Riding the Fae Knight Ch. 01

The villagers said Carterhaugh was haunted. Whispers clung to the hedgerows like the morning mist, curling into the ears of children and lovers alike. No maiden should walk the paths alone, they said especially not in autumn, and never after the first frost, when the veil thinned and the old things walked again.

Janet went anyway.

Her boots sank into the mossy trail, damp with decay and the air heavy sweet tang of dying things. Every breath she took was full of earth and rot and the ghost of summer. The trees here were old, older than any prayer that might protect her. The wind in their branches spoke in languages no church could remember. Janet didn't walk softly. Let them hear her.

The hem of her cloak, brown, wool, stitched by her own hand, was already wet and snagged with burrs. Underneath, her body moved with quiet purpose: not delicate and not clumsy. Hers was the kind of body shaped by walking, lifting, bending. Her hips brushed by the brambles without apology. Her thighs burned from the climb, but she welcomed it. Some might have called her plain. Others wouldn't have dared describe her at all.

There was no one else on the path that morning, just Janet, and the silence, and a pull beneath her breastbone guiding her deeper, past the standing stones where nettles grew tall, past the blackthorn trees clotted with berries.

Suddenly at the heart of the forest, Janet stood before a rosebush in bloom. Impossible double blooms, perfect even now as the season changed to Autumn. She reached out, wrapped her fingers around the stem of a perfect rosy, pink bloom, and pulled it free.

"You shouldn't have touched that." The voice came like a shift in air pressure. Low. Male. Not kind.

Janet turned slowly.

He stepped from the trees with no sound at all, like a thought made flesh. There were leaves in his hair, bark on his skin, the scent of damp soil and something else, something mineral and old. A man at first glance, but not entirely. Janet didn't back away.

He smiled, sharp and slow, eyes drinking her in like a creature who hadn't fed in years.

"The forest," he said, "takes what it's owed."

And Janet, heartbeat thudding steady as hooves in her chest, opened her hand and let the rose fall.

---

Janet returned three days later. Not because of the rose. Not because of the warnings or the thrill of being reckless. She came back because something had changed. The forest no longer felt quiet. It was somehow alive.

The wind moved around her as if it knew her name. The moss welcomed her steps. She should have been afraid, but her fear was quieter now, folded deep beneath her ribs, like a page turned and marked for later. She felt eyes on her. She didn't run.

The second time, she saw him at a distance. Just a shadow between the oaks, impossibly still. When she turned to look, he was gone, but the air where he had stood smelled of woodsmoke and something sweeter, like crushed roses.

The third time, she caught a clearer glimpse. He stood half-concealed behind a fallen tree, one shoulder bare, a strip of fine cloth caught on a branch: Gold-threaded green, like leaf-veins.

His hair, somehow light and dark at once, moved on the breeze. It was wild and too long for a courtly man. His jaw was sharp enough to cut moonlight. He didn't smile, and there was something hungry in the way he looked at her. She blinked, and he was gone again. But her breath caught in her throat, and she didn't breathe properly for the rest of the day.

The fourth time, he spoke again.

"You keep coming back," he said.

She didn't startle this time. He was behind her, close enough for his breath to touch her neck. She smelled rain on his skin and some wild, bitter root she couldn't name.

"I'm not afraid of forests," she said.

"You should be."

He moved into view, slowly. She could see more of him now. His chest, bare beneath an open jacket of green leather and living moss, was all carved muscle and shadow. There was a ring of ivy twined around his forearm, moving ever so slightly, as if alive.

And his face, he was beautiful. Not the way boys were. He was not soft. Not kind. He was the kind of beautiful that burned into memory. High cheekbones, long lashes, the cruel curve of his lips. His eyes were too light--grey or green or silver depending on how he turned. Not mortal.

Janet knew she should look away. She didn't. He tilted his head, studying her in return.

"You saw me," he said, almost amused. "Most don't."

"I see you," she whispered back. And then he was gone again.

---

That night, Janet dreamed of antlers and vines, of fingers brushing her hips, of lips just above hers saying nothing at all. She woke damp and aching, the echo of a gaze still heavy on her skin.

