Chapter 12: Hunger in the Woods
The woods swallowed them. One moment, they were facing down the Green Knight on the road, a clash of shadow and steel. The next, the trees themselves had moved, limbs twisting like grappling hooks, earth rising in knotted roots to trip and separate. Vivian’s shadow-wings had shredded under the assault, and now she and Dale were alone, lost in a deep darkness that smelled of wet soil and ozone.
Vivian leaned against a rough-barked pine, her breathing shallow and fast. A tremor started in her hands, traveling up her arms. The Hunger was a physical ache, a hollow, tearing sensation deep in her gut that spread outwards, making her skin feel thin and her teeth ache. The fight had burned through her reserves. She needed to feed.
“Dale,” she whispered, the word catching in her throat.
He was at her side instantly, his shaved head gleaming with a faint sweat in the dappled moonlight filtering through the canopy. His blue eyes scanned her face, reading the desperate need there. He knew the signs.
“It’s bad,” he stated, his voice a low rumble.
“The Knight… the trees… I used too much,” she gasped, doubling over as a cramp seized her abdomen. Her red hair fell around her face like a curtain. “It’s… clawing at me. I can’t…”
“Shhh.” He placed a steadying hand on her back, his touch warm through her thin shirt. “Let me help.”
He guided her away from the tree, into a small clearing dominated by a massive, moss-covered boulder. The sigils etched into the ground here were dull, inactive. It was as private as they were going to get.
Vivian’s knees buckled. She went down not in a faint, but in purposeful surrender, her hands going to his belt. Her fingers fumbled with the buckle, frantic. Dale helped, popping the button of his jeans, yanking the zipper down. He wasn’t wearing anything underneath. His cock, already thickening, sprang free into the cool night air. It was thick, veined, and heavy.
Vivian didn’t hesitate. She was past foreplay, past seduction. This was pure biological necessity. She leaned forward and took him into her mouth, swallowing his length with a desperate, hungry motion. Her lips stretched around his girth. A low, broken moan vibrated from her throat directly onto his shaft.
“Fuck, Viv,” Dale grunted, his hands automatically moving to cradle her head. His fingers tangled in her fiery hair, not to force her, but to anchor them both.
She sucked him deep, her tongue a frantic, wet pressure along the underside of his cock. She pulled back, saliva slicking her chin, and dove down again, taking him deeper each time until the head bumped the back of her throat. She gagged, swallowed around him, and took him deeper still. The sound was obscene and wet, a sloppy, urgent rhythm that filled the small clearing. Her eyes were squeezed shut, tears of strain and relief leaking from the corners. This was the conduit. The energy began to flow, a faint, warm trickle at first, then a steady current as Dale responded.
He let her set the pace for a minute, letting her take what she needed from the act itself. But he could feel the Hunger was too deep for just this. She needed the full connection.
“That’s it, baby,” he murmured, his hips beginning to thrust in time with her bobbing head. “Take it. Take all of me.”
She pulled off with a slick pop, her lips swollen and glistening. “Need more,” she panted, her voice husky and raw. “Need you inside me, Dale. Now. Fuck me. Please.”
He didn’t need to be asked twice. In one fluid motion, he pulled her up, spun her around, and bent her over the cool, damp surface of the boulder. The moss was soft under her cheek. He yanked her jeans and panties down to her knees in a single, rough pull, exposing the pale curves of her ass. She was already soaked, her wetness glistening on her inner thighs.
Dale spat into his palm, slicked himself once, and then positioned the broad head of his cock at her entrance. He pushed.
He didn’t enter slowly. He sheathed himself inside her in one long, deep, relentless stroke, burying himself to the hilt. Vivian cried out, a sharp, wordless scream of relief that echoed off the trees. Her cunt clenched around him, tight and spasming, already pulling at his life force, at the sexual energy he freely gave.
He didn’t wait for her to adjust. The Hunger demanded intensity. He pulled back and slammed home again. And again. The sound of flesh slapping against flesh, of his balls hitting her clit with every drive, was stark and primal in the quiet woods. He fucked her with a brutal, piston-like rhythm, each thrust grinding her pelvis against the rough moss of the rock.
“Yes! Oh god, yes! Right there!” Vivian chanted, her words breaking into gasps. She reached back, one hand gripping his muscular thigh, her nails digging in. “Harder! Don’t stop! I can feel it… I’m getting it…”
Dale leaned over her, covering her body with his, his breath hot on her neck. He pistoned into her, his cock a hard, slick instrument of salvation. The feeding was mutual now, a feedback loop. Her succubus nature drew the energy from the act, from his climax building at the base of his spine, but their love—that deep, two-decade-old bond—filtered it, transformed it. It nourished her without draining him. He felt invigorated by her taking, his own pleasure amplified by the knowledge he was saving her.
