Lured From the Path

by Lola White

  Without moving his head from his hands, David rolled his eyes up to look at Henryk’s back. “What?”

  “Shape shifters. Swans, wolves, some even say snakes. But not natural. They will call you with voices too sweet to resist, look at you with eyes no animal could possess, staring down into the depths of your soul to judge whether you have enough to satisfy them.”

  “I guess I satisfied her, then.” Hot remembrance pulsed in his groin. David turned his eyes back to the table, gritting his teeth.

  Henryk grunted. “You are alive, so I would agree.”

  Memories poured over him, the haziness fading to discharge the truth until David was lost in a mental replay. The clearer the events became, the more David wanted to experience them again. After a while, a plate of steaming eggs slid beneath his nose, calling him back to reality. The scent wafted up, reaching inside him to grab his stomach in a brutal grip. The empty organ growled and David realized how very hungry he was. Henryk had been busy, a bowl of porridge and a hot cup of coffee was pushed across the table.

  “The old women, the mothers,” Henryk said slowly as he took his seat, “tell stories of maidens in the forest. Forever, these stories have been told.”

  “To caution against the dangers of the woods,” David said around a mouthful of eggs. “It’s the same everywhere, stories are told to keep fools and children from making bad decisions.”

  Henryk leveled him with a fierce glare. “But you learned for yourself the truth behind these stories, yes? These are not merely fairy tales told to entertain the babies, David.”

  Duly chastised, David looked down into his coffee mug. “No.”

  “Maybe they are the spirits of women who died without a baptism to cleanse their sins, or perhaps they were simply too frivolous in life to find peace in death. Maybe they are women who died before they married, always searching for the man they left behind.”

  David flinched. “They’re ghosts?”

  Henryk’s shoulders lifted. “Some say they are nymphs. Great warriors who control the very air, guard the waters. Women who see into the future, see into a man’s heart. They may choose to help you or they may choose to kill you.”

  “So it could have gone the other way for me last night?”

  “Oh, yes. Some believe they will only hurt a man in vengeance, but I know this isn’t so.” Henryk shook his head. “There are many things people say, not all of them can be true, yes?”

  David studied the old man’s face. It was folded into lines of sadness, his blue eyes misty with some distant memory. “What do you believe?” he asked him.

  Henryk’s brows shot up. “I believe they are spirits of the forest, there to harm or help as they choose. I believe they suck the essence of life from a man even as they pour such lust into his blood that a normal woman will never again be enough for him.”

  David blinked at his host’s vehemence. “Is that what happened to you?”

  The old man looked toward the window, pain pulling his lips into a flat line. When he spoke, it was as if from a distance, a harsh tale he’d rather keep to himself.

  “I was deep in the woods with my very best friend. We were strong young men, full of arrogance. We heard the wolves singing, but it was not natural. It was so much more, it called to us, our souls, led us deeper into the trees.”

  “Like the swan did to me.” David understood completely. Understood the compulsion to push past the underbrush, to seek out the hidden trails that would take him to his obsession. He recognized it then, the unnatural need to find the swan, the instinctive knowledge of its uniqueness. It could have been a bird startled from its nightly roost, but somewhere in his subconscious, David had known it was more.

  “That is what they do.” Henryk rubbed a gnarled hand over his chin. “We wanted to find the wolves, so we hunted through the trees. We found a woman, instead.”

  David snorted. “Was she tall, with long honey hair, green eyes and legs that go on for miles? Did she have big, beautiful breasts that tempt a man beyond all rationality?”

  Henryk smiled as if he couldn’t help himself. “She was tall, yes, with lovely legs. Hair black as pitch and eyes as pure as violets.”

  “Not Willa, then. Not my girl.”

  “Your girl?” Henryk sat back in his chair, his eyes darkening. “Listen, my friend, she can’t be yours. They are killers, they lure men deep into the trees and take their lives, their souls, their sanity. You must try to forget her.”

  David shook his head helplessly. “She was perfect.”

