Page 1 of The Satyr's Wood

Prologue

Barbasa reclined against a tree as he rubbed a thumb across the carved reed pipes. It had been long since he had fashioned an aulos but he had little to do with his time as of late and it proved him with some small pleasure. Besides, he had nothing but time on his hands. He no longer had a flock to guide and provide for. There was just him and the woods where he’d chosen to make his home.

Tilting his head back, he breathed deeply, drawing the sweet air into his lungs. Sunlight dappled through the trees as birds sang to each other from where they fluttered among the branches. It was good. Better than good, actually. After centuries trapped in the labyrinth, he had forgotten the taste of fresh, clean air and water. Of proper food prepared in a proper home that he’d found abandoned in the depths of the woods he claimed for his own. Acorn bread had almost wiped out the memory of the taste of human flesh. He wished for it to be gone more than anything. Although his kind took pleasure in frightening humans, that was a feast that they’d never indulged in. The labyrinth had turned him and his flock into monsters in truth.

Somehow, he’d managed to hold on and remember himself. He never descended into the craven madness of his flock. That knowledge had been a source of guilt before he even left the labyrinth but more so afterward with the murder of his kin staining his hands. But he hadn’t been able to risk bringing them out into the world. As much as he’d hoped that maybe he could save them, he’d realized that the taint had to die in the labyrinth with them.

By all rights he should have died as well but he’d been unable to carry it out no matter how his conscience whispered to him.

Placing the reeds to his lips, he pushed his breath through the instrument, the double reeds of each pipe picking up his song. His fingers slid over the holes, the melody of one pipe counterbalanced by the drone of the other weaving in his mind threads of memories of ages past. Time before the labyrinth which was faded and little more than a shadow in his mind, diluted from the horror that became his existence.

The last note echoing, he lowered the aulos and sighed, his eyes glancing restlessly among the beauty of his surroundings. How was it that he was free and possessing such a territory and yet his music possessed such melancholy? Was he... lonely? His skin shivered as he felt a dark emptiness close in around him, muting the splendor of nature. The poison of the labyrinth that he always feared he contained still within him, rushed through his blood, heightened his senses, and made his cock swell and pulse within its sheath.

It was a strange madness that stirred his lust so unnaturally. He did not need that. He needed a companion to temper the monster that had grown within him.

Barbasa threw back his head and laughed. What companion would dare to enter the wilderness and chance the awaiting dangers? Surely, they would be madder than he! The forest would devour them... but then again, he could not guarantee that he would not.

Chuckling wildly, he tossed the aulos, his yellow eyes following it as it sang its last hollow note as it whipped through the air before landing with a splash in the pond. Leaping to his hooves he began to pitch into primal dance, his hair streaming behind him. Round and round he danced among the trees, his hooves tapping a lively rhythm. His breath rushed in and out of him as his heart raced and for a moment it was as if he was chasing prey among the dark corridors of the labyrinth once more. Leaping with a turn, he laughed again, banishing the dark,looming walls in his mind. He was not in that place, he was free, and whatever he desired or needed he would chase and claim.

With a deep howl he spun and dashed through the woods. Running. Running. His nostrils flared, a hunger crawling up from within his belly. A forbidden pleasure ran up his spine as his cock extruded and released threads of cum that dripped from its tip. It flexed, seeking to burrow deep and slake its need within his prey.

Running until exhaustion claimed him, Barbasa gripped his cock hard within his hand and stroked it viciously, his natural lubrication making his hand glide slick over his shaft so that each pass caused his hand to curl tight and tug at the head. His hips kicked and pumped as he forced his cock to burrow repeatedly into his tight hold as it swelled further, growing as the veins bulged in the way of his kind as his pleasure grew. That pleasure wound deeper as a hot thread coiled through him, contracting and stretching until it unraveled and his howl terminated on a roar and his hot seed pulsed in thick jets from his tip along the fronds of ferns and sunlit leaves of the bushes before him.

He stared at evidence of his lust, his seed wasted upon the ground, and felt emptier than ever. As he would until the madness caught him again.

Chapter 1

Tiffany crept from the boardinghouse—the building which had more recently become her jail with the new curfews and restriction in place on the women. Glancing warily up and down the street, she gripped the strap of her backpack so firmly in her hand that her knuckles had whitened around as she listened intently for any hint of sound. It was ridiculous. She was thirty-seven and forced to sneak away like a runaway child, but she had little choice. Rumors of women being carried off by monsters had spread to town and people were panicking as a call went out among the men to seal the town. For the safety of the women, they said, but she wasn’t fooled. She could feel the cage descending and closing around her with every moment. She had to get out of there before someone took notice.

