Home for Horny Monsters - Book Five

Taking Risks

Bigfoot spent a couple of minutes making kissing sounds before Velvet nailed him with a snowball right in the face. Laughing, he waited for them to catch up, then scooped some snow out of his beard and rubbed it in Velvet's hair.

"So about this owl-woman..." Mike muttered.

"Right, sorry." Bigfoot's grin turned to a frown. "She is not a friend of mine. Some years ago, she and her sisters were well known for terrorizing the tribes. They ate anything they could get their hands on, people included, so they were hunted until only two were left. Early last century, they stole a boy from one of the villages. The boy escaped and ran home to tell the elders where the sisters lived. I was under the impression that they had both been killed, yet one survives."

"Definitely not a friend, then." He continued walking, then turned to look behind. Yuki was fine as she walked on top of the snow. Dana trudged forward without any problem. Quetzalli, however, struggled. She was sinking into the snow up to her shins and was obviously tired.

He slammed the rest of his soup and took the last can from Yuki. When Quetzalli caught up with him, he offered it to her and then slid a hand around her waist. "Here, let's walk together."

She smiled and took a sip of the can. "Oh, gods, this is just salt and cream," she exclaimed. "And was that a clam? What's wrong with it? It tastes like someone else ate it already!"

She handed the can back, and he took it.

"More for me, I guess." He bet Tink would have loved it. They had some differences in opinion when it came to cuisine, but he could easily imagine the goblin chugging a can of the stuff in between projects. He really hoped she was okay. As soon as thoughts about the house entered his head, he promptly shut them out. Worry and fear would paralyze him, and he needed his mind in here and now to deal with whatever was coming.

As they crunched through the wilderness, he heard snippets of words nearby. They were solitary thoughts, barely audible in the cold, dark of night. It was the spiders of the woods, just trying to survive until daybreak when they could warm back up and hunt for food.

But it wasn't just the spiders he sensed. Whenever he moved close to the trees, he was under the impression that they were listening. On a few occasions, he would put his hand out to either steady himself on a trunk or move a branch, and he could have sworn that he felt the tree shift beneath his touch.

"Are their dryads out here?" he asked, looking at Bigfoot.

"Nope," Velvet answered. "It's always just been us."

"But the trees..." He looked at a nearby pine. Though it looked like an ordinary tree, he could almost feel its presence in his mind. "It almost feels like they're watching me."

Bigfoot nodded. "The land watches you, Caretaker, as it watches us all. There are many spirits that reside in nature, many of which cannot be perceived. Each tree is alive in every sense of the word. They think and feel for themselves, much like children. Together, they make up the mind of the forest."

"Like a hive?" A chill went up his back.

"In a way. Everything out here is connected, Caretaker. This is an important thing for you to understand." Bigfoot put his hand on a fallen log. "I am very surprised that you can feel it, though."

Amymone. Sex with the dryad had apparently come with a perk of its own. Did the women he slept with gain something from him? Cecilia had that little red streak in her hair, but what about Lily? Or Naia for that matter? He looked at Quetzalli, Velvet, and then Dana. What part of his soul had he given to them? Peering up into the sky, it occurred to him that Abella seemed no different than when he had met her.