Dear Readers, the winner of the personal page prize for my site from the Cold Nights, Hot Reads Blog Hop is Joye. All the other prize winners can be found on this page. Thank you to everyone who participated, and good luck on the next hop.
Now that we have that business taken care of… Today, I’m bringing you the beginning of another serial short story today. This is based on a writing prompt from Seventh Sanctuary, however, the story barely hints at the prompt. About all they have in common is the forest. Alas, my imagination isn’t restricted to other people’s story lines. I think you’ll like it, though. It’s a bit of a fairy tale, and full of romance. There is a sexy part, though, so use your discretion when choosing where and when to read it.
This segment is about 800 words long, so should take you less than five minutes to read.
Among the Trees, There are Dreams
by Patricia Green
© Copyright 2015 Patricia Green
All Rights Reserved
I hear my own voice. I feel the touches. I am the union. I will find him.
Sondja stepped daintily through the forest leaves and twigs, her ghillies protecting her feet, though she knew the trees and their fall would never harm her. She was of the forest, it was part of her. In the pre-dawn, she had awoken to the voice–a familiar voice, though she could not place it–calling her name not far away. Voices in her mind were not new to her, she’d heard them her whole life, especially in the dreaming hours. But this voice was vaguely remembered, tender, passionate, deep and resonant. So she followed it.
The man lay among the leaves, having made himself a rough bed on the ground. He was wrapped in his cloak, protected from the new Autumn chill. He was dreaming, of course. She could only hear the voices when they were dreaming.
In this case, he was dreaming of her. Sondja reasoned that he must have seen her the day previous, possibly when she was out gathering wild mushrooms and berries. She was so often lost in her own thoughts when she communed with nature, making her apologies to the things that gave her life when she had to harvest them. But it was unusual for anyone but her to be out in the middle of Briarwood, where few cottage-dwellers came. They thought the forest haunted, which was not true, but it served Sondja’s purposes to let them think that. When she went into the village to trade her fruits and vegetables for fish and flour, she allowed them to think her fey and strange. They kept away, and that was her desire. She didn’t want the voices to bring her pain, make her too close to anyone. When they had nightmares, the images and their unconscious screams haunted her for a long time.
But this man, this intrepid man, had come into her forest. Why?
For a while, she sat beside him and listened to his dream. It was erotic, primitive, full of lust touched by tenderness. Although she’d experienced the sexual dreams of other people when she lived in the village, they had never been about her.
In his mind, they were locked in a naked embrace. His mouth, his hands, were everywhere on her writhing body. She could almost feel the hands as she sat there. They made her skin grow hot and her loins grow moist. He was envisioning her golden hair spread among the gold and red leaves; loose tendrils twined with the colorful fall until it was hard to tell where one left off and the other began. His mind gave her dream-self passion, and she felt his hips between her thighs. It was foreign, but in the dream it was as natural as breathing. She moaned; was it in the dream, or in reality that she voiced the sound?
His name was Darter, she knew it nearly as well as her own, though they had never met before. In the dream, she uttered his name, and when he pierced her veil, she called it out loudly. Nearby, where she sat eavesdropping, the trees trembled. It might have been the wind, but Sondja thought it was more likely the shadow of her pleasure. Because Darter did give her pleasure, both in the dream and outside of it. Her body shook with rising tension, and in the dream she squeezed him tight against her, her hips rising and falling with his thrusts. Sitting nearby, she eased her skirt up to her hips and touched her thighs, imagining his body between them, though imagination was hardly needed, so vivid was the dream.
He was muttering in his sleep, and she heard the words clearly in his dream, even while they were unclear and foreign in reality. He was telling her she was beautiful, that he wanted her, that he needed her. Aye, those things were true, at least in his eyes.
Outside the dream, Sondja felt his deep attraction for her, and she grew more wet, touching herself as he was touching her in his dream. His hand moved from where it had been pleasuring her even as he thrust, and she writhed beneath him, scratching his back in her throes, her hips rising and falling in the tempo of lust.
It didn’t take long, it was sudden, in fact, but pleasure shot through her and her head spun where she churned on the forest floor. His sound was guttural, and the forest sighed deeply when his seed came into her. Nearby, she gasped, squirming, finally removing her busy fingers because she could stand no more. The feelings were too bright, too powerful.
She felt far too close to this intruder. When he jolted awake, Sondja knew she was caught. There was no hope that she would run away before he saw her. She threw down her skirt and rose to her feet, even as Darter sat up and spied her.
Thank you for reading. The second half of this story can be found here. It also is a less-than-five-minute read.
“We looked through the hole she spoke of, Majesty,” Lir explained. “And we saw the prince disrobing. We came to find you immediately. This secret hole is too good not to share.”
