Of Shadows and Ash

by Dana Marie Bell

  The man was hot, but he wasn’t hers and never would be, and she was finally okay with that.

  Too bad she’d met Ash at a time when she’d still felt something for Dragos. It had tainted her view of the dryad, making her push him away more harshly than she would have otherwise. “No. It’s not because of Dragos. At least, not anymore.”

  “Good. Because Ash deserves happiness too. It’s not easy being the guardian of the forest.” Amara winced. “I would know.”

  Selena rubbed her forehead. “He’s a little...Captain Caveman for my tastes.” She held up her hand, aware Amara was about to protest. “But I’ll try harder, I promise.”

  “Thanks.” Amara relaxed with a happy smile. “Now. Let’s see if we can’t figure out what’s going on around here.”

  A low, menacing growl filled the room. And it didn’t come from any of them.

  “Or not.” Parker stood, grabbing hold of Amara’s arm. “Lovely visit, so sad we can’t stay, bye now!” He began dragging Amara from the room.

  Amara dug her heels in, halting the vampire in his tracks. “Parker!”

  “Hmm?” The man was still trying to walk forward. “Come along, you two, I think we’ve outstayed our welcome.”

  Selena’s brows rose. “This is my house, Parker. How can I outstay anything?”

  “We need to help Selena.” Amara could easily hold back her vampire, mostly because Parker wasn’t trying all that hard to go. He’d never deliberately hurt Amara.

  “Oh, no.” Parker shook his head. “I watch late night telly. I know how this ends. We investigate like the Scooby Gang and the perky sidekick—that would be me—gets filleted and strung from a branch. I don’t think I’d look very good with my insides on my outside, thank you.”

  “That’s only because we don’t have a cute blonde cheerleader to sacrifice first.” But for all her bravado, Selena was shaking.

  “Call Ash.” Amara was still holding Parker in place despite his continued struggle to get to the front door. “Get him here now. I can’t hold Parker for much longer.”

  Huh. Maybe he was struggling harder than Selena had thought. Selena nodded and picked up the phone, dialing the number she’d memorized despite her protests of disinterest.

  Fuck being strong. She was going to let her future mate protect her ass before it got bit by something she couldn’t see.

  * * *

  Ash didn’t bother knocking on Selena’s front door. Being awakened from a sound sleep by her shaking voice had been the most horrible experience of his life. The only thing that came close was finding out she’d been taken by the Van Helsings. At least then he’d had an enemy to rage at, but hearing his mate’s fear without a target gave him no outlet for his own. “Selena?”

  She was pacing in front of her altar, her expression filled with anxiety. Her short hair was rumpled, as if she’d been running her fingers through it repeatedly.

  He had to smile at her dark gray T-shirt. “T-Rex hates push-ups?”

  She flailed her arms at him while keeping her elbows close to her sides. It was absolutely adorkable. “Teeny arms.”

  “Okay.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “First, why is Amara sitting on Parker?”

  “Oh.” Selena shrugged nonchalantly. “He tried to leave, and Amara said no.”

  Amara had Parker face down on the couch. She’d sat on his rear end, her legs crossed daintily as she sipped some tea. The vampire wasn’t struggling to get her off. Neither did he look as comfortable as Ash would have expected.

  Parker mouthed, Help. Me.

  “We couldn’t leave Selena unprotected.” Amara smiled. “Hello, Ash.”

  “Amara.” Ash shook his head and turned his attention back to Selena. Parker and Amara could handle themselves. “Why do you need to be protected?”

  “Evil. Growly and evil,” Parker moaned. “Possibly stinky as well.”

  Amara sipped her tea, seemingly unconcerned.

  “Selena?” Ash tried his best to ignore the pair on the sofa. “Want to tell me what the hell he’s talking about?”

  Selena sighed and settled in the chair he’d learned was her favorite. “It started out with scratching sounds.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Ash watched her, trying to catch every nuance of her changing expressions. As much as she tried to hide it, he could tell that something had frightened her badly.