  “No! The female who found me and my friend was also perfect, but with no human heart, she is too dangerous. She stared us both in the eye, David, and she judged us mercilessly. What vengeance could she have taken when we did nothing to her? With one swipe of her hand, she took the heart from my friend’s chest and tossed his corpse into the lake.”

  Shock slowed his thoughts. David could only sit and stare at the old man. His brain was completely unable to draw a parallel between a woman who would rip out a man’s heart with her bare hands and his Willa.

  Willa was all that was beautiful, delicate. No spirit could sing so sweetly yet act so viciously. Not his Willa, who gave him such ecstasy that even now, hours later, his cock remained hard with craving and his nose still held her scent. Not his Willa, who had danced so gracefully under the moonlight, pressing pleasure on him first, even knowing she would have to wait to find her own.

  She was too generous to be a killer.

  “Your female sounds very different from my Willa, Henryk.”

  A spasm went over the man’s face. “Do you not hear me, David? The female who found you is the same type of creature that found me all those years ago. They kill, it is their nature to take. You must put her from your mind, not claim her as your own!”

  A hot streak of stubbornness blazed down David’s spine. Anger tried to push into his chest. “You don’t know her.”

  “I know enough!” Henryk banged a fist against the table. “I know how terrible they can be as well as how glorious. I know how it is to be dragged to the ground and taken with such heat as to set your skull on fire. I know their lust, the way they pour their bodies over a man’s, filling him with such passion that obsession comes dangerously close to stealing your wits.”

  David was surprised, considering Henryk’s adamant warnings. “You had sex with your Vila?”

  “I lost all sense of myself, consumed by the need she sparked in me. Her hand was still coated with my friend’s blood when she took me, ruined me for all time.” Shame and anger filled his tone as Henryk wrenched at his shirt, buttons popping to roll across the floor. He yanked the halves open to reveal old scars, faded by time.

  Two handprints marred the skin of his chest.

  “What she did to me was worse than death. My friend’s life, my confidence in the night. I’ve not had a woman since, as no human could possibly compare!”

  “You survived. Were you strong or did she like you?”

  Instead of answering, he said, “She had no right. We’d done nothing to her.” Anguish was a physical presence at the table as Henryk folded his shirt over his chest. “Others have become obsessed like you, David. They try to search for the women, they read the tales that tell them how to control one, keep her for all time.”

  David’s spine snapped straight. “That’s possible?”

  Henryk sighed, shaking his head wearily. “No. The Vilas don’t want to be kept. They don’t want to be hunted. If you go back into the woods to look for Willa, they will surely kill you.”

  David sat still, thoughts and emotions rioting inside him. Confusion mingled with fear, but both were suppressed by his need to see Willa again. It was imperative, an ache he couldn’t live with. Henryk stared at him for a long time, his face hardening, his eyes flashing. David said nothing, simply stared mutinously at his host.

  What happened to him was nothing like what happened to the other man.

  Finally Henryk stood up, grabbing the emp
ty dishes from the table. “You will do as you please, I can see it. The obsession has caught you already. Let me offer you a bed today, though, so you can rest and recover.”

  David raised a skeptical brow. “So you can talk me out of going back into the woods, you mean?”

  “Yes, that too, foolish American. Give me time to show you the error of your ways, eh?”

  Chapter 6

  David gave Henryk three days.

  Three agonizing days where darkness descended over his mind and refused to let go. Where pressure clamped down on his skull, sending fire racing down his spine until he was feverish, the sweat rolling down his back, his stomach cramping. There was a constant throb in his chest, matching the one in his cock, beat for beat. His need for Willa had burrowed under his skin, stretching his nerves to the breaking point, agonizing him until his muscles were ready to shatter.

  He was close to the edge of his sanity, pushing at the limits.

  Three days he stared out Henryk’s window into the woods. Day after day, he stared between the cool, quiet depths of the forest and the blurry image of a swan he’d taken by the pond. The picture wasn’t good, his aim had been completely off and there was an odd distortion warping the frozen scene. But, except for the handprints on his chest, it was all he had for proof.

