Beauty In Her Madness (Winterland Tale #3) - Stacey Marie Brown Page 0,85

far closer than it should.

“Go! Go!” Dor zoomed forward, his tone full of anxiety as he led us out a door into the snowy night. “PB, go get help! We can’t control it on our own. We’ve got to trap it.”

“But I get so hot there,” he whined. “And I don’t like running. Oh, and the sand gets in my fur…so hard to get out.”

“PB. Go!”

PB huffed and took off, loping away from us.

“Now, girlie! I hope you know how to run.” Dor burst over the snow, barely leaving prints. “Run, Rudolph, run!”

Running long distance at a steady pace? Easy. Running to save my life from some creature? Not so much. The chipmunks proved that.

But as another howl echoed into the air, telling me the creature was out of the castle, stalking the night…

I ran.

My heavy panting filled my ears, my boots smashing through the layers of snow, terror nipping at my heels, zigzagging me through the forest.

“Hey! No running,” a noble fir yelled at me.

“Get off my snow!” Another one chucked a snowball at me. “You two-legged thugs are nothing but trouble.”

“Shut up!” I hissed. Their booming voices would draw attention.

“How dare you tell us to shut up, twig. I could snap you in half.” A blue spruce shouted at me, spitting a ball of tree sap down at my feet. The honey-colored ball melted through the snow, snapping and popping at the ice like Rice Krispies, burning a hole in the side of my boot.

“Holy tinsel!” I screamed, jumping back, my mouth dropping. What the hell?

“Now, I’m not normally a violent tree, not like those southern trees, but you step on my roots here and I will shoot you with sap,” the spruce hollered, waving his branches around the base of his trunk.

In the distance, a howl I had never heard before echoed through the sky, chilling my bones. It was nothing like an animal or a person, the sound gripping my mind in hazy fear, triggering something deep in me. A terror that almost crippled me.

Reacting on reflex, I took off, darting through the trees away from the sound, my mind filled with too much terror to think.

“Hey!”

“Get off my land, twig!”

“Get her!”

The trees screamed at me, their branches tugging and yanking at my hair. Limbs swiped down at me, knocking into me. A cry bubbled up from my throat as I jumped and darted out of the way, the limbs slashing at my clothes and exposed skin as I snapped through them.

“Owww! You hateful termite!”

A ball of sap shot past me, forcing me to duck my head. I had no time to think as more hit the snow, sputtering and scorching through the ice, leaving burned holes. Weaving, I shoved through, seeing a break in the forest up ahead. My legs pumping, my shoulders checked boughs grabbing for me. Another orb of death fizzled by my leg, burning into my jeans.

A pained cry sprang from my body, but I tried to push forward, the clearing barely a dozen yards away. Grunting, I stretched my legs, driving all my will into reaching the finish line. Only feet away from the end of the forest, I heard a whistle by my head, my eyes noticing objects flying past me like bullets.

Holy shit! Are those nettles? The thought crossed my mind when I felt them pierce my backside. It felt as if a thousand burning hot needles stabbed through my clothes, sinking into my skin. Pain rushed up my throat at a dizzying pace, and a scream tore from my throat as I faltered forward. Vomit scalded the back of my throat, my stomach churning with queasiness.

Don’t stop, Dinah! You’re almost there, I ordered myself, blackness clouding my vision.

My boots crossed into the empty space, my legs wobbling, but I pushed myself until I was out of range. Air heaved in my chest as I came to a stop, my back on fire. Turning my head over my shoulder and peering at what I could see, another wave of nausea gurgled in my throat. My backside resembled a porcupine.

Shakily, I reached for one nettle in my shoulder, plucking it out like I was a dartboard, my blood coating the tip. I could feel the poison from the nettles pouring into my bloodstream. Stumbling, my legs trembled as I tried to fight against the toxins.

I was going to die here.

Death by Christmas tree.

I took a step and my foot plunged down, like the snow was hiding a large hole. The