Chapter 9
ADELRAM
In his haste, Adelram almost missed the tree maid. She leaned against a tree at the edge of Blaze Woods. Almost as if she were waiting for him. He skidded to a halt, panting and uncertain. He hadn’t had to chase her. He was not sure what to make of that fact. Her expression gave him no clues. She did not smell of fear and did not seem to be in any danger. She was waiting to meet him. Something shifted in him. This could be his chance to win her over.
“My name is Rennen.” Her words were soft and hesitant and brought a warmth to his chest.
Adelram shifted to his human form and sat near her. He tried to quell the rising hope. It was a good sign that she had finally given him her name. “Thank you.”
“Why were you at the cursed keep? Are you cursed?” she asked quickly as if she were afraid of the answers.
He flinched and scrambled to come up with a different topic. Talking about the keep would not help with his goal. “I saw a tree maid out of her tree once. Then she disappeared. Do tree maids really go inside trees?”
She blinked at him and looked uncertain, tilting her head to the side. “Most Dryads must merge with their trees to live.”
“How long do they merge?”
She shrugged and ran her hand along the tree’s trunk. “It can be years. Some won’t come out for a hundred years.”
Amazement distracted him. “Why would they disappear for years?”
“One was ill and sleeping in her tree helped her feel better. One was too far from her tree for too long and had to repair the damage. I even know one who did it because she was avoiding a suitor who pursued too closely.” She shrugged as if it was normal.
He felt a pang of worry at the last. “What’s being inside a tree like?”
She seemed to hesitate, she gazed at the tree above her, and sighed. “It’s like sleeping in a nice warm bed surrounded by something that loves you.” Her face looked so sad, mouth pulled down, and a hint of moisture sparkled in her eyes. He realized she must miss her tree. How soon before she had to go back to her tree and leave him?
What would it be like to sleep in love? What a strange idea. He knew about protection but love was another matter. “Aren’t they vulnerable?”
“Most Dryads live within the Veil which is protected against attack. The ones outside of the Veil use protective magic and hide. Much like your clan.”
He grimaced. “My people do many things to try and protect themselves.”
“Is there a reason you are avoiding talking about the cursed lands?” She sounded curious.
His stomach dropped and he swallowed against the bitterness in his throat. “Nothing good goes there.” He tried to make the statement sound final. He had no idea what he was doing. What was he thinking about wooing a tree maid? He could not even woo one of his own.
“You are not evil.”
That simple statement stopped the monologue of self doubt. He cleared his throat. “How do you know that?” His voice sounded gruff and strange even to his own ears.
“Dryad’s can sense that.” Her tone was contemplative, like the words were for herself more than him. Like she had just realized something she hadn’t known before. He got the feeling that she was looking at him with more than her eyes.
“How?”
She frowned, looked away, and bit her lip. “Dryads can.” There was something about the words that seemed so sad. “At least I-I can.”
He wanted to ask what she saw when she looked at him, but the words would not pass his lips. They were clamped shut, and a strange feeling skittered up his back. He couldn’t look at her face. Her verdict would be written across her face in the way her eyebrows raised in horror, the way her mouth pulled down into a frown. Maybe she would step away and slowly retreat to not awaken the beast within him. His heart pounded and he fisted his hands. He didn’t want her to think of him as evil. He didn’t want to be evil.
Her finger tips touched his shoulder and he flinched at the contact. “Are you well?”
He lifted his gaze and saw her face was full of soft curiosity and he let out a laugh that held no humor. She needed to know the truth.
“When I was born, the elders did a casting as they always do. This one was dark. Upon the bond, the end of way, the end of life, the wolf folk in a cage of their own making.” Dread settled in the pit of his stomach as he waited for her face to change. He waited for the disgust to color her expression and for the idea of being mated with him to drive her away.
“What does it mean?” A faint line grew between her eyes.
“I have never felt even a hint of a bond before.” Even as the words left his mouth he wondered if it was still true. The elders had shown him that he had a bond with her already. A slight and fragile thing which might not survive the beast that he was. He glanced up at her face, which still looked puzzled. He allowed a flush of hope to warm him.
“And that is odd?” The line deepened and the corners of her mouth tugged down.
“For my people. They connect with each other with different levels of bonds.” If one was not in a pack it was hard to explain what it was like. Maybe a relevant example. “Do you know why they kill in a failed mate bond?”
“No.”
“I would not be able to stay away. I would not be able to help wanting…. To be by you. To smell you. To hear the way you breathe. I would kill anyone who hurt you.” He swallowed hard. “The mate bond is jealous, I would not be able to let you be with anyone else. Just me. Forever me.” He could not meet her gaze. He hadn’t meant to say any of that, but the drink from the elders still flowed through his system.