  At night, he closed his eyes to relive the moments in his dreams. Innocent green eyes imploring his help. Her sweetness and her song. Her hot, dripping pussy sliding down his cock, closing him tight in her convulsing depths. The shifting of her honey hair over his belly, his thighs. The velvet of her tongue and the deep pulls of her mouth over his length.

  More than once he’d woken up screaming her name. Yelling out as his dick flexed, releasing his pleasure over his navel as phantom sensations of cool hands stroked over his heaving chest. Henryk would come running, embarrassing David. But the old man would only shake his head, promising that the pain of addiction would pass soon enough.

  The old man was gone for the moment, but he would be back by sunset. He never stayed out past the light’s end, rushing home as night descended, his eyes darting around the little cottage until they came to rest on David. Then Henryk would sigh, his shoulders would drop in relief. It was difficult to know if the feeling came from David’s presence, or if Henryk was terrified of the dark.

  He had reason to fear the dark woods outside his window. David didn’t.

  The compulsion grew, minute by minute. It was torture, shuddering through him as he stared out the window, watching the light fade, his fingers clenched around the photo of the swan. David’s lungs seized, breath was impossible to find. A wave of need nearly took him to the floor and his decision burst through him like a blade, bringing cold clarity. Determination.

  Spinning from the window, staggering around the furniture, David rushed to the door. He threw it open, letting the breeze caress his cheeks and fill his chest with air. The woods hummed, sung softly, whispering for him to dive into the trees and find his Willa.

  Relief closed around him the moment he stepped between the branches of the pines guarding the entrance to the path. Without a pang of regret, knowing in his heart Henryk would understand, David didn’t hesitate. Every step eased the hunger of his addiction, his heart lightening, his lungs loosening. His fevered skin cooled, the vise around his head eased. His feet took him deeper unerringly, his sense of direction honed by years of nature photography in remote, unmapped locations.

  The sun abandoned the forest long before it gave up its hold on the sky. David’s eyes strained as he pushed on. His thoughts became muddied, difficult to remember as mechanical determination set in and destroyed all logic. Blindly, he followed the distant song of wolves calling to him, telling him what paths to take.

  The moon was high overhead and his legs ached by the time he stumbled into the clearing. Ringed with twisted pines, the circle’s grass grew over his calves at the edges, but was flattened toward the center. He was drawn to the open area like a lodestone, remembering the one where he’d shared such pleasure with Willa.

  Reaching the middle, he paused. The breeze blew against him, a wolf howled. Both were physical sensations against his skin, licking over quivering nerves as his anticipation swelled to uncontainable heights. Lust pulsed through his cock, overloading his senses as they fought to take in the slightest changes in the air around him, in spite of the haze clouding his mind.

  There was a sound from beyond the trees, shadows shifted.

  Women stepped into the clearing. One by one, a dozen beautiful maidens surrounded him, all tempting, all tall, though some towered over their sisters. They circled him slowly, standing between him and the trees, the moonlight highlighting their naked bodies. None of them were Willa. One stepped forward, the moon laying silver swaths over her black hair and catching in her violet eyes.

  Henryk’s Vila.

  “You have come for Willa?”

  Her voice was filled with the promise of sensual delight. The tone of it reached out to wrap David’s spine with liquid heat, pouring craving into his groin. He stared at her dumbly, barely able to nod in response.

  She laughed and he heard the melodic lilting of a flute. “Do you come to capture her? Think you can take a strand of her hair to tie her to you forever? A piece of her skin you will burn to kill her?”

  David licked his lips. “No, I just want her. I want to be with her.”

  The black-haired Vila stepped so close her heat seared him through his clothes. “Why just her, when you could have us all?”

  Her words released the other women from their silent wait. They surged forward in a rush of swinging hips and graceful glides. Their bodies were beauty in motion with the silver light licking over them, sexual intent screaming from every smooth shift of their muscles. He scanned their faces, still not seeing the one he wanted.

