Page 1126 of One More Kiss

My face must have said as much because Asa answered my unspoken question. “I have a few ideas. It could be the vines themselves moving or—”

He never got to finish that sentence. Something latched onto my ankle and yanked, hauling me away from Asa as it dragged me through dense vegetation. A scream ripped up my throat, but just as I let out the first screech, a vine wound itself around my head, effectively gagging me. More vines wrapped around my arms and legs, binding my limbs to my body as it continued to tow me farther into the darkness.

Asa bellowed my name, but his voice sounded far away.

From the outside, Mercy’s garden just appeared like a giant mess of kudzu, ivy, and honeysuckle. Inside, it seemed more like a portal to somewhere else. There were trees here that didn’t seem to fit in Georgia. With their dense trunks and boughs that blocked out the sun, I had a feeling we weren’t in Mercy’s yard anymore.

Just as suddenly as I’d been hauled into motion, I stopped. The vines tightened around me as a pair of odd green eyes peered down at me. Set in a woman’s face, those phosphorescent orbs glowed in the darkness. Her skin was the brilliant multicolor of a maple leaf just before it fell. The tip of her nose was a vibrant yellow that faded to orange at her cheeks. The orange faded beautifully into her bright-red hair. Her neck and arms were a rich burgundy that was veined like a springtime leaf. She was dressed in leathers and leaves, with bright green vines woven into her curls, along with tiny white flowers that served as some sort of crown.

As arrested as I was with her beauty, it was not at all lost on me that I was tied up and at her mercy. There was a ton of newly learned knowledge rattling around my noggin, and every last bit of it screamed at me that this was without a doubt a dryad. Had I known that the Fae were a real thing, or known that they were as dangerous, I definitely would have approached the mess of the yard sooner.

“You dare come into my domain?” she hissed, her lips curling high enough that I could take a gander at the sharp points to her canines. Were dryads carnivorous?

“Mmmf onf purmmfpuf,” I garbled, my mouth full of vines.

The dryad rolled her eyes and flashed a set of razor-sharp talons. She hooked one lone nail into the vines and yanked, slicing clean through them like tissue paper. “You were saying?”

I spat out the mess of vines to answer, stalling to frame my words appropriately. Mercy’s book had informed me that the Fae were a tricky lot. I was never to give my name, don’t say sorry or thank you, and whatever I did, I was never to make a deal with them—even an easy one.

“Not on purpose,” I croaked, swallowing hard when her face revealed not even an inkling of sympathy. “I was running in my yard from a boatload of golems. I meant no offense.”

“Then why do you have a familiar and a ghoul stomping around my forest? If you mean no harm as you say, why are predators in my territory?”

I gave her a failed shrug, my arms bound too close to my body to do much more than a truncated wiggle. “I’m assuming it’s because I was dragged by my ankle through the forest. Though, I doubt both of them are conscious. The familiar—as you call him—was injured in the attack on my house.”

“Your house?” she asked, her eyes widening slightly before schooling her expression. “You own the St. James manor?”

“It used to belong to my great aun—err—my mother,” I muttered, correcting myself. It was tough to call Mercy my mother even if I knew it in my heart to be true. The thought itself burned a place deep inside me, the ache of it almost too much to bear. “She died recently, and I inherited the house and grounds.”

Suddenly the vines loosened, slithering off my arms and legs. “I beg your pardon; I was unaware there was… I was informed that… I thought—” She cut herself off, gulping air like she was about to puke.

“You thought the land was free to take?” I offered, doing my best to be kind.

She nodded. “You can call me Vita,” she whispered, shocking the hell out of me. The Fae weren’t known for just offering their names like that. I was figuring I’d be calling her “the dryad” until the end of time. At my stunned expression, she gave me a little smile. “My real name is ten syllables and can’t be spoken by a human’s tongue. I’m safe from you owning my name.”

A niggle of… well, not doubt, but something was scratching at my brain. What had Jeff said? Mercy was poisoned by something in the garden. What if it wasn’t something but someone?

“Were you misinformed by someone in particular?”

Vita nodded but did not speak.

“And let me guess—you can’t say it out loud.”

She nodded again.

“Was it your idea to kill my mother?”

She shook her head this time, something like guilt in her expression as tears welled in her eyes.

“But you did kill her,” I whispered, not asking. “Did you mean to?”

Vita nodded, shame plain as day on her face.

“Did you want to kill Mercy?”

Vita shook her head hard, pleading in her eyes.

“If I asked you who put you up to this, could you confirm it?”

She seemed to be contemplating my question for a moment. She wiggled her hand at me in a “maybe” gesture.

Before I could ask my question, Vita whirled, vines springing from her fingertips as she fended off a man who seemed to cleave from the shadows themselves.

Asa.

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