Her breath caught. He resisted the urge to look at her. Could this go any worse? He was wrecking his chance. He swallowed down the bitter taste which rolled in his gut.
She cleared her throat. “My mother is a warrior and fights in a human army with her lover.”
That was not what he expected her to say. He looked up in surprise. She was not quite looking at him and she’d caught her bottom lip in her teeth as if she had confessed something quite shocking. But her confession didn’t seem wrong to him. Wolves joined human armies to help keep back the darkness.
She peeked up at him from under her lashes and glanced away. That glimpse of her expression made him think that she was waiting for him to judge her. He let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. Maybe what he had confessed didn’t seem wrong to her.
“And that is odd?” He quirked his mouth as an invitation to share in the joke.
“For my people. Life in all forms is sacred.” She smiled at him hesitantly.
“What do you do when hungry?” He was curious. It was the order of things that everything might get eaten. There were plenty of things that would eat his kin and they in turn ate the bounty the world provided.
“What?”
“How do you eat if everything is sacred?”
She glanced away, but the corners of her mouth twitched upward. “To murder is to become a Tree Protector, an outcast. Shouldn’t you be more upset about my mother?”
“Even if I cared about that, and I don’t, why would your mother’s choice affect what I might feel for you?” Her expression cleared for a moment and she met his gaze and grinned. It was a shy smile, that made her eyes sparkle.
“Is a cage so bad?” Her voice was soft and hesitant.
His warm feeling evaporated and left behind ice. Wolves did not belong in cages. “Wolf folk descend into madness in a cage.” His words snapped out before he could catch them. The drug still churned in his system, making him sensitive to his failures.
She flinched.
“I will be the one that curses them. The one responsible for putting the whole clan in a cage.” He fisted his hands and hunched his shoulders, drawing back and walking away from her. Away from the sting of her words.
“Don’t go that way.” She grabbed his arm and jerked him back from the edge of the woods.
“Why?” He took a deep breath to calm himself. She hadn’t meant any slight with her words.
“Zinnia will kill you if you enter her land.”
The words stunned him. “Is that why you were waiting?” She could have been free, but she’d chosen to save him. That was reason to hope.
She nodded, but looked away. The small pop of hope dissipated, replaced by a sinking feeling in his chest.
“Are you saying you’re agreeing to be my mate?” He should be excited, but something about her body language was off. She did not want him dead, but not wanting him dead and wanting to be his mate were worlds apart.
“The clan will no longer want you dead.” She rubbed her face and gazed everywhere but his eyes. “Is there an oak near the village? I need to rest a bit.”
He nodded, waiting for her to say something more, but she turned and headed back toward the village. The silence was strange and heavy. Even the woods they walked through were eerily silent. He watched the way she held herself and tried to puzzle out what was wrong. Something was bothering her and it had to do with him. Maybe she was planning on hiding in her tree for a hundred years, like the dryad she’d mentioned. But the mating bond would not complete and he would die.
He showed her the old oak on the edge of town. She ran her had along the bark and put her forehead on the tree. She shimmered and merged into the tree like she had walked through a door he could not see.
He sat with his back against the oak and thought about Rennen’s words. He had a sense that she was saying more than what he thought. Or that what she was saying meant something different to her than it did to him. The urge to protect her was still fierce. But he was missing a part of the whole. So he worried, like he might worry a stick with his teeth if he were in wolf form. Nothing quite fit.
“Did she offer her bond necklace?” The deep voice sounded from his right.
“What?” Adelram jerked his head up. The Eldest was at his side.
“A mating is not real to a Dryad without it.” Adelram focused his gaze on the Eldest. Pity softened the old man’s features.
Her throat had been bare. The freckle at the base of her throat would have been covered if she’d had a necklace. “She has no necklace.”
“It would be a small bottle that glitters in the light.”
Adelram froze. There had been a small glittery object where he had landed when he’d jumped from the tree and started his chase.
He shook his head, she’d never actually said she would mate him. Just that the clan would no longer want him dead. Now it made sense, she would mate him in the ways of his people, but it would mean nothing to her. They would not really be mated in her mind. Adelram’s heart sank.
The mating would keep him alive. It would give him everything he’d thought he wanted. Could he accept a mating in which she would not be committed to him? One in which she would eventually leave him and maybe leave his clan open to his curse?
No, not only could he not put the clan at risk, but he wanted more. If she was not interested in a full bond with him, then he could not accept the mating. He closed his eyes and slumped against the tree. The dream of having a family with her and images of the quiet moments they would’ve spent together fell into the pit that opened in his gut, leaving him empty. She would never love him. He would have to die.
She’d been so sad when she’d looked at Gant and grabbed her necklace. It had clearly meant a great deal to her. Returning her necklace would be his parting gift. He would find her necklace and return it to her, before letting the clan take care of their failed mating.
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