Page 32 of Whispers of the Dryad

Rowan shook his head.“Damn it, Ash, what’s the hurry?”

“The rest of my life!”I cried out.“I have a chance to leave it all behind, but I couldn’t wait for her to decide if she wanted this or not.I have to decide soon, and if she’s not on board with staying here with me, then there’s no reason for me to stay.”

Rowan bristled.“Thanks, asshole.”

I shook my head.I didn’t have the time or energy to deal with Rowan and his need to feel accepted.He knew what I meant.“Look,” I said.“The fact of the matter is it’s over, so I’m leaving, and that’s all there is to it.”

“You were going to go without saying goodbye?”

I sighed.He was right; I should have gone to find him to say goodbye.I’d just been so driven by my pain and so ready to leave it all behind that I hadn’t thought straight.“I just had to get out of here,” I said, knowing how shit it sounded.“That’s good to know,” Rowan said bleakly.“You know what?I don’t understand you.You have so much going for you, but you can’t deal with even one small thing going wrong.”

I stared at Rowan.“What did you just say to me?”

“You heard me,” Rowan said, jutting his chin up at me.“I know you’ve been through a tough time, but do you think life is all sunshine and rainbows for the rest of us?We all go through shit, man.We all deal with tough times, but the rest of us don’t keep looking for a way out, and we sure as shit don’t hurt the people who care about us in the process.”

I shook my head.“I’m not going to stick around for a lecture.If this is what you want our last chat to be, then I’m out.”

“Fine,” Rowan said.“You just remember when you’re wherever the hell you’re going in your shiny new life, that the one thing you can’t escape after all your effort… is you.”

I glared at Rowan.“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Rowan shook his head and turned his back on me.A pang shot into my chest when he walked away.He’d been my best friend for as long as I could remember, but I’d fucked that up when I’d pulled away from him.I’d fucked up a lot of things in the past couple of weeks.Whatever.It didn’t matter.

I’d told Lorraine to suck it, and Rowan could go and jump in the lake for all I cared, because once I took Dolus up on his deal, I wouldn’t know any of it anyway.It was the only reason I’d ended it with Lorraine now, no matter how much it hurt, because I wasn’t going to know about all of this when I finally went… wherever Dolus was taking me.Pain didn’t matter when I wouldn’t know what hurt me in the first place.That counted for everything—Lorraine, Ava, the three centuries I’d been building a crappy life, losing my best friend and the other gods and goddesses.It was time for me to leave my past behind and step forward, and Dolus had offered me an out.That was what I’d wanted all along, and now that I knew what my future would be, I knew that I didn’t want it.I marched on until I was in a different part of the forest where I didn’t know the trees so well, didn’t know the druses that lived in them.“Dolus!”I shouted.Nothing.Where the hell was he?“Dolus!”I shouted again.“Come on, man, I know you’ve been watching me.Now would be a good time to show yourself!”

He appeared in front of me, his broad, flat grin stretched across his face.“You rang?”he asked sarcastically.I rolled my eyes.“I’ve made my decision.”

“Yeah?”

I nodded.“I just need you to tell me again—I won’t remember anything, right?”

“Nothing at all, your past will be gone, and you can start over.”

“Where am I going?”I asked.“I told you, I can’t tell you that,” Dolus said.“That will just give you another choice, and I’m sick of you and your choices.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I let it go.“Okay,” I said.“I’ll do it.”

Dolus grinned broadly.“I was hoping you’d say that.”

“You’ll make sure I end up in a good place, right?”I asked Dolus.The world around me started to tremble and shake.I looked around, but it was as if I wasn’t in the world anymore, rather, floating detached from it.A rumbling sound started, getting louder and louder.“Dolus?”I cried out.“Answer me!”

The sound of Dolus’s laughter echoed all around me, getting louder and louder.“Dolus!”I shouted to be heard at all.“Where am I going?”

“What does it matter?”Dolus cried out.“You won’t remember anything, so you won’t know what you’re leaving behind!”