  Hands reached for him as bodies pressed close. David stood still for them. The rending of his clothes echoed in the night, freeing him to the breeze. Strong arms held him as one delicate beauty went to her knees, yanking at his shoes until the cool grass tickled his soles. The women bared him in a way that went beyond clothing, laying his vulnerability and need out for all to see.

  A dozen mouths teased a dozen points on his body, spearing him with lust. Nerves rose to the surface of his skin, his muscles pulled taut. The silken glide of hair cooled him even as it heated. Strong fingers massaged down his spine, others dipped between his ass cheeks. A tongue swept over his nipple, another rimmed his navel.

  He was overrun by sheer sensation as soft palms stroked over his chest, dragged up his thighs, cupped his balls. Someone fisted his cock, squeezing and kneading until his length was fully unfurled and fire blazed through his groin. He heard a groan of feminine appreciation a moment before he was sucked into a hot, wet mouth.

  Another tongue found the puckered opening of his ass. David jerked, but he could not pull away, didn’t know if he wanted to. Two mouths worked at his nipples with wet swipes and sharp nips, fingernails raked his ribs. Hard hands pressed his thighs until his legs threatened to give out, but another set of strong arms held him upright.

  Deep inside him, some filmy substance began to boil. Evaporating in the cauldron of his own lust, it rose to seep past his skin. Something twisted in his chest, oxygen grew scarce. Feminine moans echoed on the breeze.

  The pleasure was intense, too intense. He couldn’t focus, didn’t know where to turn his attention. Fear climbed from the ashes of his sanity, prodding him with flashing punches of adrenaline. He pried his eyes open and looked down at the bevy of Vilas licking over him, kissing, sucking.

  The black-haired witch was on her knees, his cock stuffed deep in her mouth. Heat and friction clawed his senses to ribbons. She stared up at him with mocking violet eyes and David swore he could see Henryk’s friend’s blood on her hands. It couldn’t deflate the lust pumping through his length, but it was enough to clear some of the fog in his head.

  “No, I want Willa.” It took everything
he had to force the words from his throat.

  The other women slowed their manipulations, giving him another inch to think. The ethereal substance halted its leak from his body. Tongues withdrew from his skin, leaving only the soft brushing of lips behind. The finger circling his asshole paused.

  Henryk’s Vila pulled back from his dick with a pressure that threatened to send him back into the madness he’d just won free of. She held him, dropping her gaze to examine the flushed crest of him, laughing softly as a drop of semen welled up before her eyes.

  She licked it away. “Willa isn’t here. We are. We are just as beautiful.”

  “Yes,” David cleared his throat, “but she’s the one I want.”

  Her eyes flashed, her fingers clamped around him. Instead of pain, David felt only a swamping compulsion for more. But it wasn’t her pretty mouth he wanted to drive into, it wasn’t her scent that haunted his dreams. Violet eyes couldn’t possibly hold as much innocent appeal as moss green.

  “Why her?”

  David gritted his teeth. “She was sweet, kind to me. She brought me pleasure.”

  “She feasted on your essence, rode your cock until your soul cracked like a nut and left you for dead.”

  He shook his head. “She didn’t hurt me. She could have killed me, I know that now, but she didn’t.”

  Violet eyes glowed in the moonlight. “You’ll wish she did.”

  “He won’t! And you’ll take your hands off him now. He’s mine.”

  The sweet voice like tinkling bells swept through the clearing on an angry gust of wind. David’s cock jumped, growing harder, longer, in the other woman’s grip. Every nerve in his body hummed, his muscles locked around his bones. He looked over his shoulder and saw her, standing at the edge of the trees, honey hair dancing around her gloriously naked body like a cloak.

  She strode forward as if she were marching into battle, but the sensuality of her hips and breasts struck a penetrating cord of femininity. The moon loved her as much as David, flowing over her body in a way the other women couldn’t compete with. She was beauty incarnate, the answer to his fantasies, his ideal.