Page 11 of Cruel As A Tree (Chaos God Sugar and Spice Companion Shorts #4)

Chapter

Nine

LILLIAN

I had to kill him.

In one horrible moment, he had confirmed my worst fear, that he wasn't some gorgeous savior to rescue me from an agonizing death, but another trap that I had fallen into because of my ignorance of this world and its inhabitants.

His talk of pruning my branches could only mean one thing—he was going to kill my family.

My mom's house was in front of me, so close and yet so far, separated by the sudden realization that I had put them in danger by the simple act of missing them.

I didn't know what to do, but my body and my instincts did as I leaped up on the monster's back and wrapped my arm around his neck, trying to squeeze the life out of him.

"I won't let you hurt her!" I snarled in his ear.

He jumped backward into the tree, and the house vanished, swirling away as it had appeared, vanishing as the thick tree trunk reappeared before my eyes. He landed, light on his feet, but I lost my grip around his neck and tumbled back down onto the moss.

I rolled and scrambled back up to my feet, the terror of losing the two people most important to me in the entire worlds giving me no time to lie there and suffer. I had to fight a forest lord! I had to... oh shit.

He was a monster.

He had grown several feet taller, jet black fur erupting all over his body, climbing up his shoulders to erupt in even longer strands as it enveloped the top of his head like a hood.

His face was gone, replaced by a skull-like mask that hid any human-like features, his eyes replaced by glowing orbs of red light.

He let out a snarl that echoed through my bones with the aftershocks of pure, existential terror.

I had made a huge mistake.

Veveron told me that he would change based on how I interacted with him. When I was horny, he became a seductive fiend. When I acted all high and mighty, even his outfit changed to reflect a more refined and polished appearance. Now that I attacked him, treating him like a monster, he became one.

He was going to eat me, and it was my fault.

That was absolute bullshit.

With that thought, my immense terror became swamped by my indignation.

The whole idea that I could control a monster with my words and behavior, that it would be my fault if he raped or ate me, was utter trash.

Any person who told you that it was your fault they were angry, that you made them do the things that they did, was an abuser looking to avoid blaming themselves for their own cruelty, and they would only increase their abuse if you stayed and just took it.

"You look ridiculous," I said. "What even are you? You look like a cosplayer who glued bones to a black outfit."

I waited, my heart and breath twined up in the moment to see if he was going to explode with rage or violence.

He shuddered, shaking his skull from side to side as the glowing orbs sitting in his eye sockets cycled through a rainbow of colors.

"I do not," he said, his voice gravelly and indignant.

He in fact didn't look like a cosplayer.

He looked like something that had crawled out of my nightmares.

And yet, even so, I could still see the hard lines of his abdominals through the thick black fur that covered his body.

He still was attractive, in a terrifyingly exciting way, maybe the monster should be in my bed rather than under it kind of way.

"Why do you even look like that?" I asked.

"You needed to fight," he said, gesturing at his body.

"I don't need to fight," I said. "I need to feel safe. I need to know that you aren't going to hurt me or my family. I need to go home."

"You think I would hurt you?" he asked, his voice soft. The dark hairs on his shoulder stood up suddenly, like porcupine quills. He didn't shift or change, despite the tone of his voice, staying in the dark form that loomed over me.

"You told me you were going to cut away what hurt me, and then you literally changed into a monster," I said.

"What hurts you is not being able to go home," he said, stepping to the side as he gestured at the huge tree trunk behind him. "I have made the connection. You can come and go to your home as you please."

I sucked in a breath sharp enough to match the sudden cut of hope.

He said he was going to cut away my pain, and I thought that meant he would kill my family. Had I thought the worst of him because of my fear? Did he really mean that he was going to let me go home?

"I..." I widened my eyes, blinking back the tears. "I can go home?"

"Yes," he said, gesturing towards the tree. "Go."

I took a step towards it and he moved back, out of my way.

"Why do you still look like that?" I asked.

He still hadn't shifted back.

"You see me as a monster," he replied, his voice gruff and gravelly.

Before I could say anything, he turned and vanished into the forest.

I was left there in the eerie silence of the forest, not the single chirp of a bird or rustle of wind through the leaves, an unnatural quiet that caused my skin to prickle with the subconscious awareness that something was wrong.

I should follow him. I should apologize.

Those were urges that came and went, a breath in and then out.

I didn't follow him; instead, I turned towards what mattered the most. I went back and put my hand on the trunk of the tree, excitement and worry and fear all collided within my heart until my hand sank into the surface of the bark, like the tree was a gossamer drape to hide the edges of an unseen portal.

