Among Monsters

by Quinn Blackbird

  I’m suddenly aware of how little I’m dressed in; some undergarments, covered only by Silver’s discarded shirt. I tuck my bare legs in closer to my bottom, as if to hide them from sight.

  Silver faces me as he steps into his own clothes. He wears no shame in his naked form as he lazily pulls up his breeches. He buttons them up, then holds out his hand to me.

  As I eye his offered hand, a frown knits between my brows.

  “Not that I don’t appreciate the sight of you in my shirt,” he says, and his eyes glint like metal as he flexes his fingers, “I will be needing it.”

  An echo of panic lifts up in my chest. I throw a look at the clothes he’s laid out for me on the mossy rock, then another at the shore.

  “How urgent is this need?” I wonder aloud.

  Silver lowers his hand to his side. A cloud of impatience darkens his eyes. “Be quick about it,” he mutters, appearing to read my need to relieve myself, then drops onto a clean stone rock.

  As Silver pulls on his black-leather riding boots, I stumble up from the sand, then rush down to the water. The icy bite of the sea hits my toes first. I wade into the water, up to my waist. I hold the shirt up to stop it from getting wet.

  Silver was right about what he said earlier—I would be forced to relieve myself in front him. But that doesn't stop me from throwing narrowed glares back at him, as though I expect to find him watching me as I go. Thankfully, Silver appears to have no interest in me. On the shore, he kicks sand onto the embers of the once-blazing fire, and spares no glances in my direction.

  Once I have emptied my bladder in the sea and swished my hips around to better clean myself, I wade out of the shallows. Silver has put out the fire embers by the time I return, and he is dressed waist-down, breeches and boots strapped to his body.

  Despite that he has been naked for the whole night, heat creeps onto my cheeks at the dishevelled sight of him. His silvery hair is an unkempt mop on his head, tendrils curling around his temples and strands falling over his forehead. A tired heaviness drops his lashes low, ebbing darkness over his stormy eyes. And the ink markings on his bare chest snares my attention with their razored curls and barbed edges.

  He looks just like I have caught him mid-fumble with someone—or he is mid-fumble with me. And that thought burns my cheeks even hotter.

  I edge closer to the rock with my garments laid out.

  Silver’s eyes shadow me, and they swarm with storms.

  A haughtiness that I can’t fight off clings to my tone; “Would you turn around, please?” I might have said ‘please’, but there is no room for argument in the glare I shoot his way.

  Silver’s mouth twitches. The corner lifts up just a bit before he relents and turns his back to me.

  It’s hard work keeping my body covered with his shirt while stepping into my sea-blue dress. It doesn’t help that Silver looks over his shoulder at me, and makes no move to hide that his ashen gaze runs me over, head-to-toe. With a huff, I shift around to hide my body from him, and once the dress straps are over my shoulders, I drop the shirt to the ground.

  Bastard can wear a sand-smeared shirt since he has no regard for my privacy.

  Silver might dally with women from the farther East Side, the likes of women who dwell in the Lost Square and Shadow Quarter, in opium dens and brothels, but I am not one of those women. Just the thought of him seeing my body burns a hot fire in my belly and stirs tingling nerves through me.

  With my back to Silver, I hit my hands down the front of my dress, straightening out some of the wrinkles as best as I can, and swatting away the grains of sand that cling to the forget-me-not blue fabric.

  I fasten the ribbon-tied bodice at the front. A new trend, I suspect, since often bodices and corsets fasten at the back.

  “My shirt?” Silver’s voice jolts a fright through me. The low, rugged sound comes near my ear, much closer than I thought he was. He’s crept up behind me, the heathen.

  I kick back my bare foot. The shirt crumples deeper into the sand. “There you are.”

  A whisper of his hot breath disturbs my hair. The skin of my neck prickles in a wave, and I stand frozen as Silver inches his mouth closer to the spot just under my jawline.

  I can hear the smirk in his low, seductive voice; “You have a lovely bottom. Just plump enough to bite into.”

