Page 2 of Sacred

It stared at me for a long moment, eyes big and soulful. Then it trotted over and quickly ate the raisins before turning tail and vanishing back into the woods. I smiled. Another animal saved from touching the fence.Praise you, Eternal Master.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, committing the deer’s face to memory so I could paint it later. Then I opened my eyes and glanced up at the sky, lips twisting in contemplation. It wasn’t dark yet, but the sun was sinking low. If I didn’t leave soon, I’d wind up walking back to Alderwood in the dark.

Another half-hour would be fine, though. I needed more raisins to replace the ones I gave to the deer, and a few more raspberries couldn’t hurt, either.

I stepped back over to the wild raisin shrub near the fence and carefully picked some more of the black, shriveled berries, my nose wrinkling as I worked. The leaves of the plant smelled awful at this time of the year, like sweaty feet, but the raisins were a delicious snack, and they were also one of the secret ingredients in the pies I made that everyone loved.

I glanced up at the sky again. The sun had sunk even lower, and the twilight hour would soon begin.

“Just a few more,” I muttered to myself, plucking another raisin. I finally gathered enough and rose to my feet, tucking my basket under my arm.

One of the large bone charms that hung from sticks planted in front of the fence line jangled distantly. My pulse instantlypicked back up. A deer couldn’t brush against one of those charms as it passed. They weren’t tall enough. Most bears weren’t tall enough, either.

That meant…

I slowly turned and peered to the left, breaths coming fast and shallow. The shadows cast by the trees made it too dark to see anything properly, but I could hear footsteps crunching over dead leaves and sticks, drawing closer by the second. They were human footsteps this time, loud and heavy enough that they could only come from a large person clad in boots.

If it was the middle of the afternoon, I wouldn’t be afraid. I would make the same assumption I made an hour earlier; that it was a wayward hiker. But not this late in the day. Even the outsiders knew to stay out of the wilderness at night.

Evil lurked the woods beyond the borders of our land, often taking the form of a man or woman. Everyone knew that.

The footsteps drew closer, sending a chill down my spine. I didn’t wait for another second.

I turned and ran, the darkness closing in behind me.

2

Sebastian

“She didn’t see you,did she?” My friend Jesse jostled my side with his elbow as we trudged down the winding forest trail. “That cult girl you spotted earlier, I mean.”

I shook my head. “Nah, she didn’t see anything. Don’t worry.”

I was playing it cool, but heat was rushing through me as I remembered the girl I’d spied from behind the bushes when I went to take a leak mid-hike.

She was quite far off in the distance at the time, but I could hear her sweet voice, drawing me in like a siren with its haunting song. I’d crept closer and closer, suddenly desperate to catch a glimpse of a Covenant woman.

I was half-expecting a wizened old crone with a pointy hat, but I was pleasantly surprised to see a gorgeous young woman with wide eyes, delicate features, and delicious curves instead. She was plucking berries off shrubs and dropping them in a wicker basket like she belonged in a bucolic painting.

Despite her blissfully innocent, harmless appearance, I knew she was anything but innocent. Lurking under that sweet-faced façade was a malevolent little witch.Literally.Thesefucking Covenant freaks had lived off this land for centuries, worshipping ‘dark lords’ and trying to summon demons with their murderous rituals and blood-soaked altars hidden all over the forest.

Given my family’s history with them, I wanted nothing more than to whisk that girl right over the fence and take out every last bit of my rage on her lithe body. I would defile it, break it, destroy it. Destroyher, along with every last member of her sick, twisted sect.

Jesse glanced up at the rapidly darkening sky. He had absolutely no idea about the sick thoughts simmering in my head, and I planned to keep it that way. “You know where we’re going, right?” he said, brows knitted with concern. “I don’t want to be stuck out here after dark.”

I dipped my chin in a brief nod, pointing at the humming fence on our left. “It’s a straight shot down to the end of this fence. Forty minutes, maybe. That’s the southwest corner of the Covenant’s land. We parked right near it.”

“Are you sure? This doesn’t look familiar.”

I chuckled. “Trust me. I’ve been wandering around these woods since I was a kid. This is the same way we came in,” I said. “It just looks different at this time of day.”

As the sun began to set, the dying light cast long shadows across the forest floor, and the green foliage around us shifted to a deeper, almost-black hue. At the same time, the towering tree branches seemed to close in over our heads, giving the eerie impression that we were slowly getting caught in a trap.

Others found this land frightening after dark—Jesse included, city boy that he was—but I found it thrilling. The wilderness, though vast and wild, felt alive with a quiet, almost reverent energy. It was no wonder the Covenant cultists had set up home here all those years ago.

“Well, I’m glad you know the way,” Jesse grumbled, feet crunching over a pile of dead leaves. “If I was here alone, I’d probably wind up getting eaten by a fucking bear.”

The path narrowed up ahead, and I took the lead, brushing past yet another talisman those Covenant fuckers had strung up around the woods to scare outsiders. It rattled loudly, the echoes reverberating in the cool air around us.

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