Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

Ike

Wow. Look at the tiny, little person.

What is she doing here?

I was doing my nightly rounds of the forest when I smelled fire and came to inspect. This time of year, the danger of a fire igniting the dry branches and forest debris is much higher. My home is in these woods and I’ve been taught to protect the land. It’s a job I take very seriously.

Villagers usually remain down in Piccadily where they belong with their machines and funny smells and food that comes in crinkly packages. So what is this one doing here? Tied to a tree, no less?

With a grunt, I descend from the rise and approach the struggling…female. Oh, she is female. I scent her now. And the closer I come to her, the more her form begins to take shape in the moonlight. Moonlight that matches the color of her long, wavy hair. I try to ignore the odd liquid lightning in my loins, but there is something about her smell and those soft, moaning sounds she makes. They’re making my skin hot, even though it’s crisp and breezy at nighttime in the woods.

I don’t come across many females. There is only one and she belongs to the Farley clan. To say I find her unappealing would be an understatement. She looks nothing like Ginger or Mary Ann from the Gilligan’s Island tapes my mother left behind. Will this one look like Ginger or Mary Ann?

She turns her frightened face toward the moonlight and I stumble to a stop.

Oh. Oh, this female looks nothing like either shipwrecked character.

She is in a class unto herself, so beautiful I cannot see straight.

Inside the wrap of my loincloth, my cock unfurls and becomes ramrod straight, attempting to free itself of the thin material. I long to reach down and move my fist up and down its length, the way I discovered by accident can relieve the worst of my male aches. Though I do have to perform the ritual several times a day to keep myself from an ill temper. It often gets in the way of hunting.

I would like to perform it now while looking at the girl. Her face alone would be enough to bring me off with its innocence. To have those big eyes watch as I tugged on my balls and stroked my shaft would please me greatly. Damn, she is a creature with no equal, in possession of such beauty my chest aches…and I haven’t even glimpsed her body yet, buried as it is in that long, irritating dress. I would like very much to rip the offending thing off.

A frown creases my brow when the girl plants both of her feet on the tree trunk and bows her back with the effort to free herself.

“Enough of this struggle, tiny person,” I shout. “You do not have nearly enough strength to snap the ropes.”

With a scream that startles even me, she drops her legs and cowers against the base of the tree. “Oh God. Make it fast. Please. Do you have a knife or something? Can you just aim for my brain? I don’t want to suffer.”

Perhaps I shouldn’t have shouted. “You must untie the knots.”

“You untie them,” she cries. “I’m not going to make this even easier for you.”

Make what easier? What is the girl talking about?

Despite my confusion, I move around to the back side of the tree and study the knots. I reach down and pull at them, but make no progress, thanks to my thick fingers. There’s no way to slide them beneath the tight loops. My neck heats over my failure and I refuse to let the girl know about it. Instead, I take the hunting knife out of the scabbard at the small of my back and lift it high, preparing to sever the rope.

Before I can chop the ropes, the girl goes limp.

A distressed sound leaves my mouth and I drop to my knees, not waiting for the ground to stop shaking before I go to her, sliding my hand beneath her cheek and the forest floor, cradling it to my thigh. Is she dead?

Sweat beads on my forehead. “Don’t be dead,” I shout.

She wakes up with a scream, her feet scrabbling in the dead leaves. “Oh man. Not a dream. Very real. You’re very real.” Her gaze travels to my lap and her skin turns an even whiter shade of pale. “Is that, like…a piece of firewood under there? Tell me it’s firewood.”

I should answer her. I know I should, especially because nothing she has said makes sense and I want to know why she’s tied to this tree in my forest. But I can’t think straight enough to form sentences with her face suddenly so close to my cock. My stomach twists in a painful way and images implant themselves in my brain. Images I’ve never entertained about anyone, such as her lips closing around the tip of my shaft, her tongue digging into that sensitive slit right at the top.