  My eyes widen as fresh heat rolls over my face. Instinctively, I jerk back my elbow. The hit catches him in the chest, but he hisses no sound of pain. All I hear is the echo of a chuckle before he slips away from me.

  I throw a dark look over my shoulder at him, but he pays me no mind. He flaps his shirt on the breeze, and a spray of sand clouds around him.

  A hmph catches in my throat as I straighten out the over-the-shoulder straps. I fidget with my dress for a moment, waiting for the hot shame to drain out of my face, but it takes much longer than I’d like. And I won’t face him with a crimson hue staining my cheeks. It would only give him satisfaction.

  I know he’s goading me. Playing with my sense of modesty. And so I won’t cave to him. I’m nothing if not stubborn in my resolve.

  And yet, while I’m all bottled up with his impropriety, Silver has already forgotten all about it, and is buttoning up his white shirt. It moulds to his chest as well as my dress clings to my waist—in my case, giving the illusion of narrow curves, where I have none at all.

  As I roll up my stockings, Silver gathers our bags, hoists the straps over his chest—apparently deciding to carry both of them this time around—and checks the small camp for anything we might overlook. He finds nothing and, when he decides he is ready, I’ve only just fastened up my boot laces.

  I straighten up and trace his gaze to the willow trees that line the shore. “So what do we do?” I ask and step closer to his side. “Simply walk into the Woods?”

  He slides his withering gaze to me. “How else would you enter a wood?”

  I make a face at him. “I don’t know how it works.”

  “You move one foot in front of the other until—”

  I tut. “The magick, of course.” For all I know, there is a chant we must speak before the woods open up to us. Anything that seperate this wood from all the others out there in the world.

  Silver extends his ungloved hand to me. “We simply walk in together, our eyes closed. And the Woods will reveal itself to us.”

  As I eye his bare hand, a lump swells in my chest. I have seen his fully naked body, caught undressed mortals on his couch, and felt his breath on my skin. And still, the offer of his naked hand for me to hold floods my body with hot, tangled nerves.

  I suck in a shuddering breath before I place my hand on his. My fingers tingle and I ache to clench them.

  Silver threads his fingers through mine and my breath catches in my throat.

  “Remember,” he throws me a side-glance, “close your eyes.”

  I let my lashes lower on my sight, until there’s only darkness. I trust he closes his, too. But then, perhaps he doesn't have to, since he is an aniel made in this wood.

  Silver’s hand tightens on mine. His fingertips press into the spots between my knuckles, as though he is afraid I will slip away, and he moves forward.

  Blindly, I shadow his steps further up the slope.

  Then I feel the brush of a tree trunk against my side.

  “Not yet,” he warns, just as I am about to open my eyes. His voice is a low, breathy sound that prickles my skin. “Follow me—follow my voice.”

  Beneath the soles of my boots, I feel the shift from moss to dried leaves and foliage. I lift my knees higher with every step I take farther into the darkness of my closed eyelids, blind faith leading the way.

  “Speak your name and who you seek,” Silver whispers beside me.

  “I am Keela, and I seek the First Witch.”

  In answer, silence greets me.

  We walk for a few further steps before, beside me, Silver stops.

  The heated sound of his voice still tingles my spine
; “Open your eyes, Kee.”

  And I do.

  6.

  Now, I cannot complain about the mundane wood, for I have never seen such magick, not even when I would to look up at the Palace of the Gods upon the bone-white hill that overlooks the Capital.

  It was morning back on the shore, bright orange light gushing through the air and illuminating the faint freckles on my arms—but not in the wood. Here, it is dark. Not just dark—midnight dark, with light streaming down from the moon that I can barely make out between the thicket of the trees.

  The forest bed twinkles as though the stars from the night sky were pulverised then dusted all over the floor. Dead twigs and dried-out leaves should crunch beneath my boots, but the foliage is soft like cushions and mossy beds.

  I’m hugged between a circle of bloated midnight-blue willow trees, gazing up at the glittering leaves and winking branches. Wonder slackens my face and a lazy smile tugs at my lips.

