Lured From the Path Read Online Free PDF Page A

must try to forget her.”
    David shook his head helplessly. “She was
perfect.”
    “No! The female who found me and my friend
was also perfect, but with no human heart, she is too dangerous.
She stared us both in the eye, David, and she judged us
mercilessly. What vengeance could she have taken when we did
nothing to her? With one swipe of her hand, she took the heart from
my friend’s chest and tossed his corpse into the lake.”
    Shock slowed his thoughts. David could only
sit and stare at the old man. His brain was completely unable to
draw a parallel between a woman who would rip out a man’s heart
with her bare hands and his Willa.
    Willa was all that was beautiful, delicate.
No spirit could sing so sweetly yet act so viciously. Not his
Willa, who gave him such ecstasy that even now, hours later, his
cock remained hard with craving and his nose still held her scent.
Not his Willa, who had danced so gracefully under the moonlight,
pressing pleasure on him first, even knowing she would have to wait
to find her own.
    She was too generous to be a killer.
    “Your female sounds very different from my
Willa, Henryk.”
    A spasm went over the man’s face. “Do you not
hear me, David? The female who found you is the same type of
creature that found me all those years ago. They kill, it is their
nature to take. You must put her from your mind, not claim her as
your own!”
    A hot streak of stubbornness blazed down
David’s spine. Anger tried to push into his chest. “You don’t know
her.”
    “I know enough!” Henryk banged a fist against
the table. “I know how terrible they can be as well as how
glorious. I know how it is to be dragged to the ground and taken
with such heat as to set your skull on fire. I know their lust, the
way they pour their bodies over a man’s, filling him with such
passion that obsession comes dangerously close to stealing your
wits.”
    David was surprised, considering Henryk’s
adamant warnings. “You had sex with your Vila?”
    “I lost all sense of myself, consumed by the
need she sparked in me. Her hand was still coated with my friend’s
blood when she took me, ruined me for all time.” Shame and anger filled his
tone as Henryk wrenched at his shirt, buttons popping to roll
across the floor. He yanked the halves open to reveal old scars,
faded by time.
    Two handprints marred the skin of his
chest.
    “What she did to me was worse than death. My
friend’s life, my confidence in the night. I’ve not had a woman
since, as no human could possibly compare!”
    “You survived. Were you strong or did she
like you?”
    Instead of answering, he said, “She had no
right. We’d done nothing to her.” Anguish was a physical presence
at the table as Henryk folded his shirt over his chest. “Others
have become obsessed like you, David. They try to search for the
women, they read the tales that tell them how to control one, keep
her for all time.”
    David’s spine snapped straight. “That’s
possible?”
    Henryk sighed, shaking his head wearily. “No.
The Vilas don’t want to be kept. They don’t want to be hunted. If
you go back into the woods to look for Willa, they will surely kill
you.”
    David sat still, thoughts and emotions
rioting inside him. Confusion mingled with fear, but both were
suppressed by his need to see Willa again. It was imperative, an
ache he couldn’t live with. Henryk stared at him for a long time,
his face hardening, his eyes flashing. David said nothing, simply
stared mutinously at his host.
    What happened to him was nothing like what
happened to the other man.
    Finally Henryk stood up, grabbing the empty
dishes from the table. “You will do as you please, I can see it.
The obsession has caught you already. Let me offer you a bed today,
though, so you can rest and recover.”
    David raised a skeptical brow. “So you can
talk me out of going back into the woods, you mean?”
    “Yes, that too, foolish American. Give me
time to show you the error of your