Before I can stop my body’s reaction to the thought, I shoot a rope of semen into the sack of my loincloth, the wet stain forming immediately, clearly visible to us both. “Ahhhhh!” I roar up at the night sky, torn between pleasure and frustration. “Not now.”

“Agreed,” she breathes, staring at my straining cock. “Not now. Definitely not now. I’ve always been a later kind of girl.”

I dig my fingers into my forehead, commanding myself to focus. “What is your name, tiny person, and why are you here?”

When she turns a little green around the gills, I curse my booming voice and vow to begin speaking in a softer tone. “I’m Diana.”

Her name creates an odd squeeze in my chest. “Diana.”

“Yes.” She closes her eyes. “Please, I’m so scared. Can we make it fast?”

“Scared of what?” My teeth bare themselves as I scan the trees, looking and listening for threats. Anyone who thinks to cause harm to this innocent female will encounter my wrath instead. The idea that anyone might want to mar her skin or make her scared makes me want to rip the surrounding trees from the earth. “Who seeks to do you harm? I will slaughter them.”

For long moments, her steady breathing is the only sound. “Are there two beasts? Do you have an evil twin?”

Beast? Evil twin? I shake my head. “Who tied you to this tree?”

Even in the muted moonlight, I witness the color that stains her cheeks. “My father. The villagers. I…they left me here as your sacrifice.” She sits up a little, turns, and the light bathes the slopes of her young breasts. My cock leaks anew and I’m ashamed to be finding any increment of pleasure while her hands are still bound to the tree. “What is your name?” she whispers.

“I am Ike.”

She licks her lips and I almost pounce on her. Almost push her down into the dirt and rub my cock on her smooth skin. Anywhere it will reach. I don’t know exactly what I am craving from her lush, little body, but there’s a vibration in my gut telling me she would provide the ultimate release. Ultimate pleasure.

“And, um…don’t you require a sacrifice, Ike? Isn’t that why you’ve been terrorizing the village?”

I rear back. “Terrorizing the village? How?”

“Killing cattle and stealing chickens. General terror stuff.”

“No, Diana. It was not me.” But I know quite well who it was. “Do you believe me?” For some reason, it’s very important she take me at my word. In order to be her protector, she must believe in me. She must rely on me.

Ah God, I like that idea. Diana depending on me for food and comfort.

What if her body needs release like mine?

Could she depend on me for that, too?

This female is mine. Every pump of my pulse tells me so.

With my cock dripping into my cloth, I watch as she chews her lower lip. “I…can’t. Everyone I know just abandoned me here, knowing I was going to die. I guess you could say I’m having some trust issues.”

Disheartened, I drop down beside her on the forest floor, the vibration nearly causing her to topple over, but I steady her with a hand on her dainty shoulder. “There must be some way to prove it to you.”

Diana is beginning to look hopeful and it makes her even prettier, but causes a strange sense of foreboding in my gut. “You can. If you’re not the beast everyone says you are and you don’t require a sacrifice, just let me go.”

I slam my fist down onto the ground, surprising even myself. “No!”

Critters scamper away in the bushes, tree branches sway.

Her chin lifts in response to my shout, but it’s trembling and I immediately regret my outburst. “Then I think you’re a chicken-stealing liar.”

My bellow is one of pure misery. “You will come home with me, Diana. I’ll make you want to stay.”

She hiccups and her eyes flood with tears. “You probably don’t even have Wi-Fi.”

Her tears make me want to lie down and die. “Is that a type of fish?” I ask, desperate to appease her. “There’s a stream near my home. We can find some.”

“Oh Lord.”

This time, I cut her bonds free before she can lose consciousness and throw her over my shoulder, stomping toward my home on the far side of the woods. “Are you going to want…sex, fire log?” Diana asks in a choppy voice. “Like, t-tonight?”

That word sex tightens my balls, but I don’t understand its meaning. “What is sex? Is that another type of fish?”

“Oh Lord.”