  “Carter and Parker checked it out, but couldn’t find anything but a funny smell that quickly disappeared.”

  “Uh-huh.” Carter had told him he’d smelled something, and now Parker had as well.

  “Then we heard a growl.”

  “Evil growl.” Parker held up his hand. “Don’t forget the evil part.”

  Selena glared at the prone vampire. “You’re not helping, Parker.”

  Parker nodded at Ash. “Yes I am.” Amara squealed as Parker turned to mist under her, dropping her to the sofa. The vampire reappeared by the front door in a standing position. “All joking aside, whatever growled sounded menacing.”

  “Did you check the house?”

  Parker’s jaw dropped. “Of course I did! There was no scent of animal, no eyes, no paw prints, nothing to lead me to think we are dealing with a physical threat. Just that sound. So of course I said shall we check out the dark, possibly demon infested home? I’ll go into the bedroom alone. Amara, you can check the front yard. If we find you hanging from a tree with your intestines wrapped around your neck, we’ll know we’re dealing with evil.” Parker glanced at Amara and sighed. “Please, can we go now?”

  “No.” Amara shook her head at Parker. “Not until we know for sure Selena is safe.”

  “Parker?” Ash watched as the vampire slumped dejectedly. “Have you been watching late night television again?”

  Parker sniffed and refused to meet Ash’s gaze. “Well, there was a horror movie marathon...”

  Ash sighed. “Amara, you’re with me. Parker, keep an eye on Selena.”

  “Right.” Amara put her teacup down and stood. A halo of red leaves appeared around her head, her green eyes glowing with light. The hamadryad was ready for a fight. “What are we checking?”

  “Let’s look around the outside of the house, see if we can find any signs that someone is playing nasty pranks.” Ash led the way out the door, past a snarling Parker. The man didn’t like his mate being in any dangerous situations, but there wasn’t anything Amara wouldn’t do to protect the people of Maggie’s Grove.

  But if Parker’s overprotective instincts were beginning to kick in, Ash would pay attention. The vampire was well aware his mate could handle herself in combat. He’d seen it, watched her battle, but something about this particular situation was raising Parker’s hackles big time. Parker had been hunted for years by a deranged witch. When it came to being stalked, he had a finely tuned sense of when to run and when to stand his ground.

  That Parker had tried to grab Amara and run told Ash a lot. Something was going on. Now it was up to Ash to figure out what.

  Ash called his silver sword. If something was skulking around, growling at Selena, it was going to meet a swift end. “Look for paw prints. We might have a rogue shifter on our hands.”

  “It could be a dragon. That would account for the unfamiliar smells, the lack of footprints, the scritching with no other signs.” Amara glanced toward the roof. “I can check for dragon signs up there if you want.”

  Amara had a good point. “We should get Dragos to look too. He’s far more familiar with them than we are. If it is some kind of flying shifter we’ll have to talk to Vasile.” The dragon prince had become something of an unofficial liaison for all of the flying shifters. While Noah still ruled them all, Prince Vasile Ibanescu was more capable of understanding the unique challenges the winged shifters faced.

  Noah and Vasile were not friends, but they had a great deal of respect for one another. Ash had watched the two shifters dance around one another, and he had the feeling that once they got over their maneuvering they’d find the
y had a lot in common.

  “I’m going to try and get a sense of what’s going on off the land.” Ash could get a lot of information that way. He wasn’t as good at it as Mina, but the land would tell him things as its guardian that it wouldn’t tell anyone else. Mina, as queen, could reach further and do more than Ash could, but the land trusted Ash to keep it safe from anything that might harm it, or its denizens.

  “All right.” Amara climbed up the side of Selena’s home like a vine, finding finger and toe holds only a spider could have used.

  Ash grinned. Amara was truly coming into her own, and he couldn’t be happier for her. Glinda, the witch who’d raised her, would be so proud of the child she’d called her daughter.

  Ash closed his eyes, certain Amara would either find something or not. Either way, he doubted she would come to harm. It was difficult to harm a hamadryad who’d fully come into their powers, and Amara was just about there.

