Lina had stepped into the forest only once before—years ago, as a child—when chasing a lost lamb. That day, the trees had felt tall but harmless, the moss springy beneath her bare feet. She remembered how the sunlight had danced through the branches and how quickly the way back home had become unclear. She hadn't stayed long.
But this time was different.
This time, the forest felt alive.
It pulled her.
It wanted her.
She didn't even realize how far she had walked until the trees had thickened and the air turned heavy. The light was dimmer now, filtered through layers of mist and leaves that shimmered faintly. The air smelled of damp earth and crushed petals.
Behind her, the path was gone.
Ahead, the forest breathed.
She took a step forward, her heart fluttering like a bird in her chest. Something about the silence was soft, inviting. Her skin prickled—not in fear, but anticipation. A cool breeze brushed her cheeks like a lover's fingertips, and she shivered.
Then she heard it.
A voice.
Low, melodic… just beyond the trees.
"Lina…"
She froze.
It was Tomas's voice.
She would have sworn it.
But Tomas had never spoken her name like that. There was warmth in it… need… hunger.
"Come to me."
Her breath hitched. Her legs moved before her mind caught up.
---
The deeper she went, the stranger the forest became. The trees were wrong—taller than she remembered, their bark smooth as skin, their limbs reaching like arms. Leaves brushed her shoulders as she passed, curling in her hair like fingers. The air grew warmer, almost humid, thick with the scent of roses, musk, and something else… something feral.
She found herself remembering Tomas—not as he was, but how she wished he'd been. A little taller. His hands more calloused, more certain. His voice slower, darker. He had been sweet. Gentle. Predictable.
But she had always craved more.
Lina gasped as her foot slipped on a patch of moss. She stumbled forward and caught herself against a tree, only to realize that it was warm to the touch—like flesh, not bark. The texture made her withdraw her hand.
And then…
She saw him.
Standing at the edge of a small glade, surrounded by low mist and wildflowers.
He was… perfect.
Taller than Tomas. Shoulders broad, chest bare. His skin the color of honey and sunlight. Hair dark and tousled. Eyes the shade of winter lakes—icy and infinite.
He smiled.
And it was the kind of smile she had only ever dreamed of. The kind that said: I've been waiting for you.
Lina's knees weakened.
She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came.
He stepped toward her slowly. The glade around them bloomed wider with each footfall, as if the forest moved to accommodate him. Birds went silent. The air throbbed with quiet heat.
"You've come far, Lina."
His voice was deeper now, almost inside her.
"How… how do you know my name?"
"I know everything you've dreamed."
He was close now. So close she could smell him—like cedar and fire and something sweet beneath it, something that stirred her blood.
He reached out, brushing a lock of hair from her cheek.
She didn't move away.
---
When his fingers touched her skin, she gasped.
It wasn't just a caress—it was a promise. Her body responded before her mind allowed permission: her breath caught, her thighs tensed, her lips parted slightly. No one had ever made her feel that way with a single touch.
She should have been afraid.
But she wasn't.
She felt seen.
Not the way Tomas saw her, or her mother, or the villagers who always looked past her beauty with jealousy or suspicion. Here, under the strange light of this enchanted wood, she felt worshipped.
"I've waited so long," he whispered, drawing nearer. "You are more than you know. You ache for more. Let me give it to you."
His hands found her waist. His touch was electric—cool and hot, grounding and dizzying.
She didn't protest.
He pressed his lips to her neck, and she moaned—not in shock, but in something older, deeper.
The forest hushed.
Even the wind seemed to pause.
And then… Lina melted into him.
---
She remembered soft grass beneath her, damp with dew. Fingers tracing reverent paths along her skin. The slow, aching way he took his time, as though learning her by heart. She gave in with a sigh, every moan a thread pulled from her soul.
The man—if he was a man—touched her like no one ever had. His hands were skilled, patient, coaxing every hidden desire from where she'd buried it deep. Her pulse quickened. Her hips moved without thought. Her body bloomed under him like a flower hungry for the sun.
She cried out his name—
Only to realize she didn't know it.
But it didn't matter.
He filled the emptiness in her. Not just physically—but spiritually, intimately. He became the space between her breaths. The heat behind her eyes. The throb that overtook her mind.
Pleasure rolled through her like thunder, growing sharper, more consuming. Her senses blurred. All she could hear was his voice in her ear, coaxing her deeper.
"Give it all to me."
"Let go."
