Free Comes Now the Wicked Woodsman by Christa Wick Page A

everything I knew about him was a lie?
    Pulling back the curtain, I kicked my clothes into a pile and cranked the hot water on. I stepped in, drew the curtain shut and reached for the body wash. I needed to erase him, to scrub and scald his presence from my flesh. My nails raked my skin, the hot water turning me pink.
    Shoving a hand between my thighs, I winced. I was sore, the labia still plumped from the punishing thrusts we had made against one another. I tried to wash gently, but the skin was too sensitive, the pain threatening to flash over to pleasure with the smallest change in pressure.
    I twisted the hot water off and the cold water on.
    Braeden and the memory of his touching me would not rule my body. I didn't care if I turned into an ice cube from my efforts to erase him.
    Hair washed and every limb shaking from the cold, I finished the shower and toweled off. I sat on the toilet, still shivering. I didn't need to pee, just needed to prolong my time in the tiled sanctuary away from the shifters on the other side of the door.
    I didn't think I could bear to see even Clover, the one person I'd poured my heart out to growing up. There had been no real secrets between us -- at least on my part. Obviously she'd been holding a big one back.
    Now I hated her brother -- or was trying hard to make myself feel that way. And I hated that the secret she'd been hiding all these years was putting my life at risk.
    But I loved her. That wasn't going to change.
    Hands closed in fists, I rapped the back of my fingers hard against my forehead, beating back the threat of another emotional meltdown. Everything was fucked. I was supposed to be mourning my grandmother and selling off her livestock, not wondering if I would be dead in thirty days or married off to someone I didn't love.
    No -- that was the one thing I was certain of. I'd rather die than marry someone I didn't love.
    Grumbling, I picked through the bag and pulled out a long flannel nightgown and fresh panties. I put everything on slowly and squeezed as much moisture as I could from my hair, stalling my exit from the bathroom as long as possible.
    Teeth polished to a pearly shine, I finally opened the door. Only pride kept me from slamming it shut as I saw Braeden sitting in a recliner, his hard stare boring into me. Lifting my chin, I hugged my bag tight against my chest and walked to the other side of the partition without looking at him a second time.
    As soon as I rounded the screen, I saw Clover's hands moving in a flurry. With her brother in the room and able to hear every last sound, she was signing. I put my bag down, my gaze averted as I struggled with a fresh pain.
    We had been fourteen when she first suggested we learn how to sign. I had spent the night at her house three times before, gran allowing it despite my already obvious crush on Braeden who, at twenty, was the only adult in the Hughes household.
    Now I knew why she had suggested we take up signing -- there was no privacy around shifters, not within a football field of them and probably not even then.
    Her fist hit the mattress on the sofa bed and she grunted at me. Huffing, I looked at her, turned my palms up and away from my body, my face corkscrewing in a question.
    "What?" I signed.
    Now that she had my attention, she didn't seem to know what she wanted to say. Her hands retreated to her lap and primly folded around one another. A full minute or more passed, each of us studying the other's face, and then she brought one hand up in a fist, pressed it center of her chest and rubbed a circle twice like a second hand chasing its way around the face of a clock.
    "Sorry," she signed.
    I shook my head, angry at myself for being angry at her. Moving toward the side of the bed, I signed the query of whether I could sleep next to her. She nodded, her green gaze soulful as she helped me pull back the blankets.
    On the other side of screen, Braeden cleared his throat. The sound was distant and I figured he hadn't