Page 1127 of One More Kiss

Chapter9

“Asa, stop!”

My scream came too little too late. Asa’s sword sliced toward Vita at an inhuman speed, moving almost faster than my eye could follow. Her vines hurtled toward him, snaking like a whip toward his ankles while others went for his arm. But he was too fast for her, avoiding her tethers like he’d been conditioned for this his whole life. Maybe he had.

Vines broke free from the ground, their sides covered in barbs, dripping viscous liquid. I found my feet then, rushing them both. Somehow, some way I found myself in the middle of the two of them, managing to scrape by without getting stuck.

“Stop,” I thundered, my voice a level of commanding it had never had before.

Asa’s sword stopped millimeters from my throat, and I tried not to let the thought of it slicing through me to make me flinch. It wasn’t until I saw the fear on his face, did I comprehend that he hadn’t stopped his sword.

I had.

I couldn’t say how I knew that I’d been the one to make him stop, but I did. Just like I knew what Fae were and the anatomical properties of an angelica plant. I wasn’t the same woman I was when I woke up this morning. Somehow, I’d morphed into this whole new being that seemed to have way more power here than I’d ever thought.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Sugar Plum,” Asa whispered, dropping his blade at the same time he rushed me. His fingers snaked under my ponytail, and he gently guided me into his space as he dropped a kiss to my forehead. “I could’ve killed you.” His Southern drawl was laced with something I couldn’t place. It was like fear and relief mixed with a drop of hysteria. “Please don’t jump in between two arcaners fighting ever again. Please.”

I wanted to say something snarky, but it was the little hint of irrational fear that got me. I didn’t know who he lost, but they had to have been very special to him.

“You didn’t understand, and I… I know it was stupid to jump in between you two, but Vita wasn’t hurting me. We’re tromping all over what she believed was her territory.”

Asa lifted his head, his fingers squeezing my neck gently as he stared over my shoulder at the dryad. “And why would she believe she has a claim to your land?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Is Jeff okay?”

“He woke up long enough to go back to familiar form. He’s healing in a nice little hiding spot.”

“Good.” I managed to pull myself from Asa’s grip and turned back to the dryad in question. “I asked you before if you could confirm who put you up to killing Mercy. If I gave you a name, could you tell me a yes, or no?”

“I think so,” Vita murmured, her eyes downcast.

“Beatrice,” I hissed, trying to tamp down my rage. “Was she the one who trapped you into doing this?”

Vita’s head snapped up, her leaf-green eyes lighting up with her magic as they went wide. A wind whipped through the trees as the foliage rustled, like each leaf and branch and tree was connected to her. Slowly, she nodded her head. “Yessssss.”

“And you don’t like being tricked, correct? How did she get you roped into killing an innocent woman?” I was trying very hard not to blame Vita. I seriously doubted killing Mercy would’ve ever been scratched onto her to-do list without a fair amount of help.

“She saved my life from a warring tribe. Dryads are solitary. We don’t stay together for very long, preferring to find our own land. There were two others that wanted my land for their own and were willing to kill for it. She got me out, but tricked me in the process. Made me agree to owe her a favor. Killing Mercy is the price I had to pay. She told me Mercy wanted to claim the woods for her own, that she was evil and a glutton, wanting more than she had a right.”

Vita shook her head before plopping down on a log, odd opaque-green tears tracking down her face. “Mercy didn’t blame me. After I got her with one of my thorns, she just smiled at me, and said she’d had a good run. I knew then that what I’d been led to believe wasn’t—couldn’t—be true. It’s why I built up the garden. I knew that woman wanted the house. I didn’t want her to have it.”

She stood quickly, her eyes searching the forest for something. The whole of the trees shuddered at once as a strong wind kicked up dead leaves and swayed the branches.

“Monsters in my woods,” Vita hissed. “My territory.”

Technically, it was my territory, but I wasn’t going to argue with her.

“You still bound to do her bidding?” Asa asked as his warm hands squeezed my shoulders. “Because if you aren’t, I got an idea.”

“The only thing I am bound to is to not speak her name. Silly sorceress didn’t say I couldn’t confirm it, though.” Vita’s lips stretched into a wide smile that revealed the razor-sharp points to her canines.

“That’s good,” Asa rumbled. “So you can fight her if you wanted to? Help us stop Beatrice from killing us and taking the house?”

I picked up the thread of his idea. As much as I didn’t like the thought of a Fae deal, we would die without it. Hell, we might die with it, but it was about all we had.

“In exchange for, say, a partial claim on the garden?” I added. “Allow me to harvest ingredients for spells, don’t attack or kill or let anyone else attack or kill me or mine, and don’t take the land past the picket fence in the yard.”

Vita’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. “You would give up your claim to the woods?”

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