by Nicole Hall
She raised a brow. “About you or me?”
“Both.”
Dru didn’t know why she was arguing. The man got her lady parts revving, and he’d saved her ass. The least she owed him was a real conversation. “Okay, but I need to work for a while. Come back tonight. If you’re lucky, Samantha will make us dinner.”
“What if I’m not lucky?”
“Then the rules state that a hilarious mishap will force us apart and you may never find out whether or not you’re pretty enough.”
Oren laughed and shook his head. In a movement that demonstrated his speed once again, he captured her hand and brought it up to his mouth for a kiss. “I’m glad we met, kalia.” He released her, turned, and walked away with his hands in his pockets.
Dru watched him leave, her heart racing. His kiss had felt like old school wooing instead of a smarmy come-on. For once, she didn’t want to wipe off her hand.
Dru had changed into her most comfortable college shorts and a tank top as soon as she’d gotten home. Dress clothes were a necessary evil as far as she was concerned. Constricting and boring didn’t appeal to her. She wanted to be able to move in what she wore.
Now several hours later, Dru’s back ached from sitting hunched over her computer for so long. She could spend days painting standing at an easel, but sitting at the dining table making miniscule adjustments to her art gave her a headache.
After a while, the room closed in on her, and she had to get outside.
The back garden had boasted tall, old trees when she’d moved in, but in the last year, she’d added plants to every open space she could fit them. She’d found flagstones to make a path to the back fence, and an old table to make a little retreat. Keely, her former roomie, had strung fairy lights in the branches around the table, and it had officially become Dru’s favorite spot.
She tried to spend some time with the plants each day. They liked it when she told them stories, and her collection of rescued houseplants continued to grow. The humidity in July made her hair a mess, but her plant buddies loved it.
As the sun set, she’d intended to sit at her table, sip some wine, maybe read one of her man-chest books, and enjoy the praise she’d gotten at her presentation earlier. Instead, she spent the evening moving dirt. One of her larger pots had broken, and the tall fern living inside it had demanded a new home.
Not literally. The plants hadn’t started talking back to her, yet, but Dru knew what it meant when the leaves hung listlessly and the new growth came slower than it should.
She repotted the fern, repositioned it, and stood staring at the broken remains of the previous pot when the back door squeaked open. Dru turned, expecting to see Samantha with another glass of wine, but Oren appeared instead. He looked around at the lush vegetation, then smiled at her.
“You can’t even tell you’re in the city anymore.”
Dru had hoped her reaction to him came from the adrenaline of a near-death experience, but her pulse raced all the same. “I love the convenience and the pace, but there’s not enough green.”
He came down the path, and Dru turned away to move her tools off the table. It was one thing to ogle him on a street full of strangers, but now he walked through the heart of her. Samantha knew to keep guests away from the backyard, yet somehow Oren had made it past her. Dru took a deep breath and shook out her hands.
She had no reason to be nervous, but this meeting felt different.
“You have a handprint on your ass.”
Dru twisted to look at the back of her shorts, and sure enough, a dark brown handprint smeared across the grey fabric. An occupational hazard when she worked in the garden. She raised her eyes to meet his, much closer than she’d anticipated. A shock of awareness shivered up her back.
She lifted a brow. “Is that what you came here to talk about? My ass?”
He took another long look. “I like your shape, but no, that’s not why I’m here.”
Too bad. Dru banished the thought and sank into one of the chairs. She waved at the other one. “Have a seat.”
He sat next to her and leaned forward on his elbows, putting him right at eye-level. “How much do you know about your heritage?”
Dru frowned, a sinking suspicion ruining all the fun naughty thoughts she’d been toying with. “I’d rather talk about my ass.”
“We can do that too, if you like, but I should tell you that Luc brought me to that café this morning looking for Samantha.”
“That’s not entirely a surprise considering most of her office knew where we went. Why drag you along if he planned to torture Samantha?”
“Because we were looking for you. I was looking for you.”
Dru leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms, trying valiantly to hold on to her earlier zen. “I have to admit, this is getting creepier by the second.”
He smiled. “I recognize that, but I promise I mean you no harm.”
“That’s what they all say before they try to turn you into a fetching coat.” Why wasn’t she running? Or calling the cops? She should at least be yelling for Samantha. He had all the signs of an everyday weirdo, but the zing she’d felt when they’d collided hadn’t been only attraction. He had magic, and she purposefully lived in an area that magical people avoided.
Oren cocked his head. “You don’t seem afraid.”
“Yeah, I’m trying to work up to it.”
“Before you get all the way there, I’m here because I need your help.”
Dru narrowed her eyes. “With what?”
“I need access to the dryad homeland.”
Sheer, suffocating panic froze her for a second, but she’d been expecting something like that. A magical hottie showed up at the same time that her birth mother became more insistent in her messages? Probably not a coincidence.
“I fucking knew it.” Dru got up to pace back and forth on the far side of the table from him. “She sent you, didn’t she?”
“Who?”
“Don’t play dumb. You’ve already given away you have a nice brain to go with that pretty face.”