“Come for me, Viv,” he grunted into her ear. “Take what you need. Milk my fucking cock with that sweet, hungry pussy.”
His dirty talk tipped her over the edge. Her back arched, her entire body locking rigid. A raw, guttural scream tore from her throat as her orgasm detonated. Her inner walls clamped down on his shaft in violent, rhythmic pulses, sucking at him, pulling the energy from him in a roaring flood. The hollow ache inside her vanished, replaced by a radiant, buzzing fullness.
Feeling her climax, Dale let go. With a final, deep plunge, he held himself inside her as his own release hit. He came in hot, powerful jets, pumping his seed deep into her welcoming heat. Each spurt was a pulse of pure, vibrant life force, and she drank it in greedily through their connection, the last vestiges of the Hunger evaporating like mist.
He collapsed over her, both of them breathing in ragged, shuddering unison. He stayed inside her, softening, as the world slowly came back.
After a long moment, he kissed her shoulder. “Better?”
Vivian nodded, her face still pressed to the moss. “Full. Thank you.” Her voice was quiet, sated, laced with its usual timid apology. “I’m sorry it was so… rough.”
“Don’t be.” He withdrew gently, helping her stand and pull her clothes up. He tucked himself away, zipping his jeans. “That’s what I’m here for.”
The normalcy of the gesture was shattered by a crackle of static from Dale’s discarded jacket, which lay a few feet away. A voice, filtered and digitized, emerged from a hidden comm unit.
“—anyon read? Knight to any friendlies. The construct has been located. It’s heading for the weigh station on I-80. It has the real Mai Harata with it. They are both unclothed and the construct is… herding her. Intent appears to be delivery to the True Root. Respond.”
Vivian and Dale froze, looking at each other. The Green Knight. He was still out here, and he was tracking the False Mai.
Dale snatched up the jacket, pulling out the small, wafer-thin comm. “This is Dale. We read you. We’re disoriented. Where are you?”
A pause. “Southeast of your position. You made quite a bit of noise. I have a visual on your clearing now. The True Root acolytes are pulling back, converging on the weigh station. You have two choices: find your way back to the road and intercept Mandy’s group, or follow me. I am going to retrieve the Harata girl from that thing before it hands her to the Elder.”
Dale looked at Vivian. Her eyes, now clear and focused, glinted with red energy in the dark. The shadows at her feet stirred, responding to her will. She was fed. She was powerful.
“We’re with you,” Dale said into the comm. “Lead the way.”
“Keep up,” the Knight’s voice replied, and the connection died.
From the southeast, a single, focused beam of green light—like a photon blade cutting through the undergrowth—flashed once, pointing the way. It was a risk, trusting the Knight who had attacked them hours before. But he had fought the True Root too. And he wanted to save Mai.
They moved toward the green light, a tense and wordless agreement hanging between them. Shadows clung to Vivian’s arms like sleeves of living ink, ready. Dale’s hand rested on the scarred implant burn at his temple, a habit when calculating risk.
The beam vanished.
Before they could react, the rumble of an engine and the crunch of tires on gravel cut through the woods. Headlights, yellowed and foggy, swept across the clearing from a service road they hadn’t seen. An old Ford pickup, forest green and coated in dust, ground to a halt.
The passenger door swung open. Franklin Sweeney stepped out, his inky-black Fair Bargain fingers looking like spilled oil in the dim light. He waved, a calm, familiar gesture. “Hey! Over here!”
Relief, sharp and instant, washed over Dale. He knew Franklin. He trusted Annie’s kid. Vivian’s shadows dissipated into mere ripples on her skin as they hurried toward the truck.
“Franklin. Good timing,” Dale said, clasping the younger man’s hand.
“Mom’s been tracking everyone,” Franklin said, his voice steady. He nodded toward the driver. “This is my cousin, Jesse. Jesse, this is Vivian and Dale.”
Jesse Robinson leaned across the bench seat, her dark hair framing a face that was both beautiful and fiercely intent. “Hi,” she said, no-nonsense. “Get in. We’re burning moonlight.”
