Page 35 of Whispers of the Dryad

Fear at the sound of his voice pushed me forward, although my legs were starting to tremble.I was getting exhausted, but I couldn’t stop.Not now.“Ash, where are you?”I gasped out loud.“Ash!”

He didn’t answer; he didn’t appear.I had to find him, and soon.“Lorraine,” Oscar said in a singsong voice.I heard twigs snap and branches crack under his feet as he barreled through the forest.He was getting closer and closer.I looked over my shoulder, but I couldn’t see him.

I didn’t doubt that he was much closer than I hoped.I couldn’t for one second underestimate him now that I knew he had magic, too.“Ash!”I cried out.Oscar’s laughter filled the forest around me.“You’re not getting any help, not before I get to you.”It was a threat, loaded with the promise of pain and more pain.“We’re going home, you and me, and then we’ll live as the happy family we were meant to be.You, me, and that sister of yours.”

“Leave her out of this!”I shouted.Oscar’s laughter sounded again, and it was threatening even without any words that promised the kind of life I knew I would hate.Where the hell was Ash?I had no idea how to find him, and my time was running out.I was in trouble.Why couldn’t I find him?I’d been so ready to be with him.The bond I had with Ash was nothing like the messed-up relationship I’d had with Oscar.It had taken me a long time to realize how bad our relationship had been—I’d ignored all the red flags because I’d been terrified of being alone, but?—

I stopped my train of thought and circled back to the facts.I was bound to Ash.The thought hit me like a ton of bricks.Running through the forest to try to find him wasn’t going to help me.Oscar was going to catch up to me, but if I reached for Ash through our bond, I could find him.I stopped running.Stopping seemed counterintuitive—if Oscar caught up to me before I found Ash, I was going to be in a really bad place.I had to do something, though.I had to try.My lungs burned when I gasped for air, and my legs trembled, feeling like jelly.I struggled to keep myself upright, and I leaned against a tree.I closed my eyes and, forcing myself to stop thinking about the fear and exhaustion, I turned my concentration inward.Things might have been over between me and Ash, but that didn’t mean the bond was broken.It didn’t take long before I found it.It was faint, as if a part of it had been severed.How?There was no time to wonder about that.I found what was left of the bond and I held onto it, gripping it as if it were a lifeline.I tugged, and in my mind’s eye, I saw a magical thread that led between the trees, binding me to him, leading me right to him like a trail of breadcrumbs.I started running again.This time, I didn’t focus on what I saw with my eyes.Instead, I focused on what I felt.Somehow, doing that also drowned out Oscar’s voice.I no longer heard him talking, and I didn’t have the feeling that he was right on my heels anymore.He was still after me—no doubt about that—but I had the feeling I had a moment to figure this out.I would take whatever I could get.I followed the thread through the trees, and as I moved, I realized the forest was becoming more and more familiar.It was strange how all the pieces fell into place now that I focused on Ash and how our bond anchored me.There was some kind of symbolism to that, that I missed right now.I would worry about that later.Right now, I had to find him.Finally, I found the tree that belonged to him.“Ash,” I said, stopping right in front of the tree.“Ash, are you here?”He had to be—the bond, the magical thread that tied us together—had led me right here.“Ash, wake up!I need you.”

Nothing… I was about to give up when someone stepped out of the tree.I looked up at the sprite.He wasn’t in his human form, and I gaped.I’d never seen him like this.I knew he was a drus, but I’d never seen him in his drus shape.

His skin was a translucent green, his ears pointed, and he was taller and thinner than when he was in his human form.Everything about him was ethereal and strange, but it was him.Our bond recognized it.I felt the tug between us.He also looked at me with eyes I knew—I could get lost in those sky-blue eyes forever.“Ash,” I breathed.“Thank God.”

He frowned and looked me up and down.His face was expressionless, but his eyes were confused.“Who are you?”he asked.

ChapterThirty-Two

Ash

The creature who stood before me stared at me, her lips parted.She was a vision to behold, and she had a touch of magic to her that felt a lot like my own magic.When I realized that, I felt a tug deep at my core.Whatever she was, she wasn’t an enchanted being.I knew that.She looked human, but the touch of magic didn’t make sense.She was incredible to look at, though.Long blonde hair and eyes the color of the evergreen leaves all around us.She was a slight thing, but her body was delicious.I wanted to trace her curves with my fingers, to taste every inch of her skin.My cock twitched in my pants.I didn’t just want to taste her; I wanted to devour her.I shook off the thoughts.I could fuck her, sure, but I had no idea who she was, and she clearly knew who I was.Fuck Dolus and his taking my memories away despite leaving me right here.Now, I had nothing to go by, but everyone around me probably knew who I was.I growled at the back of my throat and balled my hands into fists, letting my anger toward Dolus take over for a moment.“Ash?”the creature asked.Her brows knitted together in a frown, and her confusion was clear.“I don’t know who you are,” I said.“Don’t be like this!”she cried out.“I know we fought, but please… Oscar is here.He’s after me.”She looked over her shoulder, and I could taste her terror.How did I know what she felt?I wasn’t going to unpack the why.I didn’t care.“I’m sorry, I don’t think I can help you,” I said.“Ash!”she cried out.“What the hell is going on with you?Are you that upset with me that you’re just going to stand by while he gets to me?”Her eyes welled with tears, and the fear turned into terror that was so powerful it tasted bitter on my tongue, and the smell was acrid in my nose.“You’re human,” I said.“So?”