"Let me keep you."
And she did.
Over and over.
Until she no longer remembered the path she came from.
Until Tomas became a flicker in the dark.
Until her name no longer sounded like her own.
Lina's breath trembled as his lips grazed her collarbone.
He moved like water — fluid, natural, impossible to hold. Every inch of him felt crafted to undo her: the way his hands framed her waist, fingers splaying slowly over her hips like he was claiming sacred ground; the way his mouth worked in soft, hot circles at the curve of her throat, trailing downward, reverent and hungry.
She whimpered.
Not in fear.
In need.
He murmured her name again — Lina — and it sounded like prayer and possession all at once. Each syllable seemed to echo in the marrow of her bones, stirring heat where she hadn't felt it in months, maybe years.
She should've questioned it. She should've wondered who or what he really was.
But she couldn't.
Every part of her mind that wanted to resist was dulled by the sheer, aching pleasure that bloomed with every slow, deliberate touch.
His fingers slid along her inner thighs, spreading warmth like ink across parchment. His palms were firm, guiding, never demanding. His breath was velvet against her skin. He explored her like she was something ancient and beautiful — a story written in flesh.
She arched beneath him as his lips returned to her chest, trailing lower, lingering.
Time ceased to matter.
There was only now.
Only him.
---
The glade around them pulsed like a heart. Leaves shimmered as if the moonlight were melting into silver. Mist pooled like breath around their bodies. Even the trees seemed to lean closer, branches shifting in slow, languid rhythms, like the forest itself was watching — or… listening.
She felt him deepen.
Not just within her body — though she ached as he moved — but within her soul.
With every slow stroke of his hand along her side, every brush of his lips across her stomach, Lina felt more… open. As though her skin had become translucent, every nerve humming with desire and devotion. He worshipped her like she was the only woman in the world.
And maybe… in that moment… she was.
When he whispered, "You're mine now," she shuddered.
The words didn't frighten her.
They completed her.
---
Her senses tangled — pleasure tangled with memory, memory blurred with fantasy. She saw flashes of her wedding night with Tomas, and yet, it was this creature's hands upon her in the vision. She saw herself as a girl, dreaming of romance, of mystery — and it was this figure, this shadowed man in the woods, who stood in all her childhood imaginings.
He had always been there.
Waiting.
In dreams.
In desires.
In the hush of wind at her window.
He kissed her again and the world went silent.
And then—Lina shattered.
Not with pain.
With surrender.
Her climax came like a storm rolling through her — slow at first, building, rising. She tried to hold onto herself, to remember the village, Tomas, the way her name used to sound — but it slipped from her.
Pleasure stripped her clean.
She cried out.
Not his name.
Not her own.
Just a sound — wild and free — as she tipped into darkness and ecstasy.
---
She didn't know how long they remained tangled together. She only knew that his body never grew cold, never tired, never released her completely.
He kissed the curve of her back, her thighs, the insides of her wrists like they were talismans.
He whispered secrets in a language she didn't understand, though the meaning echoed in her blood.
"You are becoming."
"You are forgetting."
"You are mine."
And with every whispered devotion, Lina felt a piece of herself slip away — not violently, but softly, like petals falling from a flower at dusk.
She was still Lina.
But only just.
---
At one point, she sat up in the glade, the air warm against her bare skin. Her hair was tangled with blossoms, her lips swollen with kisses, her legs trembling with aftershocks. The man — no, the being — knelt before her, hands cradling her hips like she was sacred.
He gazed up at her with endless eyes.
And she whispered, "Who are you?"
His smile deepened.
"I am whatever you need."
"But what am I to you?"
He leaned forward, placing his forehead against her belly.
"My song. My vessel. My echo."
She didn't understand.
But she didn't need to.
She tilted his chin, and he kissed her again.
It was softer this time.
But no less consuming.
---
In the distance, a crow called once — sharp and out of place.
The spell fractured for just a moment.
Lina turned her head toward the sound and something inside her tugged. A memory — her mother's voice. The creak of the old gate. A half-finished dress she had been sewing. Her husband's warm but clumsy touch.
All of it…
Felt far away now.
As if belonging to someone else.
She blinked, her heart twisting.
"Wait… I…"
The man touched her chest — gently, reassuring.
"You're safe."
And with that, the moment passed.
The memory faded like a dream before dawn.
And Lina… smiled.
She curled into him, letting her legs entwine with his. The forest sighed around them. The leaves above shimmered like stars.
