Chapter 12

He's the sexiest thing I've ever seen in my entire fucking life, but I'm so scared that I might piss my pants. It's cold enough to freeze said pants if I do, so I'm trying to keep a grip on myself.

He's got piercing dark eyes and a full brown beard. His hair has fallen into his face. It's cropped short on the sides but has a longer portion that he likely keeps swooped back. It looks as if he cuts it himself. He lifts his hood and covers his head with it, but his eyes stay locked in on me.

There's something about him that has me fighting with myself. Even though I know he shouldn't be out here, and that I need to turn and run, I can't. He has this commanding gaze that's keeping me rooted in my place.

It's like he wants to speak, but can't. Or won't. He's tall, every bit of six-foot-two or better. He towers over my five-foot-four. He's in a thick winter jacket, fur lining the hood, combat boots, and all-weather pants.

He'd stepped out from the trees as if he'd been there the entire time. It makes me worry my hackles aren't that great at all because they haven't alerted me to shit.

He clears his throat. "Mangiane uno," he says, and confusion makes my face wrinkle. — "Eat one."

That's not English. It almost had an Italian lilt to the way he'd said it, so likely it was Italian. Just my luck. I've found the only man in the wilderness and he's an Italian beast who doesn't speak English and looks like he's kin to Big Foot.

Mangiane. The word sounds so similar to manger, which is French for eat. Taking four years in school had gotten me the barest understanding of the language. I used to speak it nearly fluently, but it's been so long since I used it in everyday contexts that I don't know if I still can.

"Eat one?" I ask softly. Looking down into the can of berries, I roam my eyes over the red globes. "Eat one?" I ask, louder this time.

He nods. Something dark dancing in his eyes.

My feet are itching to run, but I try to keep steady and cool. His legs are like fucking stilts attached to his enormous body. He'd be on me in a flash if I ran.

So, I listen. For now.

I lift a berry in my hand, showing him. For a second, I consider that these might not be the berries I recalled from Arsenio's teachings. These could be poisonous and that's why the mystery woodsman is having me eat one. To kill me.

I pause the berry at my lips, contemplating whether or not I eat it. Surely, if he's trying to do away with me, he will not save me when and if the berries make me violently ill.

"Succhiare!" he orders, and it echoes through the woods, chilling my bones stiffly. —"Suck!"

Reverting to my French teachings, I try to recall anything similar. Sucer comes to mind. Which means suck.

Well, sucking on the outside of a berry can't be harmful, right? I am trying to escape with my life here. There's a massive rifle slung over his shoulder, and I bet he can get a shot off before I have the first arrow nocked in my crossbow. He looks like a natural-born killer.

His eyes are dead.

It's only when he's shouting things at me in Italian that there's a flicker of something lifelike in them. Keeping it there is how I get out of here, but how long can I stand locked in this war with him before I need to turn and run?

I suck the outside of the berry, not putting it into my mouth. In case he is trying to kill me. Death by berry isn't how I thought I'd go out.

"Chiudi quelle belle labbra attorno ad esso, coniglietto," he says gruffly, and I've got nothing to compare any of the words to. There are too many and none sound like anything I've heard before. —"Close those pretty lips around it, bunny."

Shakily, I pop the berry into my mouth as he takes a few steps in my direction. His massive chest is lifting and dropping with breaths of excitement, and I don't like it one bit. The closer he gets, the further I step back. The bridge is only a few paces away, but I'm afraid to turn my back on him.

The berry is sweet and almost tastes like a cranberry. A soft moan when the sweetness rolls across my tongue halts his steps.

He looks deranged for a beat. Like he's trying to keep the lid on something inside and barely doing so.

"Un altro." This time his words are strained, filled with gravel. I don't know why, but now the hair on my body decides to stand on end. —"Another."

"Un autre," I say softly in French. Which means, another.

As if he can hear me, as if he knows what I've said, he nods.

I grab another berry and pop it into my mouth, my eyes nearly rolling at the sweet flavor. My belly grumbles. I'd had fish last night, but I'd woken with a renewed hunger in my belly, and the berries were the first thing I've gotten into me that had significant nutrients inside them.

"Così bello, coniglietto." — "So beautiful, bunny."

There he goes again, rambling words I can't riddle out. He doesn't have to coax me to eat more berries, though. I drop two from my hand into my mouth, and he eagerly watches as I let a groan slip. I've heard of girls who do shit like this on the internet for money, eat while men ogle them. I thought it was weird, but something is going on between me and the stranger that I won't deny is hot. If I ignore the disturbing fact of what I'm doing with a stranger who has a weapon…

My heart resumes its rapid thumps with that thought, and I step back instinctively as he approaches with another step.

