Teaser Tuesday #2 from The Willow Elves

Hey guys, this is a direct continuation from my first tease in this WIP and is the completion of chapter 1. Hope you enjoy and I look forward to your thoughts.



Tears traveled down Autumn’s cheeks as she imagined what her father might do to Becky now that she had run away. Would he seek revenge and take the life of her horse—torture an innocent and defenseless animal?

If she had just had time. If she had known that her father would attempt to cross such lines, she would have been better prepared.

But there was no time. She was too scared. She didn’t even have time to run up to her room and grab the emergency bag she had packed months ago and hidden under the lose floorboards behind her bed. Only now, when it was too late, did she realize that she should have hidden her runaway bag somewhere downstairs or in the shed, or under the bushels of hay outside. But she didn’t and so she leaves behind everything—everything except the torn clothes on her back, the bruises on her face and body, and the one thing more sacred to her than anything—her virginity.

It doesn’t belong to her father and damn him for trying to rape it from her. Autumn has always believed that her virginity belongs to only one person—her true love. Whomever that is when someday she finds him.

As she looked ahead, the vast woods that neared spread from as far east to as far west as she could see, serving as a divider between her world and a world beyond. A world completely unknown to her. One that she has heard rumors and stories about her whole life—tales of a magical and dangerous kind of folk that live deep within its borders. Most of the kids from her small town had always laughed and scoffed at the stories told by the older generations. It became the big joke. The I-dare-you-to-walk-a-mile-into-those-woods-alone kind of thing. No one ever ventured too far into them, and if they said they did, everyone knew they were lying.

But here Autumn stood, at the edge of the field, staring into the sea of thick, dark woods. It was eerily quiet. The silence filled her ears with the sound of her own pounding heart. Her hands shook. She clenched and unclenched them several times attempting to gain courage and control.

Whatever lies ahead couldn’t be any worse than what she was leaving behind, she decided and with that, Autumn closed her eyes, took a long deep breath, and then without looking back, she entered Trulien Forest.