They climbed into the truck bed, finding handholds on the rusted rim. As Franklin got back in, he delivered the update in quick, efficient bursts. “Mai’s safe. She’s with Yukio and everyone at the I-80 weigh station. The Knight’s construct is still out here, but the real one’s been recovered.” He glanced at Jesse. “Our mission’s different. We need to extract her siblings—Caleb, Beau, and Sage—from a True Root enclave about ten miles north. They’re being prepped for a grafting ritual. It’s bad.”
Vivian exchanged a look with Dale. A rescue. A direct strike. “We’ll help,” she said immediately. “But flying drained me. A ride would be…”
“Essential,” Dale finished. “We’re in.”
Franklin gave a curt nod and keyed a small radio. “Mom? Package acquired. Plus two veteran attachments. Also, be advised, your Green Knight is also vectoring toward your position. Intent unknown.” He listened to the crackled reply. “Copy. See you there.”
The truck lurched forward, peeling onto the asphalt with a screech of aged tires. The woods became a dark blur.
The weigh station was a concrete island under the sulfur-yellow glow of antique security lights. Mandy’s van and Ben’s battered Civic sat next to the sleek, black RV and Stacy’s low-slung sports car, creating a bizarre vehicular congregation.
As the van rolled in, Mandy was already thrusting a bundle of clothes—a faded band t-shirt and drawstring sweatpants—at Mai, who stood shivering beside Yukio’s cane-leaning form. “They won’t fit right,” Mandy said, “but it’s better than nothing.”
“Thank you,” Mai said, her English accent softened by exhaustion. She pulled the shirt on quickly, the fabric swallowing her frame.
Near the RV’s open side door, Mike leaned close to Casey. The truth serum’s fog had almost lifted, leaving a weary clarity. He whispered something into her ear, his lips brushing her silver-streaked hair.
Casey’s response was a low, genuine giggle that crinkled the corners of her eyes. She swatted his arm lightly. “We can recreate that memory later, you hopeless nostalgic.”
“I do not want to hear the context!” Mandy called over, not even looking.
Jan, perched on the RV’s steps with Godfrey III in her lap, pouted. “You’re no fun, Mandy. Context is the spice of life!”
The conversation died as the Aether-Sprite descended. It didn’t land so much as unfold, panels of bronze and glowing crystal retracting silently until it rested on the concrete like a giant, mechanical dragonfly. A hatch hissed open.
Bethany Xander-MacDougal stepped out first, her charcoal gray suit impeccable, her spiky white-blonde hair a shock against the night. Annie Sweeney followed, her sensible blazer wrinkled, the ghostly calico cat Sophie weaving around her ankles.
Agent Kay, who had been hovering near Felicity, stopped breathing. Her eyes widened, darting from face to legendary face. Mike and Casey, casually bickering. Rick Williamson offering a bottled water to Stacy, who accepted it with a smile that erased their age difference. Annie, nodding to Rebecca Winkle, the Professor. Calista, her silver hair a waterfall under the yellow lights, listening intently. Fatima Abaza, standing with a stillness that seemed more dangerous than any motion. Hank beside her, a solid, comforting bulk. Yukio and Mai. Kim and Maryam, twins like mirror images with opposite energies. And Bethany. Lady Percival.
Kay’s hand fluttered to her chest. A small, wheezing sound escaped her.
“Oh, dear,” Jan murmured, watching the young agent. “She’s gonna blow a gasket.”
Felicity nudged Mandy, nodding toward Kay. “Still fine with not being part of the pantheon?”
Mandy watched Kay’s star-struck paralysis, the utter awe directed at everyone else. She shrugged, but the gesture was less certain than before. “It’s… weirder now.”
Ben’s hand settled on her shoulder, warm and heavy. “You’re the only legend I need,” he said, simple and sincere.
Bruce, leaning against the van with his steampunk wrench in hand, just shrugged. “Aye, it’s a lot of ego in one car park.”
Bethany’s voice cut through the murmurs, clean and sharp as a scalpel. “Status report. We have the artifact.” She gestured to Felicity’s bag. “We have the Echo Thief.” A thumb jabbed toward the RV, where the pale woman sat watching silently. “And we have Miss Harata, now anomalously connected to it. We also have the True Root, the Vigil of the Setting Sun, and Evelyn Shaw’s faction actively hunting all of the above. The immediate threat is the True Root ritual. Franklin,” she said, with a nod to Annie, “is en route to disrupt it with Vivian Chace and Dale Foster assisting.” She clasped her hands behind her back. “I am open to suggestions for our next coordinated move.”
She then pointed a finger directly at Jan without looking. “Non-orgy ideas first, Jan.”
