Free Lord of the Forest by Dawn Thompson

You gave Ravelle the kick to end all kicks. He will be looking for you.”
    Marius searched her face. “You are right. He is nothing to trifle with and his strength is soon regained. Anyway, come. Or I will throw you over my shoulder.”
    Linnea looked around. “I don’t see a door. Or a house.”
    He waved at a tree in the near distance and this time she looked at it more intently. It was so old and so large that its massive lower branches rested upon the earth. “Look again.”
    She drew in her breath as the thick bark of the trunk pulled back in shaggy, peeling folds. A door appeared and some unseen force within the tree opened it from the inside.
    He held out his hand. At last she noticed that it was covered with deep scratches from the branches of the treacherous trees that had whipped at him during their mad gallop. Trees that might betray them yet. How to tell the difference in a forest so ancient and so crowded with living green would be an impossible task, at least for her. His other hand, hanging at his side, looked worse. The sides of his torso bore scratches and more than one gash.
    Silently she reproved herself for not seeing them right away. So he had taken a beating as well and nearly torn off his tail to come and rescue her. Though she could not, would not, tell him of Ravelle’s manipulation of her mind and how he’d had his way with her—her sense of shame was far too strong—she had to acknowledge that Marius had suffered for her.
    The pain of his injuries seemed to be nothing to him, compared to the agony of shifting from one form to another. His indifference to it spoke well for his toughness—she would have to rely on that at the very least. And for now, until she could get away, she had to trust him to lead her out of the unfamiliar forest. Linnea put her hand in his and let him lead her to the huge tree.
    Within a few steps of the open door, she glimpsed a chamber that held a finely wrought staircase, spiraling upward until it was lost from sight and supported by nothing at all.
    Linnea took a deep breath and entered.

5
    H e led her inside and indicated that she should go first up the spiral stairs. Linnea hesitated, one hand resting on the curving rail, smooth as silk.
    “Are you afraid?” he asked.
    “I ought to be. I know nothing of this place or what awaits me.”
    “It is a place of healing,” he reassured her again. “And it is inhabited by a very strange being, but I think you will like him. Come along—I will go first if you like.”
    She looked at him and then up, up, and up, not seeing where the staircase ended. The perfect whorl of it reminded her of a shell, but there was light up above and the hint of a breeze. It did not end in a closed chamber that would be suffocatingly small.
    She called upon her intuition to help her decide. Her nervousness gradually subsided. The inside of the great tree seemed safe somehow, although it was dark. She had never been in one like this. At the moment she fully understood why so many animals found shelter in them. The air in it gave off a healthy smell, like herbs. Besides the staircase there was nothing else in its vast, open heart.
    Even so, if he went first, she would be able to escape by running down. Just in case something demonish appeared at the top.
    Marius’s smile was warm and without guile. He was still naked. And she—Linnea looked down at the sad remnants of her beautiful gown. She looked violated. That did not seem to have occurred to him, but then, why would it? She ran her fingers through her hair, swiftly taking out the worst of the tangles and a few twigs.
    “Ready?” he asked nonchalantly. As if he was taking her to meet an old friend. She glanced once more at the open door, looking at the thicket of green outside and the leaves moving in the dappled sun. Anything could be hiding out there.
    She was safer with Marius. And she did need a healer—the single scratch Ravelle had inflicted was aching in her chest.
    They