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I pad along the route, winding my way through the evergreens. Fog strokes the needle branches. Roots worm in and out of the soil.

Passing one hollow reveals a trio of leprechauns playing a game that involves tossing acorns onto a grid cauterized into the earth. When one of them misses, the gang ribs him until he guzzles liquid from a tankard. Then they spot me through the entrance, their scruffy jaws and beards shifting to accommodate their grins.

“Comely dress, lass,” one of them jeers.

“Care to play a few rounds?” another invites.

I march away, increasing my pace as they cackle. They may as well be coughing up thorns, the rasping sound still cleaving my ears.

My feet spirit me around a bend, my boots crunching a weed. There’s no telling what’s expected of me, or where I’m supposed to go, but I doubt joining those varmints is on the agenda.

The Wicked Pines proves navigable. I tap into my memory and backtrack in the direction the nymphs had led me.

In another grove, brownies tidy their surroundings, buffing roots, plumping pillows, and sprinkling petals on the ground. They seem to be preparing the space for a dalliance between lovers.

In yet another hollow, a female dryad strums a lyre while a male faun sways before her, his gyrating posterior attracting her ravenous gaze.

In a third niche, a female satyr lounges naked while a centaur paints her.

I avert my eyes for the rest of the journey, until a groan reaches my ears. My head leaps toward the sound, my attention stumbling past the entrance of a grove where a tent pitches off the ground. I trip in place, speechless. Three Fae males lavish attention on a female within the tent, two of them suckling her nipples while the third member grunts, his body flush atop hers.

Her thighs splay around his buttocks, clinging and rolling. The female’s hand dips between the male and herself. “Take out your prick so I can fuck it.”

I gasp, but they’re too busy to hear it. How can she possibly sustain all three of them? What female has that energy? She’d chafe and hobble for days.

A hot stone settles low in my belly. I can’t move, can’t look away.

“If they catch you watching, they’ll assume you’d like to join,” a rascally tenor says.

That voice skates up my spine. I whip toward Puck, his robust figure looming inches behind me, his hair burning through the darkness. Aided by the boughs’ candlelight, my gaze sketches his leather pants, shaded a pecan brown, with a vertical gap cutting through outer seams. Thongs cinch up the sides, the bare skin of his limbs and the slopes of his hipbones flexing through the netting.

I scowl. “I wasn’t watching. I was—”

He tilts his head. “Have you ever wanted to?”

“Wanted what?” I balk. “Wanted to watch?”

“Wanted to join,” he clarifies. “Have you ever wanted to join with another? Join in a pleasure fest? A feast for the senses? A veritable upheaval of the mind and body?”

Certainly not. Yet if I answer negatively, that will inspire him to no good. And if I lie and say yes, he’ll call me out.

I hardly require a mirror to know a glare is burrowing into my face. This satyr has a way of bumping me from one emotion to the next.

The moans escalate, taking on a speedy, gravely cadence. I swallow, and Puck’s eyes land on my neck, following the contortion.

Raunchy noises resound from behind, the female crying out in bliss. Whatever those males are doing to her, Puck has an unhampered view. I steel myself and prepare to leave the scene, but he dips his head, his inflection as rich as fertile ground. “Is that a no?”

My eyes dart to the jutting shadows extending across the ground. “Debauchery isn’t on my list of priorities. I’m a busy mortal.”

“What about sensuality? Too busy for that?”

“It’s the same thing.”

“Take it from a satyr, it isn’t. I’d wager my next meal on it.”

“Your next meal is hardly a gamble.”

His breath coasts over my mouth, the contact throwing sparks across my lips. “That depends on what I’m eating.”