Carterhaugh pulsed with it. The trees swayed without wind. The birds held their breath. Even the ground seemed warmer than it should've been in autumn, damp and ready beneath her feet. Janet didn't wander this time. She went to the rosebush like it belonged to her.

She didn't know if he would come.

She stood where he had vanished the last time, spine straight, heart thudding its traitorous rhythm. Her thighs pressed together, aching from dreams that had made her tremble in her sleep. She had woken with slick thighs and bitten lips and no shame at all.

"I see you," she finally said aloud. The words were a spell. The forest shifted, and he stepped from it like a secret unfolding. No pretense of hiding this time. No coy shadowplay. Just him., Bare-chested again, though it was cold. Barefoot, because of course he was. The green of his eyes struck her like a blow, fierce and ancient, filled with something hungry that had waited far too long.

She didn't ask his name. She didn't offer hers.

Instead, she walked toward him with purpose. He didn't move, but his eyes followed every sway of her hips, every inch of ground she claimed between them. When she stood before him, close enough to feel the warmth of him, to see the gold flecks in his irises, she lifted her hand and placed it flat against his chest. His skin was hot. Not fevered, not mortal warmth. Sunlight-under-earth warmth. Old warmth. It slid through her palm and lit her bones.

"Are you real?" she whispered.

His hand closed gently around her wrist, not to stop her, just to feel.

"You keep calling me," he said, voice low and ragged. "How could I not come?"

Janet leaned in and kissed him. His lips parted under hers, and his hand slid to her waist with a groan that wasn't human. It was deeper, guttural, like stone grinding against stone. Like the forest groaning to life around them.

Their mouths met and opened again. Tongues touched. Teeth grazed. She kissed him like a woman possessed, and he kissed her like he wanted to drown in it. He tasted like smoke and something green and bitter. She licked into him anyway.

Her cloak hit the forest floor with a whisper. Then her laces loosened under his hands, quick, precise, reverent. He didn't ask for permission. He read it in her breath, in the way her hips arched toward him, in the hands clawing down his back.

He slid her shift down, her nipples peaked in the cold air. He fell to his knees without a word and looked up at her like she was something holy.

His mouth found her breast. His tongue was sin.

She cried out, back arching, hands in his hair: wild, tangled, his. He suckled like he needed it, like it fed something starving inside him. Then his hand found the heat between her thighs. Janet gasped.

He stroked slowly at first, parting her folds with care, then with confidence, finding her slick and ready. His thumb circled her clit while his fingers slipped lower, dipping into her with maddening patience.

"You're--" he started, but broke off with a groan. "Gods, you're--"

She silenced him with another kiss. She was done with words. She wanted more.

They came together on the moss, tangled and gasping. She straddled him, bare thighs pressed to his hips, taking his cock in her hand without ceremony. Thick, long, perfect. He shuddered at her touch, but let her guide him. When she sank down onto him, her mouth fell open with a sound she didn't recognise as hers. He filled her, deep, all the way, and held her hips as if he'd break if he didn't.

"Janet," he breathed, finally giving her name form.

She rode him slowly at first, letting herself adjust to the stretch, the pressure, the delicious fullness. His hands gripped her hips, thumbs tracing circles against her bones. Then she picked up the pace, hips rolling, grinding, claiming. The rhythm built between them like thunder, like a storm ready to break. She looked down at him and saw need. Saw awe. Saw a man undone beneath her. She rode him harder. Faster.

His moans spilled against her skin. He whispered her name like a prayer and bucked into her, meeting every thrust, gasping as if each one stripped him bare. Her climax came like a stormfront: sudden and shattering. She cried out, her body convulsing, clenching around him. He groaned and held her tight as he followed, spilling into her with a deep, broken sound that made her shiver even through the afterglow.

They clung together for a long moment. Nothing but panting and the sound of the trees around them, still swaying like witnesses. Then Janet stood. She dressed without shame, cheeks flushed, hair wild. Her legs trembled slightly, and she relished the ache between them. He watched her, now on his knees, eyes soft and sated.

"Will I see you again?" he asked.

Janet smiled. "If the forest calls," she said, "I'll answer." And then she left him there, naked and spent among the moss, while the trees whispered her name.