Bound for the Forest — Kay Berrisford

Ex-soldier Melmoth Brien returns to his ancestral home in the ancient Greenwood, intending to retrieve his family's valuables and get the hell out of there. When he's beaten to it by Scarlet, a young woodsman-turned-thief, Brien overpowers him and ties him up, demanding he help get the family fortune back by leading him deep into the forest. The flash of sexual fire between them is undeniable, but a force more powerful than rivalry or lust is ratcheting up the tension.

Brien's family are Protectors of the Greenwood, a responsibility he has discarded like every other in his life. To Scarlet, whose very life-force is bound to the Greenwood, this makes Brien a traitor. He would use anything, even his body, to drive him away. After all, a traitor may stir the fouler Spirits, who will demand blood. And Scarlet knows he is marked for sacrifice...

Lured ever deeper into a realm of ritualized sex and magic, bondage and blood, the fighting gives way to rampant lovemaking, but Scarlet needs more than just sex to survive. Can Brien admit his identity as a Protector and bind his underling forever, or will the Greenwood Spirits enslave them both?

Publisher's Note: This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable: BDSM theme and elements, dubious consent, male/male sexual practices, ritualistic sexual practices, ritualistic impalement, sex in partly shifted tree form, violence, voyeurism.