Page 16 of Whispers of the Dryad

“You’re a goddess,” I said.She narrowed her eyes at me.“How do you know that?”

“You don’t look like any human I know.Your attitude… You also called her Philotes.”

“You’re smart,” she said.“I’m Artemis.”

“The hunting goddess?”I asked.She nodded.“Among other things.”

When I glanced past her, I noticed deer grazing in the meadow.Wasn’t that how she always presented herself?Cat had told me something about that.I tried to dig back into my memories of what Cat had always talked about, but I’d never really cared for Greek mythology.If I’d known what I knew now, I would have paid a lot more attention.“Can we come in?”Artemis asked.“Sure,” I said.

They stepped into the cabin, and Artemis looked around as if she was scrutinizing the place.“It looks different in here since I visited last.”

“Ash changed it for me,” I said.“It was a little… outdated.”

“Hmm,” she said.“Does he come to see you a lot?”

I frowned.“Yeah, often enough.He hasn’t been by in a while, but he usually comes to check in.”

Artemis nodded and walked into the kitchen, running her hands over the coffee machine, the counters, the new stove that wasn’t anything like the wood-burning thing I’d had here until recently.“Is there something I can help you with?”I asked.Artemis seemed pretty invasive.“Do you love him?”she asked.I blinked at her.“What?”

“What she means,” Philippa said quickly, “is that she’s always looked out for Ash, and he got his heart broken pretty badly before, so she just wants to get to know you.”

“And find out if I’ll break his heart, too,” I said, looking at Artemis again.“Humans can be very fickle,” Artemis said.“They fall in and out of love like it’s a game.”

“It’s hard to find the person you’re going to spend the rest of your life with when you have limited time to work with,” I pointed out.Artemis tilted her head, watching me.“You’re a firecracker, aren’t you?”

I shook my head, irritated.Noticing this, Philippa put her hand on Artemis’s arm as if she was trying to stop her from saying anything else.“We’re getting off on the wrong foot,” Philippa said.“Why don’t we have some of your delicious coffee, and we can sit down and talk, get to know each other a little bit?”

I hesitated.I wasn’t sure I wanted that.Why had Philippa brought Artemis to me, and why was she so hostile?“Will you make us some coffee, please?”Philippa asked.“Artemis has never tried it.”She turned to the goddess.“You’ll think you’ve died and gone to Valhalla when you taste it,” Philippa said.Artemis raised her eyebrows.“Goddesses can’t die.”

Philippa looked at me with pleading eyes.Was I supposed to make this better?She was the one who’d brought the hostile goddess along; it wasn’t my problem.Still, I nodded.I couldn’t exactly kick them out—they were goddesses, and this wasn’t exactly my cabin.I was just a guest here.I walked to the kitchen, careful to step around Artemis, and programmed the machine to make three cups of coffee.I prepared the cups while Artemis looked around the cabin.“He hadn’t done anything about this place in a long time,” she said.“I’m surprised he changed it all up.”

“I was struggling after the life I knew back home,” I offered.“The biggest thing was running water.”I smiled when I thought back to the way Ash had fucked me in the shower.He’d started to love the running water, too.He’d come back for some of that more often.“Running water,” Artemis said.I nodded and prepared the second cup.“He must really think something of you to go to the trouble.”

“Was it a lot of trouble?”I asked.“I don’t know how magic works.”

“Magic belongs to the user, and it’s allotted according to what we’re assigned at birth.I’m the goddess of hunting, chastity, and the moon.My powers are aligned with that.I can’t be deceitful, for instance, or create storms, or salvage friendships.”She glanced at Philippa.“It’s not what I was made to do.”

“Ash protects the forest,” I said.“Hmm,” Artemis answered.It meant he’d had to go looking for someone with magic to do this for me, and it hadn’t necessarily been easy.I’d loved that he’d done this for me.

Now, it meant even more.When the third cup of coffee finished, I offered the cups to my guests, and we sat down on the couches.Artemis carefully sipped hers.“Oh, gods,” she said.“I told you,” Philippa said with a grin and winked at me as if this coffee would change everything.Would it?It was just coffee, but Artemis really did look like she’d died and gone to heaven.“I don’t want to hurt him,” I said softly.“I know you’re worried about that.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you’re hostile about it, and that only happens when you care enough about someone that you think might get hurt.”

Artemis studied me without answering for a moment before she nodded.“He’s been hurt before.Badly.He made a lot of sacrifices for the woman he was in love with, only to learn that she didn’t feel the same about him.She used him—I’m not sure for what—and then she left, and he had to pick up the pieces of a broken heart and a shattered existence.”

My heart ached for Ash that he’d been through so much hell with someone he’d trusted.“I know what that can be like,” I said, looking into my cup instead of sipping the coffee.“I thought I could trust the man I loved, too.Instead, he sold me.I had to revisit everything I thought was true, too.Love isn’t selective in who gets to experience it, but neither is pain.”

Artemis sipped her coffee.“You’re not afraid to love again after what you’ve been through?”

I shook my head.“I can’t help it, can I?I mean, sure, I’m afraid, but we don’t choose who we fall in love with.Sometimes, it’s the perfect guy.Sometimes, it’s someone who sells you to pay off his gambling debt after he stole all your money for years.”

Artemis looked horrified and glanced at Philippa, who only nodded.“Hmm,” she finally said.“I think I might have misjudged you.”

“Yeah?”I asked with a giggle.“I guess I get that a lot around here.You know, being human and all has me at a disadvantage.”

Artemis looked surprised before she burst out laughing.“You’re joking.That was a joke.”

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