  He reached out, sinking his senses into the plants around them, searching for anything that seemed out of place.

  He frowned. That was...odd. The land itself was afraid, the plants sending out roots and seeds away from the home of the witch doctor. Normally they were drawn to Selena, to her gifts and her power. Witches who followed the path of healing or sight often had an affinity for living things, and Selena had been no exception. Now, however, the green and growing things were shying away from her. Birds had abandoned their nests in the tree in her front yard. Even the insects had begun to scurry away.

  What the fuck?

  Ash opened his eyes with a curse. The land was reacting to Selena’s home the same way it had with Terri, running away from something foul and unclean.

  “What’s wrong?” Amara jumped off the roof, landing daintily at his side.

  “Feel anything strange?” Ash waited while Amara checked for herself.

  The hamadryad snarled. “What the hell?” Amara’s voice deepened. Bark began to cover her hands, her forearms. “It feels like Terri is nearby.”

  “She can’t be. She’s dead, gone.” But what if some part of the witch had survived?

  No. That wasn’t possible. It had to be something else. The undead creature who had terrorized Maggie’s Grove was in the safest place Ash and Greer could think of, her dust scattered in dozens upon dozens of tiny little jars sealed by magic. Not even her spirit lingered in the town. Dragos and Mina had proven that.

  So something else was happening, something that merely felt like Terri. “It’s not her. I’m positive of that.” Ash stared at Selena’s home. “So what else could it be?”

  “Some other witch, perhaps?” Amara grimaced. “Maybe some lingering trace of Kate? Selena did try to bind Kate’s powers before Mina killed her.”

  “And she faked being Terri, down to the aura.” Damn it. It would explain what was going on far better than Terri’s spirit being around Selena, terrorizing her. “You think Kate might have cursed Selena?” It was possible, but if so a witch would have to look into helping his mate. There wasn’t much Ash could do about a curse except try and help Selena weather it until it could be broken.

  “A death curse would linger long after the witch was gone.” Amara, having been raised by a witch, knew more about magic than most non-witches. “Despite Kate’s soul being dead the curse she left behind would still be active. Death curses are the strongest, worst curses a witch can throw. Not much can get rid of them.”

  Fuck. Ash had no magical gifts beyond those being a dryad granted him. This wasn’t something he could deal with by waving his sword at it. “I’ll talk to Gideon. Maybe he’ll look at her for us, see if it really is a curse.”

  Amara clenched her fists. “Usually it’s the witch doctor that deals with this kind of thing.”

  The irony was not lost on him. “Great. You’re telling me it takes a witch to remove a curse or a hex, and the one who deals best with those is the one who’s been cursed.” Ash stared up at the roof. “Let me guess. You didn’t see anything up there.”

  “Nope. Looks brand new, other than some bird droppings.”

  “Bird?”

  “Yup. Old ones, splattered, like it was dropped from a height. I’m thinking it was a fly-by poop, not a peeping Tom poop.”

  Ash bit his lip. Now was not the time to laugh, but Amara had said that with such a straight face he was having a hard time not laughing. “Okay.”

  Amara smacked his arm. “Stop.”

  Good thing she was careful of her strength. A hamadryad who wasn’t paying attention could accidentally snap bones. “Let’s tell Selena what we’ve found.”

  “Good idea. I bet Parker is filling her head with ghosts and goblins.”

  Ash smirked. “Selena’s far too smart to fall for ghost stories.”

  “Besides, most of the ghosts who live in town are too nice to do something like this to Selena. They all love her to pieces.” Amara led the way back into Selena’s home. “We didn’t find anything that shouldn’t have been there.”

  “No claw marks, no scales or feathers, no fur.” Ash took hold of Selena’s hand, frowning when he felt how cold her skin was. “But the land and the animals are slowly moving away from your home.” He rubbed her hands, hoping to bring some warmth back. “And both Amara and I got the same sense off the land that we did wherever Terri went.”