“Dolus, what does that mean!?”I cried out, but Dolus was gone.Only his echoing laughter remained.The magic inside me came alive, and it started tugging at my core.It filled me up, ripping and tugging at me, making me feel like I was unraveling, coming undone at the seams.I screamed, but I could barely hear my voice above the rumble and Dolus’s laughter around me.And then it all went black.

ChapterTwenty-Nine

Lorraine

Islowly blinked my eyes open.The light in the room was strange, and I frowned, trying to shake off the dregs of sleep.I felt like I’d slept for a long time.A century, like Sleeping Beauty.A prince hadn’t woken me up.In fact, my prince had given me an ultimatum, and now it was over between us.As the reality hit me, my stomach sank and tears welled in my eyes.What the hell was I still doing here?I was stuck in this alternate realm and I couldn’t go home.I was bound to Ash for another week or so, which kept me here in this magical realm, and there was no way for me to get out of here.Not even after we weren’t together anymore.Not even after he’d been completely unreasonable.It seemed so damn unfair.

I lay in bed, my sadness turning into anger as I thought about Ash and how ridiculous he’d been.How could he have done that to me?What had made him think that pushing me into a corner was a good idea?The anger grounded me.I could deal with anger—it was so much easier to handle than sadness.I’d dealt with loss so many times in my life, and I still wasn’t that great at handling it.I could do anger.Anger was familiar.Anger fueled me, pushed me forward, when sadness dragged me down and held me back.The more I thought about Ash and how he’d acted, the more furious I became.He’d come to have sex with me, and it had been incredible, the most emotionally connected we’d ever been.His magic had done something—the bond between us had been ramped up more than ever… and then this.If I hadn’t been willing to give it all up right away, then I couldn’t have what we shared at all.He hadn’t even been willing to give me a chance to think about it.I got out of bed, showered, and got dressed, my anger propelling me forward.I had no idea what I would do until I could go back home.I would keep myself busy somehow and count the days, the hours, the minutes until I could go back to my sister and the life I understood.That life had never been something I’d been very attached to.Everything I’d done after my parents’ deaths had been to take care of Cat, to try to right the wrong where I’d been responsible for my parents’ deaths.None of that had been because it was what I wanted.Now, it was all I wanted again.It was the life I’d left behind, a life I understood.I missed my sister; I missed the normal problems I’d had, not the problems that had been all about magic and sacrifices and ultimatums.“Not that things were all that much easier,” I reminded myself out loud while I brushed out my hair and braided it.After all, I’d had problems with Oscar, who in the end had sold me to get rid of his gambling debt.No matter how many times I said it, it would always be a shock, something that sounded so bizarre.How could one person be so evil?I guessed there was a lot more darkness in the world than I’d always been aware of, and losing my parents had been scratching the surface, no matter how terrible it had been.I sighed when I finished braiding my hair and walked to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee and eat something.When I turned into the small open-plan kitchen, Oscar was leaning against the counter, hands curled around the countertop, attitude casual as if he’d always been there.“What the fuck!?”I cried out and bounced away from him.“Is that how you greet a lover?”Oscar asked coolly.“What the hell are you doing here?”I demanded, trying to catch my breath.My heart hammered against my chest, and I swallowed hard.My mouth had run dry, but my palms were clammy.I wiped them on the leggings I’d put on.“I’m here for you, babe,” Oscar said.I looked around, looking for something to use as a weapon.There was nothing but a dirty coffee cup on the coffee table.Oscar was too close to the drawer with the knives in it.I took a few quick steps to get to the coffee table and picked up the mug, holding it out as if it were a knife.Oscar looked at the cup, confused, before he chuckled, his face breaking into the grin I knew so well.“What are you planning to do with that?”he asked.I shook my head.Maybe he was just an apparition, some kind of dream.Or a nightmare.That’s where I’d been seeing him all this time.

This couldn’t be real—Oscar couldn’t be in this realm.And yet…

“Come on, babe, don’t be like that,” Oscar said.“Don’t call me that,” I snapped.“I thought you’d be glad to see me.”

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