Claimed by Shadow Page 0,101

biting into the skin as they brutally forced my legs so wide that, for a minute, I thought they meant to tear me in two. They finally stopped when my hips would give no further. I tried to fight, but nothing I did made the slightest difference, and my rising panic made it almost impossible to think. A stick bearing a few bright green leaves tumbled through the air from high above and landed on my face, a whisper of a caress, while the things above me started to wrestle over who would get to rape me first.

It was a short fight. The skinny one picked up his companion and threw him against a tree, the branches of which trapped him in a wooden embrace, like a cage. Then he turned and fell on me. Two coarse, knotted hands grabbed my shoulders painfully and I stared up into flat gray eyes that had nothing human in them. He wriggled down my body, his tough, uneven skin scraping against mine except where the tank protected me.

I ignored the pain his movements were causing and grabbed the stick, my only tool, in my mouth. My eyes zeroed in on the thong threaded through the top of the bone disk, despite the fact that it was brown and barely poked out of the scattered leaves. I knew I might get only one chance at this, and I had to concentrate. I managed to get the end of the stick through the small loop and began trying to work it closer. If I could get it to touch my skin or even just my aura, it might be enough. Then I heard a squelch, and something slick and clammy nudged my belly. I froze.

It felt like something old that had been left underground to rot for a very long time, spongy and moist and bloated. But it moved sluggishly, twitching against my lower stomach. I couldn't see anything except my attacker's shoulder and the small patch of path, but my brain conjured up images of an enormous white grub or a fist-sized slug. When its chill dampness slithered eagerly between my legs, I swear my heart stopped.

I was so paralyzed with horror that I just lay there as the inhuman thing swelled against me, like a rotten fruit about to burst. Its sodden cold raised goose bumps across my entire body as it leeched away my heat, numbing me as if an icicle was being rubbed over sensitive areas. Through the shudder-inducing revulsion, I understood that the horrible gelatinous shifting was it changing forms, trying to find one compatible with my body. But the one it came up with bore no resemblance to human virility. It suddenly grew firmer, its slimy consistency congealing into a fat, rigid shape as unyielding as a wooden stake. If the thing pierced me, I knew I wouldn't survive, that it would eat my heat and replace it with its damp chill. The green man, some part of my brain recalled: the old Celtic peoples had sacrificed one of their own to the land, so it would grow rich and fertile off his flesh. Only it looked like this forest preferred a green woman.

When the parody of an organ began to thrust, the action so very male, so very human, my paralysis broke. I screamed and jerked my head in a violent negative motion. I hadn't planned it, had almost forgotten what I'd been doing, but the action caused something small and hard to land on my cheek. My crossed eyes identified it as the rune disk and my heart started up again. I wasn't sure how to cast it, wasn't convinced that it would work at all. But I screamed the name inside my head because my mouth didn't seem to work.

I don't know whether that was the right procedure, but it did the trick. Sort of. With no warning, I found myself, not twenty minutes back in time, but maybe two. The oak men were coming for me, and Mac was leaping to intercept them, so focused on saving me that he didn't see the roots straightening themselves into spears, coming for him. I didn't hesitate this time, but yelled a warning and fled down the path towards his discarded backpack.

I was sobbing now that I could breathe freely again, and my hands were shaking so hard that I wasn't sure I'd be able to get the pack open. The shorter creature reached me when I had