She certainly didn’t have any desire to stay. She wasn’t a young woman over whom the men competed—and thank the gods for that—but there had been more than one speculative look in her direction recently as the lay of the land became more apparent to them. That was enough to tell her that it was time to get the hell out, especially not when the town seemed to be festering as it slowly declined. The gates were barred as they hunkered within the ruins of houses that they attempted to repair and maintain—most poorly—while the townsmen seized all that they wanted under the claim that it was for everyone’s safety and welfare. According to the entire town, she should be happy to have whatever she could get in the rundown ruins and submit to the authority of those around her since she was taken in. And yet the creatures beyond the gates who passed freely stirred a yearning within her.

Inhuman, powerful and primal in appearance, she had watched them from afar as she wandered, desiring all that theyrepresented. While the people within the sad excuse for a town whispered fearfully of what such creatures could do to a human caught within their grasp, she was admittedly allured by the more carnal speculations of monsters hunting down innocent women to take as mates. It certainly didn’t inspire her to hide gratefully within the confines of the boarding house. Truthfully, it presented a more interesting prospect than anything offered behind the walls.

Tiffany’s lip curled contemptuously as she hurried stealthily toward the ramshackle gate. Unlike some towns that possessed better fortifications, their gate was pitiful enough that she had been passing back and forth through it with ease for weeks. It would serve as no obstacle to her now in her escape. She really marveled how they thought it would keep anything out that was determined to get in. It could neither hold her nor promise her safety. Truth be told, the fact that none of the monsters passing made any effort to bypass their gate probably gave her more confidence than was wise, but she had long ago decided she would rather take her risks out there than among men whom she had to be on constant guard against.

In the early days, she’d seen the women scream and try to fight off men who’d snatched them up as unwilling brides. She’d also walked in on the sight of her mother’s sister lying dead with a number of other women. Poison, her parents had whispered late at night. They had consumed poison together to escape that fate. And within a few years of that event, she’d seen men who were killed by other men to gain possession of their women within just scant years of the same fate falling upon her parents when they tried to protect her. There was now an illusion of civility within their town, but Tiffany had caught glimpses of that same hunger and desperation barely contained within the eyes of the men who’d recently begun to follow her.

It was a pity. The town had looked promising at first, but it was now definitely time to move on.

Approaching the gate at an angle, it only took Tiffany seconds to locate the loose board as she ran her fingers along the side of the gate. With a quick yank, she pulled the nailed board completely free by hand as she’d done countless times and wiggled through the opening with ease. Fortunately, being short and lean had helped her escape unwanted attention many times as it gave her a better ability to hide but also helped her get through small openings that others could not.

And they thought they could trap her? Ha! It only took her a matter of seconds to make her escape. She only hoped that some of the other women followed suit.

They would if they were smart. She overheard it enough from some of the men when they thought no one was listening. There were not enough women. They needed women. Each man should have a woman. They deserved it. Or so they insisted every month while they tried to make it sound reasonable that they wanted to send out parties to look for women on the road and bring them back to “safety.” All of it sounded sickeningly too familiar.

At least she had escaped that fate.

Tiffany smiled secretly to herself as she straightened and stretched at the other side of the gate. She allowed herself a moment to enjoy her freedom and the elation that came with it. She doubted anyone could see her at all anyway since she blended in with the shadows of the equipment near the gate so well. They wouldn’t know she escaped at all until morning and even then, the only thing that would mark her passage at all would be the gaping hole in the gate. That would certainly give them a pause since, unlike other times, she wouldn’t be returning to nail the board back in place with the small rock she hid by the gate.

Although she knew it was really the same as the road that continued within the confines of the gate, it didn’t feel the same at that exact moment as she left the gated wall behind her and wound her way along the streets of the old town that extended beyond it. It felt like she had stepped into a new world that was once more opening in front of her. This road could lead to a multitude of possibilities. But she didn’t rush forward, no matter how that reckless freedom made her want to. She was willing to take a risk, but she wasn’t stupid. Although many in town pretended that everything was perfectly normal, she had been out in the world enough to know that there were dangers out there. They knew it too, even if they wouldn’t admit it. It was what made the men reluctant to stray far from the safety of the town despite the numerous arguments and protests at the meeting building that the town wasn’t doing enough to bring in more women.

“Maybe, not the road for me,” she mumbled to herself as she took a quick glance around and reassessed her route. “No sense in making myself a clear target for them.”

It was a good time to leave the road if she was going to do it. She was at the edge of the old town. Her eyes flicked along the wide-open spaces that stretched ahead without a building in sight. She shivered, imagining how easy it would be for anyone just to come upon her walking there. Scavengers and other wandering people stuck to the roads as they moved from town to town and to the larger cities where dangers multiplied. There was no knowing how many men had come up with similar ideas.

She gazed toward an open stretch of long grass and turned toward it, pausing at the edge of the road. The faintest blush of early morning light made the waving grass visible enough and yet contained enough shadows for it to appear ominous. She swallowed nervously. Scavengers who came to town spoke of new dangers introduced into their world that were spoken inhushed voices among the townspeople and travelers she had met on the road.

Something about the forests...and deep mountain caverns. Gateways through which the monsters traveled and brought all manner of creatures and wildlife.

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