  Silver studies me, an impatient glint to his gaze and his mouth flattened into an unamused line. “It never changes,” he tells me. “Always the same, no matter how much time has passed.”

  I throw him a brief look before I return my smile to the trees around me. My voice is a whisper, all wrapped up in awe. “It’s beautiful.”

  “And deadly,” he warns. “Just like the Gods, and the Originals, and the aniels. Everything about it meant to lure you in—only to destroy you.”

  I blink at him. “These Woods mean to destroy me?”

  A mask of severity hardens his face. “Oh, yes.” He leans closer to me, until his mouth brushes hot breaths over the shelf of my ear. “Given the chance, it will eat you up and spit you out.”

  I should pull away from him, from his too-close mouth, but a sudden daze falls over me like a warm, weighted blanket in the dead of the Frost Season.

  My voice ushers out in a whisper; “Is that what you want to do with me?” I shouldn’t have said that, but something about this daze simply spilled my thoughts from my mind to my tongue.

  Silver takes a step closer. I hardly hear the sound of his boot sink into the soft foliage, but I feel him slip towards me, feel the heat of his mouth travelling near mine, the muscles of his body tensing the thin air between us.

  A gasp catches in my throat as he presses his cold, hard mouth against mine, so different from the inviting sweetness of his warm breath. But Silver doesn’t kiss me. He pushes his lips against mine, so firmly that my teeth start to ache.

  “You feel that?” he murmurs against my lips, and it’s an accidental kiss. I’m ashamed to say, not my first kiss, but definitely the first to flip my stomach and terrify me all at once.

  I try to pull away, but my body is stuck, my boots glued to the wood floor. It’s as though a spell has been cast over me, and I’ve been turned into one of those statues in the Gods’ Gardens, forever frozen in place.

  “The Wild Woods has many predators,” he whispers, his lips grazing over mine. My lashes flutter at the tickling sensation. “And when a little mortal wanders into the path of a predator here, the Woods like to join in. It petrifies the prey.”

  “That seems redundant.” The words just fall out of me. Can’t stop them, can’t fight my lips brushing against his as I speak. “Isn’t the hunt the part you enjoy?”

  “Not when playing with your prey adds a whole new layer to the game.”

  My breath traps in my chest. He took me here to help me—for reasons he keeps close to himself—so I know it’s a foolish thought to have, but a flutter of panic rises up in me, and I worry he lured me to the wood just to abandon me among the trees.

  He’s doing little to dispel my panic.

  Silver drags his mouth over mine, leaving an icy trail over my lips. His hand comes up to the back of my neck and cups, the touch of his skin like ice against flesh, and his cold mouth parts against mine.

  He kisses me.

  And he tastes of blood and ink and promises never fulfilled.

  The moment his soft, sweet-tasting tongue travels over mine, I feel the spell lift. I blink, suddenly spilling out of the daze, and slump against him.

  Silver catches me in his arms, holding me up against him. But our lips don’t part. Like a fool, I fall to the soft plump feel of his mouth against mine and I kiss him back.

  “You have done this before,” he murmurs, and my cheeks flame up. His mouth twists into a wicked grin against mine. “There is always a catch to the magick of the Wild Woods. A kiss to break the spell,” he says. “Isn’t that always the way the story goes?”

  I bow my head, drawing my mouth away from his.

  My eyes flutter shut as I draw my first real breath since stepping into this wood. For a heartbeat, I rest my forehead on his hard collarbone.

  Between our bodies, his shirt is now unravelled, untucked from the waistline of his breeches, a button popped open.

  I mutter against him, “In the stories, it’s always the hero who breaks the spell with a kiss. Never the villains.”

  “Your story will always be a little twisted,” he whispers into my hair. Then, as sudden as a heartbeat, he shoves away from me and takes a step back.

  I stumble into thin air, my arms flailing to steal my balance. I catch myself before I fall and, looking up at Silver’s arrogantly composed face, let my mouth twist with a sneer.

  He spares a dark smirk on me, then he turns away and studies the trees that swallow us up. His ash-flecked eyes rinse over the wood around us.