  Selena’s worried gaze focused solely on him. “Is the land poisoned?”

  “No.” That was one thing she didn’t have to worry about. When Terri was alive, just her presence caused the land to become poisoned. It had taken weeks to clean up the mess Terri left behind, and Ash still wasn’t certain how they’d done so with Mina stuck in the Throne for weeks. Dead and scattered, Terri no longer had the power to taint the land. “Terri is gone. Her spirit has long since left the earth.” He moved to her arms, her skin slowly warming under his touch. “But it feels like either you or the house might be under a curse or a hex.”

  “Kate. She’s the only one who hated any of us enough to do something like this.” Selena’s worried frown became an angry scowl. “Ooh, I wish I could bring her back just so I could kill her myself.”

  “Don’t discount the possibility that this could have something to do with what happened in the Van Helsing lab.” Parker shrugged when all of them turned to him. “We know ghosts exist. You could have brought something, or rather someone, back with you, someone that’s pissed that you survived and it didn’t.”

  “Or my powers could have called something forth, either at the compound or here.” Selena slumped against Ash, startling him. She buried her face against his chest with a soft, weary sigh.

  It was the first time she’d truly leaned on him for strength, and Ash loved it. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her loosely, afraid she’d move if he tried to tighten his grip. He didn’t want this moment to end. He just wished it hadn’t taken terror to push Selena willingly into his arms.

  “My powers have been acting strangely since my time with the Van Helsings. My connection to the spirit world is off, and my sight has dimmed.” The reluctant admission was mumbled against his chest.

  “Then we examine all three possibilities until we find out what’s really going on and stop it.” Ash took a deep breath. She was not going to like what he had to say next, but he’d fight her on this until she gave in. He had to. He would go insane if he didn’t. “Until then, I’ll be living here with you.”

  “Fuck no.” Her immediate negative would have pissed him off if she hadn’t wrapped her arms around his waist. “Look. I know you think we’re mates—”

  He growled at that. There was no think about it. She was his, whether she liked it or not.

  “Wow. Impressive snarl there, Captain Planet. Can we get back to my point, please?” Selena tried to pull free of his embrace, but he wouldn’t allow it. She settled back down with a huff. “If it is my wonky powers doing all of this, it could affect you. Hell, through you it could affect the Throne, and from the Throne?”

  “All of Ma
ggie’s Grove.” He could understand her concern, but damn it. She was afraid. He couldn’t leave her alone, without protection. She had no way to defend herself until her powers settled back down.

  And he’d be damned if he left that job to anyone else.

  “And all of the elementals who are tied to the Throne, and all of the shifters who bow before the Queen of the Forest. The witches, who draw their power from the earth.” Selena clasped his biceps, her nails digging into his skin. “Everyone could be harmed.”

  “My job is to protect you.” Ash could be just as stubborn. No way was he leaving his mate afraid and alone. “We haven’t bonded yet. Until then, your unstable powers shouldn’t affect mine.”

  “I’m almost afraid to ask how dryads bond.” Selena blushed when Amara snickered and Parker quietly moaned. “Now I really don’t want to know.”

  Ash leaned forward until their foreheads met. “Trust me, little witch. When the time comes and you’re ready to let me claim you, you’ll want to know.”

  “Sure I will. If that day comes.”

  He loved that about her. Even embarrassed she gave as good as she got, fought as hard as she could.

  She had nothing to fear from him. His whole goal in life now was to see to her wants and needs. “Mmm-hmm.” Before she could protest he stole a kiss, tasting her unique flavor. She must have had some tea while he was outside with Amara. The creamy, sweet flavor of spiced Chai mixed with the distinct taste of his mate filled his senses. “I’m staying.”

  And there was nothing she could say or do that would get Ash to change his mind.

  “Stubborn man.” But she licked her lips before opening her eyes. “Fine. But you get the spare bedroom.”

  He’d take it. It was a start. Eventually Selena would be moved to the Throne, to live with him in his home beneath the great oak. But until then, he’d live off whatever crumbs she saw fit to throw his way.