And deep in the canopy, something watched.
Not hostile.
Not angry.
Just hungry.
Lina's breath caught in her throat.
The air was heavy with heat, thick as velvet, the scent of moss and jasmine curling around her like a second skin. Her body ached — not with pain, but with need, a relentless hunger that gnawed gently at the edges of her sanity. She felt everything: the cool earth beneath her thighs, the heat of his breath on her skin, the shimmer of starlight through the canopy above.
He was there — he, the man she desired, the shape she had called out to in dreams before she even knew he existed.
His hands slid along her thighs, thumbs pressing gently against the softest places. She gasped, her body lifting instinctively to meet his touch. He moved like a phantom, slow and sure, every inch of him designed to undo her.
His lips parted against her stomach, the scrape of his breath warm and teasing.
"You are close," he whispered. Not just in body. In spirit. In unraveling.
She felt it, too — that shimmering edge. As though pleasure itself had become a precipice, and she was leaning over it, hair whipping wild in the storm of her want.
He rose above her.
Eyes dark as night.
Chest lithe, sculpted, impossibly warm.
And when he entered her — she felt it not only in her body, but in her soul. It was not just penetration. It was possession. A claiming. Her body surged up to meet him, a cry caught in her throat, her hands clutching his back as though to tether herself to reality.
But reality had long since slipped away.
Only he remained.
And the rhythm of him — slow at first, deliberate, hips rolling in deep strokes — began to fill her with something too large, too vast, to name. Her moans spilled into the forest like music, like lost prayers. Each sound she made seemed to ripple through the trees, carried on the wind, echoing back to her in strange, melodic waves.
Lina… Lina… Lina…
The forest knew her name.
And was about to forget it.
---
He thrust deeper.
Not violently, but with purpose, like he was searching for the center of her — and finding it. Her back arched, her throat exposed to the night air, her mouth open in silent abandon.
Stars spun behind her eyes.
Time cracked apart.
She clung to him, trembling.
His movements quickened, the rhythm building, building — a crescendo not only of lust but of transformation. With every thrust, a memory slipped away: her mother's lullaby, the smell of bread from the bakery, the exact shade of blue in Tomas' eyes.
Gone.
Gone.
Gone.
But she didn't care.
In that moment, her body ruled everything.
Her nipples hardened under the brush of his chest. Her legs wrapped tightly around his hips. Each thrust pulled a gasp, a moan, a cry of desperate gratitude from her lips.
She wanted to disappear.
She wanted to dissolve into this rhythm, into this moment, to become the forest, the moan in the wind, the ghost of pleasure in the leaves.
Her climax was not a single event.
It came in waves — rising, shattering, then rising again.
She called out.
His name?
Her name?
She no longer knew.
She only knew the blinding light behind her eyes, the way her body spasmed with a pleasure so deep it felt like death and rebirth. She clutched at moss, nails digging into soil, the earth cradling her as her voice was carried away into the night.
And when it was over — when her thighs fell open and her body trembled and he collapsed beside her, smiling with something ancient and mournful — she realized she couldn't remember her own voice.
He touched her cheek.
"You're fading, Lina," he whispered, almost lovingly. "Let it happen. Let the forest keep you."
She tried to speak.
But the words didn't come.
She blinked, and where her thoughts should have been were only echoes. Faint laughter. A distant cry. A moment of warmth beneath a summer sun she could no longer name.
She turned to him, panic swelling.
He drew her close.
"Shhh. You're beautiful now," he murmured, stroking her hair. "You're not just Lina anymore. You're the song in the branches. The heat in the moss. The sigh in the mist."
She tried to remember Tomas.
His face, his voice.
But it was like trying to hold onto water.
Her hands curled around nothing.
Tears welled in her eyes — and still, her body ached for him. Even as she faded, the need remained.
He kissed her once more — deep, slow, final.
And then… her form softened.
The light in her eyes dimmed.
She exhaled one last breath.
And her body… began to vanish.
First her hands — melting into mist. Then her legs, curling like smoke. Her lips were the last to go, parted slightly in pleasure, even as the last breath of her name slipped away and was caught by the wind.
---
The trees whispered her name once.
Then silence.
Only the wind remained.
Only a faint warmth in the moss where her body had lain.
And the soft, satisfied breath of the figure who rose from the shadows, shifting already into a new shape — waiting, once more, for the next woman to enter the woods.