile hanging onto his face. She blinked, and her eyes lost their hold on the details of his form. Nina bit her lip, pissed off at herself.
Come on Nina, you are in the middle of a fucking deserted forest with a strange guy in the middle of the night. There are more important things to worry about than whether or not this man is smiling at you. Like, oh, I don’t know, maybe whether or not he is a raving serial killer? That’s a good one.
“Take this,” Rowan said softly, and he pressed a sturdy wooden stick into Nina’s hand. His fingers were rough against her skin, he wore the flesh of a man who works hard, with his hands, each day and every day. Nina swallowed and wrapped her fingers tightly around the stick, gripping the wood with such intensity that her knuckles turned a sharp white. “Use it while you walk,” Rowan instructed, beginning to head up the trail again. “And it will help you feel where there are impasses in your way.”
Nina nearly scoffed out loud at this comment. Using a piece of a tree to guide herself through a darkened forest?! What was this, some sort of terrible discovery channel show? Yet, just a few moments of walking proved the true usefulness of the stick. The walking stick would bump into large stones or catch in the depths of holes that lay several feet ahead of Nina; it served to effectively protect her from treading a treacherous path. Within about twenty minutes, Nina had gotten the hang of maneuvering through the darkened forest, and all thanks to the assistance of the walking stick.
They continued on for several long, winding minutes. Rowan was leading the way, pressing through the brush almost blindly, as though he possessed some sort of innate, uncanny understanding of exactly where it was he must go. Nina picked her way more slowly, but forced herself never to fall more than a meter or so behind. She smacked the walking stick out in front of her like a desperate blind man, pulling herself forward and onward. The night air was cool and pleasant against her sweaty brow, and a gentle breeze whispered through the trees and played with her long, red hair. She found the silence uneasy; she was used to the rush of traffic screeching by her bedroom window as she slept, but the feeling of the wind kissing her skin was a surprising delicious sensation. In an entirely different situation, she thought, I might, like, kind of almost sort of like this.
Just as the thought crossed her mind, a high yipping sound began to bounce through the forest. Nina froze. She squinted through the dark curtains of night. The sound began to grow louder and louder; strange little barks that seemed to skip across the forest like stones across the water. She turned to Rowan.
“Rowan, what the hell is…”
“Be quiet,” he quietly commanded.
In the shadows, she saw him raise a finger to his lips. His dark eyes were wide and alert. The yipping faded back into the night for a moment, and his tensed body seemed to relax.
“Alright,” he began, turning to meet Nina’s terrified gaze. “That is why I told you we had to get home quickly. Those yipping sounds are coyotes. The last thing we want is to be circled by them. Draws a lot of attention to us, which would not be the best thing, as I didn’t bring any spare bullets. But they seem to have decided to change courses now, so let’s just…”
The yipping sounded again, this time so close to Nina that she jumped and nearly lost hold of her walking stick. Beneath the constant, ear-piercing yip yip yip she was now able to hear the scuttling of tiny feet racing across the wet leaves of the forest floor.
“Shit,” Rowan said.
“What the fuck are we going to do?”
Nina felt her heart leap into overdrive, begin pounding out panic with speedful integrity. She clutched her hand to her breast, squeezing at her chest, trying to calm her anxiety. Rowan huffed and grabbed her roughly by the arm and yanked her off the path and into the brush.
“What are you doing!” she yelped, but he did not stop, nor did he respond.
His tattooed fingers curled tightly, meaningfully, around her wrist and he pulled her forward with urgency. She panted and tripped over her own feet, the foreign landscape catching at her clothes, tearing her remaining stiletto from her foot and sending her crashing down through the mass of wet leaves and reaching thorns. She stumbled and cried out, but Rowan’s grip did not slacken. He continued to run, and the momentum pulled Nina back upward and onto her feet again, tumbling forward through the tangled underbrush.
Twigs snagged her hair and tore at her
skin as they sprinted blindly forward, and the ear piercing yip yip yip yip yip was their soundtrack as they crashed through the night. Nina’s heart was in her mouth, cold sweat dripping down her face and her breath hanging off her lips when they finally came to a stuttering stop. Rowan stopped suddenly and pulled her gently to his chest. He crouched, forcing her down to the ground with him. She spat out dirt, and his neck snapped her way, his eyes alert with danger. Even in the darkness, she could sense the message he was sending her with his eyes: Do not make a sound.
They crouched against the underbrush, a small sheet of cool rock shielding them from view. They stayed like that, chests heaving, panting, frozen beneath the ground and the intimidating darkness of the night, the all-concealing shadows of the forest; until they heard it again.
Nina’s grip on his arm tightened as the clacking sound of many pairs of sharp paws racing just feet away from where they sat fell upon the air. Rowan pressed a finger silently against his lips and huddled closer to her. The yip yip yips sounded again, and Nina flinched, tears pricking her eyes. The coyotes circled just on the other side of the face of the rock. She tucked her head down and against Rowan’s muscular chest. He placed his arms protectively around her and rested his solid jaw on top of her fiery mane of hair. His fingers worked their way around her shoulders, caressing her body comfortably, reassuringly. She felt a sudden sense of calm spread over her, and she squeezed her eyes shut. With each hurried breath, she took in the comforting smell of him, a combined scent of dirt, pine, fire, and mint. She exhaled slowly and felt his grip on her loosening. She opened her eyes just in time to watch Rowan leaning forward, standing up.