Chapter 11: Seraka of the Thorns
The forest was quiet — too quiet.
Riven had wandered far from the Crimson Court, guided only by whispers of an artifact buried deep in the Verdant Hollow — a relic said to awaken desires older than memory. The woods here didn't feel natural. The trees pulsed faintly, as if alive. Vines slithered with purpose. Flowers turned to face him as he passed.
He was not alone.
> "Lost?" came a voice from above — silken, amused.
He turned, and she descended.
Not from a tree, but from a vine — lowering herself like a serpent, twisting in midair before landing gracefully on bare feet.
Her name struck him unspoken:
> Seraka.
She was naked, save for a winding harness of thorned ivy wrapping around her limbs, breasts, and hips like armor. Her skin was green-gold. Her hair was a wild tangle of leaves and midnight petals. And her eyes glowed — not with kindness, but with hunger.
> "You're not supposed to be here," she said, circling him slowly.
> "I was looking for—"
> "Pleasure?" she interrupted, smiling. "You found it."
Her hand brushed his shoulder. Her thorns pricked skin — drawing a single drop of blood.
She licked it from her fingertip.
> "Delicious."
---
He backed away.
She followed.
> "The forest wants you," Seraka murmured. "And I… obey the forest."
Vines slithered from the trees, wrapping around his wrists and ankles — not cruelly, but firmly. He struggled. She purred.
> "Relax. Let it bind you. Let me."
Her body pressed against him — all warm skin, sharp thorns, and floral musk. She kissed his neck, his collarbone, down his chest. Every scrape of her thorns left thin, blooming red lines that stung just enough to make him gasp.
> "You like a little pain?" she whispered.
> "Only from someone who knows how to use it."
Her grin was feral.
---
She mounted him slowly, wrapping her vine-bound thighs around his waist. Her core was slick and hot as she lowered herself onto him — inch by inch, breath by breath — thorns scratching along his ribs, vines coiling tighter around his legs.
She rode him like a creature of instinct, hips rolling in perfect, relentless rhythm. He couldn't touch her. Couldn't move. But gods, he could feel.
> "This is what you wanted," she moaned. "To be taken. To be used."
Her nails scored his chest. Her thorns bit his hips. And her lips — those wild, petal-soft lips — kissed him deeper than anyone ever had.
> "Say it," she growled. "Say you're mine."
> "I'm yours," he gasped, lost in her heat, her fury, her rhythm.
> "Louder."
> "I'M YOURS."
She cried out, back arching, body convulsing around him as her orgasm hit like a storm — and in the chaos, his own followed, explosive and helpless.
---
The vines loosened. She lay against his chest, panting, sharp and soft all at once.
> "You're bleeding," she murmured, licking one of the scratches.
> "You're dangerous," he whispered.
> "You love it."
And he did.
---
When he awoke hours later, the forest was calm.
The vines had retreated.
The thorns were gone.
But etched across his chest in faint, blooming red were three words — shaped by scratches:
> You'll come back.