What was she doing in the vale?Humans weren’t meant to be here.Something tugged at my memory, a thought of something that might have happened long ago, but just as with my other memories, it slipped away before I could reach for it and understand what clung to the edges of my mind.I shook my head.“It’s none of my business what you’re going through, then.I don’t know how you got here, but we don’t get involved with human business.”

“What?How can you say that?!”she cried out, clearly shocked.“You’re the reason I’m stuck here, and now he’s here and you won’t help me?What about those other guys, what about the way you helped me before?”

I only stared at her.Clearly, she was someone I’d had a hell of a history with, but I really couldn’t remember her at all.I knew something about her should be familiar… but I just couldn’t put my finger on it.At the end of the day, I was a drus, and it was my job to look after the forest.That was it.Nothing else mattered—I just had to do the job that I’d been born into, the job I’d been forced to keep doing thanks to Dolus’s deception.I turned my back on the woman, aiming to step back into my tree.That only made her more frantic.

“He’ll hurt me!”she cried out.That tugged on something inside of me, and I stopped before slipping into the tree and getting away from all this drama that wasn’t my problem.“Who?”I asked.“Oscar!”

I shook my head.“I don’t know who that is.I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t know why you’re bothering me with it.”

“Ash, don’t do this,” she cried, tears streaming down her cheeks now.“I don’t get it.I don’t know why you’re being like this.If you could just help me, I’ll disappear out of your life forever, and you’ll never have to think about me again.Just save me from Oscar.I can’t fight him myself.”

I shook my head again.It was all I seemed to be doing.I had no idea who she was or what she wanted from me.Deep at my core, I knew something wasn’t right—I should have known who she was, and she obviously needed me in some way or another.It didn’t matter, though.My job was to take care of the forest, and we had an unwritten rule around here that we didn’t get involved with humans.It caused too much trouble—centuries and centuries of history with the gods and the enchanted beings proved that.Humans and their mortality only hurt us in the long run, and thanks to our immortality, that long run lasted forever.“I’m sorry,” I said to her and slipped into my tree.She said something, begging, pleading, but I shut myself off from it.I couldn’t do this.It was against who I was supposed to be.I had no idea who she was.What I did know was that I really was sorry.I hadn’t said it just to get rid of her.I just didn’t know exactly what I was sorry for, and if I wasn’t supposed to care anymore, or do anything to get involved with the humans… why did turning my back on this stranger hurt so much?

ChapterThirty-Three

Lorraine

Oscar’s laughter filled the air around me when Ash disappeared into his tree, and I spun around.Oscar was nowhere to be seen, and his menacing laughter sounded like it came from everywhere at once.I was alone now.Ash wouldn’t help me.My mind spun, but panic and fear made it hard to think straight.He kept telling me he didn’t know who I was.I knew he was mad at me, but pretending he didn’t know me was a new low—it was immature, ridiculous.I couldn’t think about that right now.I had to save myself if Ash wouldn’t, and I had no idea how to do that.Rowan.He was Ash’s friend; maybe he could help me.I wished I could reach out to a god or a goddess, but the only goddess I knew was Philippa, the goddess of friendship.I had no idea what she’d be able to do to help me.She’d introduced me to Artemis, but I didn’t know that goddess well enough to find her and turn to her for help.I didn’t even know how to find the goddesses in the first place.Instead, I started running through the trees again, calling Rowan’s name like I’d called Ash’s before.I couldn’t find him through any kind of bond, of course, and I didn’t know where his tree was.I just ran through the trees, heading toward the lake Ash had mentioned they all spent time at together, hoping to run into him.“Rowan!”I shouted as I ran.“Rowan!”

“What the hell is wrong with you?”a voice said next to me, and I jumped with fright.I stumbled and fell, catching myself on my hands.Rowan stood next to me, his white hair strange against his greenish skin.In a flash, he slipped into a human form as if his other form had never existed, and I blinked, wondering if I’d seen it at all.“What are you doing, running around screaming like that?”

You’ll wake up the whole forest.”

I sat back on my heels and studied my raw hands after the fall.When I decided it wasn’t too bad, I rubbed my palms on my jeans.“I’m in trouble,” I said to Rowan.He held out a hand, and I took it, letting him pull me to my feet.“What kind of trouble?”

I looked over my shoulder.“A madman is after me, and Ash doesn’t know who I am.”

“What?”Rowan asked.I was on the verge of crying again.I’d done a lot of that lately, and I was sick of it, but I couldn’t stop myself.“I don’t think he knows who I am.I mean, I thought he might have been pretending because we fought, but he refuses to help me, and I really think he has no idea who I am.”

Rowan shook his head.“He did it, didn’t he?That son of a bitch.”Rowan scowled, looking through the trees.“What?”I asked.“What did he do?”

Rowan opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, a man appeared in front of us.He wore black clothes, and when he smiled, it was a flat, broad smile that twisted his face into something ugly.“Dolus?”I asked, putting two and two together immediately.“What the hell?”Rowan said.The man laughed at me.“So, you know who I am.”

“Unfortunately,” I snapped.“What did you do to Ash?”Rowan asked Dolus.He wasn’t nearly as demanding as I was.Instead, he spoke with a sort of reverie that bordered on fear.Dolus looked scary, but hell, everyone around here looked scary to me.“I gave him exactly what he asked for,” Dolus said.“A new beginning.”

“A what?”I asked, confused.“You said you were going to take him away completely,” Rowan challenged, his respect still there.“I never said that,” Dolus said.“I specifically told him I wouldn’t let him know where he would end up.”

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