Jan, who had indeed opened her mouth, closed it with a theatrical sigh. She stroked Godfrey’s head. “Those plans usually work.”
“They cause paperwork,” Bethany stated, turning her cool gaze across the assembled group. The concrete stillness stretched, heavy with the weight of converging enemies and the faint, psychic thrum of the silver vial in Felicity’s care. The night air, smelling of diesel and distant rain, waited for an answer.
The night air, smelling of diesel and distant rain, waited for an answer.
It got a blade instead.
A whisper of displaced air was the only warning. The Green Knight dropped from the skeletal girders of the weigh station canopy above, landing in a crouch that cracked the concrete. He straightened, his armored form now standing between Bethany and the RV. His photon blade, already ignited and humming a corrosive green, pointed not at her, but at Mai.
“The construct was a ruse,” his voice modulator rasped. “The True Root’s ritual requires the host’s willing blood. The real girl must be the offering. I am here to secure the asset.”
Chaosis instant, but it is a chaos this group understands. It is not panic. It is a fractal unfurling of practiced, dysfunctional response.
Mike sighed, the sound profoundly bored. “Is this the part where we all fight? Because we just parked.”
Casey stepped beside him, her eyebrow arching. “Honey, I think this is the part where he monologues. They usually do.” She looked directly at the Knight. “Are you going to monologue? We can wait.”
The Knight’s helmet tilted, a gesture of pure, uncomprehending frustration.
Yukio moved, a blur of pained grace. Her cane was no longer a support; it became a weapon, snapping up to strike the Knight’s wrist with a crack that echoed. The photon blade wavered. “You are not taking my daughter.”
Mai stumbled back, the borrowed shirt flapping, the golden leaf on her palm flaring with sympathetic light. The artifact in Felicity’s bag glowed in answer, burning a green-silver hole through the fabric.
Ben shoved Mandy behind the van’s open door. “Get down!”
“I’m not getting down, I’m getting pissed,” Mandy snarled, but she ducked, her tech-mind already scanning. The Knight’s armor had joints. Gaps.
Agent Kay finally moved, not with awe, but with trained instinct. She drew her wand, a sleek rod of brass, but her aim was unsteady, her eyes wide. She was facing a legend in the flesh, and he was the enemy.
“Stand down, Knight!” Bethany commanded, her own wand appearing in her hand as if by molecular rearrangement. “You are interfering with a consolidated operation.”
“Your operation is compromised,” the Knight shot back, parrying Yukio’s next strike with a forearm, the clash ringing metallic. “Evelyn Shaw has a mole inside the Golden Wands. Your communications are not secure. The True Root knows you’re here. They are coming. I can get the girl to safety.”
“Safety where?” Jan called out, still petting Godfrey. “Your creepy hidey-hole? Pass.”
“He’s stalling,” Rick said, uncharacteristically grim. He was holding a tire iron from Stacy’s trunk. “Listen.”
From the dark tree line beyond the ring of yellow light, a new sound emerged. Not engines. A low, rhythmic chanting. The sound of roots pushing through soil. The True Root were here, converging as the Knight said.
The Knight used the moment of distraction. He lunged, not for Mai, but for Felicity’s bag. His gauntleted fingers closed around the glowing fabric.
“Oh, hell no,” Felicity breathed, and hugged the bag to her chest with shocking strength.
A pulse of energy erupted from the artifact, a silent, concussive wave of want. It didn’t hurt. It insinuated. It slid into the brainstem, a heated suggestion that bypassed higher thought.
The immediate, desperate horniness that had cursed the house weeks before returned, but focused, amplified. It was a psychic blastwave of pure, uncomplicated lust.
It hit Mandy and Ben behind the van door. One second they were poised for a fight; the next, the world narrowed to skin and breath and need. The fear, the adrenaline, the chaos—it all channeled directly into a clawing, physical demand.
Mandy grabbed the front of Ben’s shirt and yanked him into the van’s shadowy interior, behind the driver’s seat. “Now. I need you right fucking now.”
No poetry. No patience. Her hands were at his belt, her mouth on his, all teeth and frantic tongue. Ben groaned into her mouth, his own hands shoving her leggings and panties down her thighs in one rough pull. She fumbled his belt open, shoved his jeans past his hips, and freed his cock. It was already iron-hard, jutting thick and heavy from his body.
“Condom,” he gasped, even as his hands gripped her ass.
“Artifact prevents everything, you heard Jan,” Mandy panted, spearing her fingers through his short hair. “Just fuck me. I need to feel you. I need it raw.”
