First Forest - Viola Grace Page 0,2

the statue once again.

She bowed a final time and then got to her feet. She would have thought she would have gotten taller, but Priest Garo still towered over her.

He walked her to the front of the temple. “It is good that you are back, Abiha. Ledana is not you and could never be. It is good that she is getting married.”

Abiha looked at him. “So, you have no objection to her wedding?”

“Now that you are here, none at all. Have pleasant dreams, Abiha.”

He stood as she slipped on her shoes and walked away. She turned to watch him enter the temple, but he was gone.

Now, it was time to return to her family home and face her mother.

Chapter Two

Her mother settled once it was confirmed that the temple had welcomed her home. Ledana had served a mint tea, and Abiha was shown to the guestroom instead of her childhood room. So, her visit was definitely temporary.

After preparing for bed, Abiha lay on her side, looking out at the moonlight through the upper portion of the exterior doors. The air here felt like it belonged in her lungs; the sounds outside were all too familiar.

With a few deep breaths, she nodded off for a well-deserved rest after a day of traveling.

She was standing in a meadow, and she heard something large and heavy moving toward her in the woods. She turned, and her sword was in her hands. She faced the sound, and when the figure stepped out, she lifted the blade in self-defense.

The creature was huge, and it was wearing a heavy silk robe with wide sleeves. The stag horns were what first drew her attention; the rapid approach was the second.

She took aim with the sword, but he batted it aside as if it wasn’t even there. His arm wrapped around her and pulled her hard against him. She wasn’t wearing ritual robes; she was wearing the gauzy night robe that she had on in the waking world. He bent his head and kissed her.

The kiss was shocking; it was warm and wet and definitely designed to arouse a human. One of his large hands was cupping her breast, and when he fondled her nipple...

Abiha woke, sitting up with her heart pounding. She looked down and blushed. Her robe had parted while she slept. That probably triggered the dream. She paused as she was closing the neckline when she saw that fingerprints were appearing in a delicate gold on her skin.

She swallowed, and her body shook. She suddenly doubted that it was just a dream. She got off the pallet and opened the door, walking out into the night and looking at the forest fifty meters away. She saw a shadow move and exhaled slowly. This reminded her of what had begun to happen when she was in her late teens. Someone or something had begun watching her. It was never threatening, but it was there.

There was a rustling in the trees, and she stood, stepping toward the edge of the walkway, slowly smiling as a very familiar creature bounded out of the trees and came toward her.

She knelt to catch the loping creature around the neck, and she whispered, “Maku. I have missed you.”

She was being frantically licked and exposed to a lot of soft whimpers and happy paws.

It took ten minutes of letting him take in her scent before he calmed down. She stroked his head, and they sat quietly and watched the night give way to dawn.

When she heard someone stirring in the house, she got up, and Maku came with her. She wiped herself down with a damp cloth, pinned her hair up, and slid the first of the formal robes over her skin. Maku sat next to her, sleeping with the cute wheeze that she remembered.

She sighed as she put on the multiple layers of robes that the forest had decided on as the clothing for his people. It had been his choice. The entire village had been taken from the folklore of the first colonists. Every single bit of human evolution and mythology had been laid out for him, and the entity that controlled the first forest of Anuth had made his choices. He had built a society that he was comfortable with, and that is what those inside the forest abided by.

Due to the restricted population, some allowances were made when it came to the inheritance of family responsibilities. As the eldest child of her parent, she had the responsibility for