“Now who’s being creepy?”
She stopped to jab a finger in his direction. “Well you can tell her good try, but I’m not leaving here.” If Hollis had started sending actual people to harass her, the situation had gotten worse faster than she’d anticipated.
A terrible thought struck her, and she glared at Oren. “Were you the one who shoved me?”
He jerked back as if she’d slapped him. “I’d never put you in danger.”
“Well you were pretty quick on the trigger to save me. Maybe you didn’t consider it dangerous since you planned to yank me right back.”
He shook his head and a muscle in his jaw ticked. “I don’t know who shoved you, but I’d love to find them and have a talk about keeping their hands to themselves.”
Dru slowed and took a closer look at him. He’d been calm before, patient in the face of her accusations, but now he’d crossed over to anger. His eyes burned with blue fire, and she reconsidered her knee-jerk question. This was Oren in intimidation mode, and watching his massive shoulders tense at the thought of defending her made her stupid body want to plop down in his lap.
Her reaction couldn’t possibly be healthy. Maybe Keely had a point about all the books Dru had been reading.
Dru felt herself softening, but she only had his word. This would have been a great time for her magic power to actually be useful. Some way to discern the truth, maybe? Unless she planned to encase him in vines, she had to deal like a normal human.
A normal human who couldn’t risk going to Vethr—the dryad homeland—without losing her freedom, not even if she wanted to help a pretty savior. The safest option involved staying away from him until she had more information. Dru usually hated the safe option.
Oren must have sensed her wavering. “What do your rules say about a man pleading with a beautiful woman for her help?”
“They say he should probably be on his knees
.” The snarky comment slipped out unintentionally, as they often did. Dru didn’t put a lot of effort into filtering what she had to say. To her surprise, and the detriment of her resolve to stay away from him, he lowered himself to his knees in front of her.
“Please, kalia.”
2
OREN
Oren didn’t blame Dru for her anger, but her reaction to his request surprised him. Dru as a whole surprised him. He hadn’t lied when he’d said he liked her shape, but he liked her straight-forward attitude just as much.
Most women acted hesitant around him, with the glaring exception of his clan leader, Keris. No one knew how much power she actually wielded, but she’d earned her position through strength and cunning. Dru reminded him of her. Not in appearance, though both were tall, but in utter confidence.
Her green eyes widened for a moment when he hit his knees, and he thought he saw a flare of awareness before she schooled her features.
“If that’s all you want, you might as well leave now. I can’t go there.”
“Will you at least hear my plea?” He had to convince her. The dryads didn’t leave their realm, and he had no other way inside.
She sighed and lowered herself to her chair again. “Would you get up, please? You made your point. I feel weird with you kneeling in front of me. Why would you want to go to Vethr? They don’t welcome outsiders.”
Oren resumed his seat, noting her use of the word ‘they’. Interesting that she didn’t ally herself with the dryads. “I’m looking for someone.”
She crossed her arms. “I thought you were looking for me.”
He inclined his head. “One of my clan stole two of our artifacts, a ring and a necklace, and traveled to Vethr. I’m tasked with finding her.” Oren didn’t mention how she’d blamed the theft on his closest friend or tried to kill him not too long ago.
Dru’s brow furrowed. “Are you a bounty hunter?”
“Sort of. I’ve been sent by my clan leader to retrieve the woman, and the artifacts if possible.”
“Mm-hmm. What else?”
He hesitated. In general, he didn’t talk about his history, but Dru didn’t seem swayed by his official duty. Perhaps if she knew his personal connection. “Some years ago, well before your time, a group of my people, including my parents, left to travel to the dryads. They vanished and are assumed dead. Tamra, the woman I’m searching for, believes there’s a connection between the dryads and the envoy’s disappearance.”
She shook her head slowly, and Oren’s hopes sank. “If she’s looking for information, why would you stop her? Aren’t you curious too?”
“Yes, but I don’t believe she’s searching for the same answers I want.”
Dru stared past him at the house for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision. “I’m sorry about your parents, but I can’t help you.”
Oren leaned forward prepared to argue his case again, but Dru held up a finger.
“I can’t help you right now. I have my own issues I’m dealing with, and I won’t travel to Vethr until they’re resolved.”
“Then let me help you resolve them.”
She laughed dryly. “You have no idea what you’re offering.”
Oren didn’t care. He’d do whatever it took to bring Tamra back. Seth and Aiden were busy with their mates, that left only him to find the truth. Helping this fascinating woman would be an added bonus.
“I offer you my considerable skills in return for passage.”
Dru met his eyes, hers full of shrewd caution. She held his gaze, and a possessive hunger made his abdomen tighten. He didn’t intimidate her, yet she refused to jump at his proposition. Because she worried he couldn’t handle her problem or because she’d learned not to trust offers of aid? He guessed the latter.
Oren amended his previous thought. He’d still retrieve Tamra, but if Dru agreed, he’d do whatever it took to help her.
She blinked and looked away. “I like considerable skills, but I need to think about it.”