I closed my eyes and stepped back through.

The change in the lighting hit my eyelids, turning the insides of them red.

In one instant, the comfortable cool humidity of the shaded forest was gone, replaced by a warmer shade that still protected me from the harsh rays of the summer sun.

But there wasn't any shade in my mom's backyard.

That thought vanished into unimportance as I opened my eyes and there she was.

Standing in the doorway to the backyard, holding the screen open with one small hand, stood Anna, looking just as I had left her, if maybe a tiny bit taller.

Her eyes widened as she caught sight of me and there was an expansion in my heart, in the space which had been weighed down with fear and loss from the moment I had stood in the geodesic commons dome, filled with excitement and anticipation only to have those feelings crushed by the screams that painted a horrific picture of what I witnessed at Orientation.

I saw Anna's smile and I was home.

"LIL!" Anna screamed, throwing herself down the stairs and across the backyard, her bare feet crunching over dried grass as she ran at me, her arms wide.

She slammed into me, and I took a small step back to brace, catching her in my arms. Her skull slammed into my lower stomach with enough force to cause me to grunt.

"Gentle," I said, laughing as tears began to leak from my eyes. "Banana baby, you have to be gentle with me."

"Oh, thank you, Mary!" my mom gasped from the door as she clutched the cross around her neck.

"Hi Mom," I said, lifting one hand to wipe the tears from my cheek as my other hand stayed on Anna's back, the lifeline that kept me afloat in the depths of my despair.

"I planted them!" Anna said, turning her face to look up at me while her arms squeezed tighter around me. "Mom and I planted trees so you'd come home! I watered them every other day with lots and lots and lots so that their roots grew deep just like he said."

"He?" I asked. I looked around, taking in the backyard.

I had been in such a panic when we first stepped through that I hadn't quite registered the new shade that encircled the small square of a backyard.

There were trees, trees that didn't exist before, towering over the house, the shade from their branches cooling the roof.

"He said you needed the trees to come home," Anna said. She wrinkled her nose. "He looked funny."

"There was a fae in the backyard," my mom said as she gestured around to the circle of trees that went around the house.

"Lorthion," I said, the sudden crisp awareness of the what and why of my most recent actions.

I had freaked out and attacked the man, or whatever he was, when he was only trying to give me what I wanted most in the world.

I had assumed the worst of him, not just because of how he phrased things, but because of the trauma I'd experienced when first coming to the Magic Realm.

I couldn't trust some random fancy fae in the forest because my previous experiences with fae were horrific.

I took another deep breath, feeling the weight of my choices.

I glance back at the tree I'd stepped through.

If he gave me a chance, I'd go back and apologize and thank him. It was the least I could do.

Anna squeezed her arms tighter around my waist, and I smiled down at her. Lorthion could wait.

He wasn't the one who needed me the most right now.

"I made you a picture," she said.

"Oh, Banana baby, I would love to see it," I said.

She didn't let go of my waist, so I put both my hands under her armpits to support her as I began to walk forward with wide legs, waddling into her.

She giggled and dropped her weight, lifting her feet so I was carrying her like a fifty-pound fanny pack.

"Why didn't you write or email?" my mom asked as I got closer to the porch. "Did your phone not work over there? You said you would let us know how it went, and then you just disappeared."

"I couldn't," I said, my voice soft. "The school... it was a lie."

"Oh," my mom said, her voice heavy. She glanced at Anna and then back at me. "Well, you're back now."

"Where is Veveron?" Anna asked.

"Because of Lorthion," I said at the same time as Anna spoke, so I answered her question as well. "Veveron is staying with him for a little bit while she hatches some eggs."

"She's so cuuuuuuuuuute," Anna said as we got to the first step of the porch. I patted her back gently, and she put her feet down and released her hold on my waist. She grabbed my hand, holding it tightly, and we walked up the stairs together. "Do eggs mean little Veverons?"

"Yes," I said, and Anna let out a high-pitched giggling sound, so I continued. "I'll ask her when they hatch if you can see them. Now where is that drawing?"

Anna let out a happy cry and ran ahead of me through the door, but she didn't let go of my hand, so she tugged on me, pulling me with her. I laughed, the joy in my heart unable to remain contained as I got everything I knew I needed the moment I no longer had it.

"Do you have to go back?" my mom asked as she followed after us into the house.

"Not right away," I said, my voice low. "But I messed up. I can't leave things the way I left them. Not when he brought me home."