  As Silver takes in our bearings, I run the back of my hand over the sweaty sheen on my forehead, and I hope that there will be no more tricks to come from the Wild Woods. Just the one has made my head feel light and dizzy, and my legs feel like a gentleman’s hair gel.

  I consider Silver as he takes in our surroundings. The hem of his shirt hangs over the tight fit of his black breeches, and his riding boots already wear the brown stains of dirt and mud.

  I thread my fingers through my loose hair. “Shouldn’t we get moving?” I ask, untangling the knots that already cling strands together. “We have to find the Never-ending Path.”

  “We are waiting,” he tells me, turning around in circles, watching the trees as closely as I watch my heartbeats in a dizzy spell. “It should be here by now.”

  A frown wrinkles my face. “What should be here?”

  “Your test. There is always a test,” he says, sounding distracted. How quickly he’s forgotten about the kiss that still prickles my lips and twists my insides.

  Mind, to an aniel like him, kisses are worth even less than bronze coins. But to me, with only a handful of boys I’ve kissed before, I hate to confess just how much it has swallowed me up. It’s all I can feel in the air against my mouth, on my tingling tongue, in my jumping heart. He is all I can feel.

  “Maybe that was our test,” I wonder aloud. “The kiss—breaking the spell.”

  He shakes his head. “That was nothing.”

  A stab of pain spears through my chest. A grimace steals my face. I hide it with a sniff, then pretend to inspect the trees around me, as though I’m searching for something, not masking the ache swelling up inside of me.

  “What are you doing?” Silver’s derisive tone nips at me.

  I look up from a half-crouched position, my hand grazing the tufted leaves at the roots of a bloated willow tree. “Looking for the test.”

  Unamused, his lashes lower over his ashen eyes. “I doubt you will find anything down there.”

  “Fine.” I straighten up and slap my hands to my sides. “I’ll just stand here, utterly useless, while you search for something only you can find.”

  “You will see it—but only when it comes for you.” His dark tone matches the shadows that climb up his face. “We just have to wait for it to come.”

  “For me?” I echo, a shrillness hiking up my tone. “As in, for me? As in, something wants to harm me?”

  “These are the Wild Woods,” he says, his narrowed eyes sliding to me. “Everything in here means you harm
.”

  I arch an eyebrow. “Even you?”

  His pink mouth twitches into the ghost of a smirk, but he says nothing and he lights himself a cigarette. Fleetingly, I wonder how many he brought with him.

  I level my eyes on him. “What sort of test should I expect, Silver?”

  He looks at a particularly fat willow tree, whose trunk is hollowed out with a hole that I imagine night-owls favour to perch on.

  “One you could not survive without an aniel as a companion.”

  My insides tickle. Companion to him might mean little, but to me, in Capital society, it’s the early stages of courtship. Of course we aren’t on the same page with that, so I stamp out the butterflies that dare flutter in my belly.

  “Let us move,” Silver says abruptly. He adjusts the bag straps that press into his shoulder. The cigarette is pinched loosely in his other hand, draped at his side. “The test will come to you when it is ready. And it does not yet appear to be time.”

  I stumble to catch up with him as he moves between two willow trees. A cloud of cigarette smoke snakes out behind him.

  I duck to avoid the branches that hang too low. But for Silver, the branches rustle then peel apart to make a path, and I rush to shadow him closely. The branches fall back into place as I pass, and smack me on the face.

  Silver might have his back to me as he leads the way through the trees, but I see the shiver of a light laugh shudder his shoulders.

  I narrow my eyes on the tousled hair of his head. My fingers itch to yank a strand of that pearlescent hair right out of his scalp. But I doubt it would serve me any good to harm him, so I ball my hands up at my sides.

  Out of the circle of trees and through the willow-branch curtains, we find a narrow trail that weaves around the fat trunks of endless midnight-blue trees. The blue of this wood is unlike the hues of the Underworld in my dream, and so much like the stardust-blue of the Palace of the Gods, that I find my faith in this journey mounting up inside of me until my teeth are set on edge and my eyes shift around, waiting for some grisly test to corner me.