[Bonus chapter] Trapped... as Hell

Elize gripped the antlers of the stag fiercely. She shrieked when the stag took off in the night of the wilderness. She rode him over the hills, down the slopes, over the snow-covered moors and plains. They passed the frozen lake and Elize was sure that they would again come back to the same lake, because that was what she was doing every night—she was circling the same path repeatedly.

However, several hours passed and she didn't come across the lake. All of a sudden, she felt the air growing very thick around her. She felt stifled. She closed her eyes. Her lungs felt as if they were being squished. She screamed, asking the stag to stop. The air that surrounded her was squeezing her so hard that if she didn't get out of this place, she thought she would die of being squished. "Stoopppp!" she shouted, but the stag didn't. Instead, it leapt high. The air around them opened a little with a ripple and they landed some twenty feet away. "Gods above!" she rasped. What the hell was that? She wanted to look back but the stag galloped away—now a blur of white loping over snow-covered rocks and pine trees. The rest of the ride was a blur of dark skies and dirt road, and occasional boulders and wild blooms.

Her heart accelerated when the stag slowed and they entered a thicket of naked pine trees. She could see that they were wet and damp and their branches were extended and intertwined so densely that they had formed a sort of mesh. The stag stood in front of this mesh of branches, unease and dread sinking in her skin as her gaze settled on the green shimmery lights that flickered faintly around the cage. As the stag stopped there, her heart pounded with a wild mix of emotions and the topmost was fear. "Where have you brought me?" she asked the stag as if it would answer her. Her breath became ragged when upon hearing her voice the green shimmery light intensified a little. She dismounted the stag, feeling tired in all the wrong places. The moment her feet were on the ground, the stag let out a low chuffing sound.

"Lord!" a male voice came from somewhere inside the mesh of the branches. "Are you there?"

The stag walked to the wood and rubbed his hooves over it as if indicating the man that he was there.

"Oh, bless me!" the man shouted with a chortle.

Elize got curious. And she got curious as hell. Who was the man inside? She looked around the wood and saw that the branches thinned at the top. It meant that she could see who was there inside. She swiveled her head for a tree where she could climb. On the right was the perfect one. When Elize was atop it, she gazed inside the cage and shock flitted through her body when she found a man inside it. "Fuck!" she rasped, as she stared at him and he stared at her. She never expected to break the spell and get out, let alone find a man. Elize was… stunned. "Who are you?" she asked as she looked into the unnaturally arctic blue eyes of the man. He had several days worth of beard and auburn hair that were dangling over his neck.

The man tipped his head back and a grin formed on his face. "Thank you, Lord!" he shouted. "For getting help!"

Elize jerked her head back when the stag chuffed again and pranced on his hooves.

"Lord is my stag's name!" the man said with a chuckle. He couldn't stop smiling. "Oh, I am Prince Auril of the druid kingdom of Zelena. And who are you?" he sounded too excited.

Elize stared at him in stunned silence for a while and when her thoughts collected, she stuttered, "I— I am Elize."

"Elize, you have come as a gift to me," he said as his heart sped up. "Can you help me to get out of this cage?"

Elize blinked once, and then twice. Prince Auril of the druid kingdom of Zelena? He was a druid? And not green in color? And that too in a package this surreal? Her mind had a thousand questions. "How?" she squeaked.

Auril crossed his hands across his chest and said, "That's for you to figure out. Just get me out of this cage and I will do whatever you want from me."

That reply silenced her for a long time. Her heart thudded. The answer was so unexpected and so sudden that her chest tightened. This was her chance of escape. "Whatever I want?"

"Yes!" he replied as his eyes swept over her.

"Can you take me out of this forest?" She wanted to remain still as she asked the question, but she found herself trembling at the idea.

His lips curled up. "Of course, I can," he said confidently with an ear-to-ear grin.

A laughter rattled through her. "Then I will free you as soon as I can!" Saying that Elize started seeing as to where the weakest link was. She was no fool to not understand that the green shimmery lights were magic. She had seen them earlier and she thanked the gods for having some experience of the Lore. She would do anything to get out of here.

It took an hour for her to find the weakest link of meshed wood. It was on the top and she had to crawl over to that place very carefully. And so Elize started crawling… like a monkey. As soon as she reached there, she used all her force to break it. The woods cracked under the impact. She whooped. "Yay!" She cracked more branches around it, even as the green lights crackled around her, burned her fingers and whatever skin that came in contact. She lowered her arm to him and said, "Grab it."

Auril grabbed her arm, but what happened next was unbelievable. The branches around her started cracking at a rapid rate. Before she knew, Elize was falling in the pit. She screamed as she fell down and screamed even more when the branches above them stitched back. Elize was trapped… as hell. She was pale and weak and bruised and bleeding.

Dawn was about to break.

---

"Ride fast, Arawn!" Caleb barked at the centaur. He had come back from Galahar just an hour back and had rushed to Fulshire forest to be with his mate, his wife. He was too excited. "I'd rather shift and run faster," he said impatiently. After his encounter at Galahar, after staying away from her for over two weeks, he just couldn't wait to see her, smell her, wrap her in his arms. And if he was lucky, she would drink from him.

"Damn it!" Arawn snapped. "I am galloping. Can't you see?"