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footing. The woods are only hostile to those who are afraid of it.”
    I’m not afraid—much. Hannah’s mind whirled over remembered snatches from Grimm’s Fairy Tales , to recall the very unhappy and scary endings to those stories. Always an avid reader in her childhood, that trait hadn’t lessened as she progressed into adulthood. Oftentimes the old fairy tales were warnings or admonishments to keep children’s behavior in check. She shivered, glad her mother had read her the watered-down versions of those fairy tales—mostly.
    She pulled her black blazer more tightly around her chest as another tremor claimed her. “How much farther will we have to trek through this terrible place?” Hannah tried to keep the whine out of her voice but failed miserably. She knew a moment of acute panic when she walked into a spider web then spent the better part of five minutes trying to remove the sticky mass from her face and hair. “Thanks for your help.”
    “I did not help you.”
    “It was sarcasm.” She sighed. “Never mind.” The darkness hid her annoyance. “How much longer?” She gritted her teeth in an attempt to keep anger at bay.
    “ Five or six miles perhaps. We will skirt the edge of the marsh so please mind where you put your feet.” Laughter filtered through his voice.
    The hoot of another owl somewhere overhead made Hannah’s heart slam into her ribcage. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. “Is this Marilyn person expecting us tonight?” She sucked in her breath. Was that a bat? She ran her hands through her hair just to be sure. She inhaled deeply and hoped for calm.
    “It is hard to tell with Marilyn. One never knows what she is thinking.” He stopped abruptly on the path. Hannah crashed into his backside with a muffled protest.
    “What the hell?” She picked up her bag from the forest floor and ignored the part of her brain that sparked at the accidental contact. As she laid a hand on his back, Hannah thrilled at the heat that emanated through the thin fabric of his shirt. The hard muscles of his back rippled beneath her fingers. He might be a jerk but he’s a hot jerk.
    “It was unavoidable.” He pointed into the gloom. “We must pay careful attention through this section. We dare not wake Horace the Black.”
    Hannah peeked over his arm to see the sleeping form of a half-man half-goat. She wrinkled her nose at the sweaty smell that originated from the creature. “Yuck.” She stepped around the stinky, bearded goat man and shivered. “Why can’t a forest just be a forest?”
    Living with her Gramma had taught her a couple of things about life and how things are sometimes not as they seem. “Does anyone from the government know about this goat man? I mean you just don’t hear about abnormalities such as a goat man in the woods on the evening news, do you?” She willed herself to calm down and gulped air into her lungs.
    “ There is no reason to panic.”
    She looked into his eyes as he gripped her shoulders. “There ’s every reason to panic! Being here doesn’t feel right. Something’s wrong, I can sense it.”
    For five years, she ’d closed her mind to the possibility of the magical world. Now, since she’d met Edwin, that portal forced itself open and thrust her rudely through it. Nothing good will come of treading this path. “I need to go back.” Trembles wracked her body as the pressure on her shoulders increased.
    “Y ou are stronger than you think. The inhabitants of the forest will not harm you as long as you do not fear them. Surely you can feel that as well.”
    “They won’t harm me because they fear you more.” As she wriggled out of his grasp, his tightly reigned energy, his diluted power kept the creatures of the night at the periphery.
    A low-pitched growl rumbled deep in Edwin’s chest. “They fear the untapped potential of what I could become if I chose to ever relinquish control. That reality will never occur.”
    Hannah grinned into the heavy