"Non correre, coniglietto. Al lupo piace la caccia," he grumbles, and from the cadence that he'd said it with, I know it's a threat. At least, my gut says it was.— "Don't run, bunny. The wolf likes the chase."

"I didn't know that I wasn't allowed over here," I say as he continues to step towards me. I forget my berries, throwing them and turning as an answering snarl leaves the man who gives chase.

I squeal, an ungodly noise, as I head for the bridge, speeding up to a near-impossible pace. My boots and winter clothes are so heavy. I don't want to be caught on the bridge with him, though. I make it past, but his heavy footfalls aren't far behind.

It feels like he's breathing down my neck as I get back to my camp with no plan in mind.

I exit the woods into the small clearing before he does, so I take a moment to get an arrow ready in my crossbow and drop to one knee, one eye closing as I begin the hunt for prey that's headed right for me.

"Vieni fuori, coniglietto. Voglio solo accarezzarti!" — "Come out, bunny. I just want to pet you!"

I train my eyes where I pray he's going to exit; my shelter is at my back and the wind is in my favor.

"Come on, you big Italian brute!" I whisper, steadying my breathing.

When he steps out, a wicked smirk on his heavily bearded mouth, I almost lose my cool. But I narrow my gaze. "Vaffanculo!" I shout, and it's one of the few Italian words that I know. But it hits its mark. — "Fuck you!"

He grabs for his rifle, but I've already let go of a breath and pulled my trigger. The arrow soars through the air, and for once, it pierces my prey.

Too bad I can't eat this particular mark.

"Fanculo!" he groans, grabbing for the arrow sticking through his left shoulder.

For a split second, I know I've fucked up. Not only are we out here alone, but he's every bit the predator that Arsenio and my father warned lives in the wilderness.

He takes one menacing step. "Imparerai una lezione, coniglietto." — "You're going to learn a lesson, bunny."

I don't understand him, but he keeps coming anyhow. As I still kneel in the snow, he keeps coming and his dark eyes are fixed on me. He stops at least twenty feet away, holding the arrow. Blood is staining his outerwear, soaking him through.

"Paghi per il sangue versato. E il prezzo è salato." — "You pay for spilled blood. And the price is steep."

With that, he turns and vanishes into the forest. I drop the crossbow, bending and planting my hands in the snow as I vomit red berries back out of my stomach. Not because they're poison, but because it's one thing to shoot or maim an animal to survive. It's another to harm another human.

* * *

By the timeI'm in my tent, I'm too hot to get into my sleeping bag. It's not fever, or the fire burning too hot, it's nerves skittering through my body. As moments passed, I waited for him. Waited for him to come back for me. But he hasn't. The look of pain on his face when the arrow sunk into his shoulder was something I'll never forget.

I've also been worried about him. For some fucking reason. Sure, he was chasing me, but there was a language barrier. Even though I try to tell myself how wrong I was for what I did, I know it was survival at its best.

Sometimes, surviving isn't fucking pretty.

I'm just glad I hadn't been filming when all this happened. Though, I can't remember if I had my Go-Pro on while I was picking berries.

Shooting out of the sleeping bag, I yank the Go-Pro from the black case and power it on, rewinding footage on the tape that's still inside it.

Oh my god!

I had been recording the entire time. It had caught everything during the chase. Even the moment I close one eye, let a breath go, and shoot the poor brute.

Fuck!

"How do I erase this?" I ask aloud as if someone will answer. This is clear evidence of a crime, and I don't need to go to jail over this shit. Though, it proves self-defense. Unless his Italian words only sounded threatening, and he was really saying he was going to take me back to his cave and cook me dinner.

I roll my eyes, throwing the camera back into the case and laying back in a huff. I cover my eye with my arm.

"What are you in for?" They'll ask, to which I'll answer, "Murdered a strange man in the woods on national television, you?"

The conversation with myself isn't helping, so I return to silence, still shaking my head at myself.

A snap beyond the walls of the shelter sounds faintly through the thick insulated foliage and packed snow. I sit up. My stomach churns with fear as I sweat all over again.

I want to move my pack from the door. I'd built a small makeshift door this morning before leaving out of an enormous piece of bark I'd found. I was celebrating it having been a week since I got dropped and being alive.

Now, I'm going to be killed if the man I shot is still alive.

I sag back down on my sleeping bag. I don't know why, but I close my eyes and try to sleep. Even though every noise from here on out is going to scare me shitless.

Because I know he's coming for me.

Even if it's in ghost form to haunt me from beyond.