She turned, bracing her hands against the cool metal of the van’s interior paneling. She arched her back, presenting herself to him. The pale curve of her ass was lit by the erratic glow of the security lights flashing through the windshield. She was wet, her cunt glistening, already throbbing.
Ben didn’t need more invitation. He guided the broad, spongy head of his cock to her entrance and pushed inside. There was no gentle slide. He sheathed himself in one deep, relentless thrust, filling her completely, stretching her. Mandy cried out, a sharp, broken sound swallowed by the chanting and clashes outside.
He set a punishing pace immediately, each drive a solid impact of his hips against her ass. The van rocked slightly on its suspension. His balls slapped against her clit with every inward plunge. The sound was obscenely wet, filthy, a slick slapping rhythm that drowned out the distant chanting.
“Yes, oh fuck, Ben, right there!” Mandy chanted, pushing back against him. She reached a hand between her own legs, fingers finding her swollen clit, rubbing hard, fast circles in time with his thrusts. “Your cock is so fucking deep. I can feel you in my stomach. Give it to me. Come in me. Fill me up.”
Her dirty talk, her absolute greedy want, undid him. Ben’s control shattered. He hammered into her, his breaths sobbing, his fingers digging bruise-deep into the soft flesh of her hips. The world outside—the Knight, the Root, the artifact—ceased to exist. There was only this heat, this friction, this primal claiming.
“Gonna come,” he grunted, the words strained. “Mandy… I’m gonna…”
“Do it!” she screamed, and her own orgasm ripped through her first. Her cunt clenched around his invading length in violent, milking spasms, a vise of pleasure that pulled his release from him.
With a final, bottoming thrust, he buried himself as deep as he could and came. Jets of hot cum pulsed deep inside her, spurting against her cervix. She felt each distinct burst, a flooding, claiming heat that triggered a second, rolling wave of her own climax. They stayed locked together, shuddering, as the external world rushed back in.
Outside, the psychic wave had washed over everyone.
The Knight staggered back from Felicity, his photon blade sputtering. The artifact’s pulse had bypassed his armor, seeking the organic within. He was fighting its effects, his helmeted head shaking.
Bethany had lowered her wand, her knuckles white on the grip. Jan was fanning herself, grinning. “See? Orgy-adjacent ideas have merit!”
Casey had Mike pinned against the side of the van, her lips on his neck, his hands on her ass. They broke apart, breathing hard. “Later,” Casey promised, her voice husky.
Yukio, leaning heavily on her cane, fixed the Knight with a glare. Her body hummed with residual energy, but her focus was unbroken. “You feel it too. It doesn’t lie. It wants to go home. Not to your order. Not to the Root. Home.”
The Knight went perfectly still. He looked from Yukio to Mai, whose glowing hand was held out as if to calm the very air. He looked at the bag in Felicity’s arms, now glowing like a miniature star.
The chanting in the woods ceased. An unnatural silence fell, heavy and deep.
From the tree line, figures emerged. Not acolytes. Constructs. Faceless humanoid shapes woven from thorny vines and pulsating, amber sap. They moved with a horrible, synchronicious rustle. At their head walked a man in simple brown robes, an Elder of the True Root. In his hands was a twisted wooden staff, crowned with a cage of thorns that held a familiar, pulsing crystal—an Urger core.
“The asset and the battery,” the Elder announced, his voice like dry leaves. “You have gathered them for us. The grafting will now be complete.”
The Knight slowly turned his photon blade away from Mai. He shifted his stance, placing himself slightly between the group and the advancing thorn constructs. His modulated voice, when it came, was low, directed at Bethany and Yukio.
“The mole… is in my own faction. Evelyn Shaw’s faction. I was sent to retrieve the girl for them. To become a weapon.” He raised his blade, its light reflecting in the countless thorns. “I am recalibrating my mission parameters.”
He wasn’t with them. But he was now, unequivocally, against the things coming out of the woods.
The Elder smiled, a crack in a weathered face. “The Knight sees reason. The Green Moon bitch’s toy has shown him his true hunger. It matters not. All will be consumed by the new growth.”
He raised his staff. The thorn constructs surged forward in a silent, rustling wave. The Knight met the first one, his photon blade shearing through vines that regrew instantly. The fight was no longer a debate. It was a war on two fronts, under a yellow sky, with the heart of an artifact burning like a trapped star in a cheap canvas bag.
Mandy pulled her clothes up, her body still humming. She looked at Ben, then at the advancing thorns. She nodded, once. They scrambled out of the van, ready.