Oren knew when to regroup. He nodded and stood. “I’ll be back tomorrow.” Halfway down the path, he felt a touch of magic. Not Dru’s. Her magic was warm and full of life. This felt cool, like a rainstorm.
The touch didn’t invade as he expected. It ghosted along the edges of his mind, then left. He cast his power out, searching for another magic-user in the area. They shouldn’t have been hard to locate among the mundane masses, but Oren found nothing.
He slowed as he neared the house and frowned. His affinity for finding should have at least given him a direction for the intruder. Dru had shields—strong ones that he’d smacked into when she’d crashed into his chest earlier—so she should be protected. Then again, he should have sensed something besides a presence in his mind.
The backyard of the row house didn’t have access beyond the door into the house. He could hop the privacy fence with little trouble, but the ladies didn’t seem to mind him traipsing through the interior. Samantha tended something on the stove in the kitchen, clad in a business suit and brightly-colored heels under a long blue apron. Her food smelled delicious, but Oren intended to walk past her and out of the house.
“Why do you want her?” Samantha continued to watch the pot she stirred, but her quiet question stopped him in his tracks.
“That’s my business.”
“Not if you plan to hurt her.”
Oren tilted his head. “Why would you assume that?”
She shrugged. “Luc isn’t the best judge of character.”
“Your quarrel with Luc has nothing to do with me.”
“And your inability to answer my question raises my doubts.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I have no intention of hurting Dru. I’ve asked for her help, and she said she needed to think about it.”
“Help with what?”
Oren hit the limit of his patience. He appreciated Samantha’s protective instincts, but Dru had nothing to fear from him. “Ask her.”
“Keris said I should ask you.”
Oren took a moment to reorient himself. He’d thought Samantha nothing more than a clever human, but if she knew Keris, she was something else. “What are you?”
She finally looked up, the picture of composure with icy blue eyes and her blonde hair pulled back in a tight twist. “That’s my business. Dru is also my business. I know you don’t intend to harm her yourself, or you wouldn’t have made it past the doorway. I’d like to know what you have planned for her.”
“I won’t reveal her secrets if she hasn’t told you herself.”
A modicum of respect crossed her face. “I’ll accept that. I know what she is, though she hasn’t told me. You won’t reveal anything about Dru I don’t already know.”
Oren glanced out the window into the now dark backyard. Dru sat where he’d left her, illuminated by the tiny lights strung over the table. All the coded language gave him a headache. Magical creatures tended to reveal as little information as possible at any given time.
His attention tracked back to Samantha. Magical creatures. He’d searched the area for traces of magic and found nothing. How had she hidden herself?
“That was you in my mind, wasn’t it?”
She nodded. “I thought I’d do a cursory check before you walked past me. It pays to be cautious.”
He belatedly remembered that Keely, Seth’s mate, had lived here too, before meeting him. A rare magical human among the millions living on this island. When he tested the house for magic, he found a minute trace drawn around the entire property. Not a ward, those were too obvious. Something subtle, but strong.
“The house is protected?”
Samantha went back to stirring. “You could say I provide a safe place for the magically inclined.”
“Dru and Keely?”
“And others. I’ve answered your questions, now answer mine.”
Oren eyed the door. He could leave. She didn’t seem keen on keeping him around, but if he refused to answer, she might b
ar him from the house. Worse, as a friend, she might work against him, convincing Dru not to help.
“Keris sent me here to gain access to the dryad homeworld. I’m on an assignment to retrieve a clan traitor.”
Samantha’s brows drew together. “And she sent you to Luc?”
“She sent me to Terra—sorry, New York. Seth sent me to Luc.”
“Interesting,” she mused. “I didn’t contact her until after we ran into you this afternoon.”
Oren crossed his arms. “How did you know to contact her?”
“You reek of the clans. Not to mention a blind person could have seen the magic flare between you and Dru.”
He’d never heard the clans described that way before, and honestly, he wasn’t sure if he should be offended or not. Keris had never been particularly subtle about her machinations, but had she really been behind this outcome? Magic tended to eschew coincidence, but like called to like, as Keris often said.
“Why tell me the truth?”
Samantha moved the pot and turned off the stove. “You kept Dru’s secrets. I expect you to keep mine.”
Oren’s jaw ticked. “I won’t lie to Dru.”
She poured the thick sauce over two bowls of waiting pasta, then turned to him, setting the empty pot aside. “But you’ll lie to others. Very interesting. I don’t expect you to lie for me. Dru will understand the sanctity of secrets.”
Oren did not like Samantha’s penchant for digging out the deeper meaning in his statements. She appeared ready to serve dinner, and though the food made his stomach growl, he wanted to be gone before Dru came inside. But Samantha had asked about his intentions. Why do you want her?
“I want Dru because she’s the only one who can get me through the portal.”
She cocked her head. “Is that all?”
Oren’s first instinct was to deflect. Despite what she thought, he tried not to lie unless necessary. In this case, he suspected she’d find the truth anyway. He wanted Dru in every way he could get her. “No. That’s not all.”
Samantha nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Take care with her. She acts tough, but she wants to be loved.”
