Wild, Tethered, Bound

Stephanie Draven

To the U.S. soldiers interviewed for this novella, their fellow Marines who gave their lives in Afghanistan and the soldiers who are still fighting there

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

Chapter One

Evergreen Resort and Casino, Queensland, Australia

Nick Leandros slid his chips forward with a satisfied smile. The table was ready for his plunder and the green felt beneath his fingers was smooth as the skin of an eager mistress. The game was blackjack, and some said it all came down to luck. But Nick knew it was a numbers game.

The casino played with a six-deck shoe, which meant that, by counting cards, Nick had a slight advantage over the house. He was the big player. His job was to join the game when the count was high and rake in the cash.

He didn’t even glance at his partner. Nick just tucked his expensive sunglasses into his shirt, winked at the pretty redhead at the end of the table and doubled down. You see, it was signaling that gave card counters away, and Nick didn’t have that problem because the two other members of his team were each a part of him.

Literally, a part of him.

His goateed teammate, who was stubbornly betting the minimum, was another incarnation of Nick—an incarnation that sometimes called himself Vic, could count for himself and refused to shave for days at a time. But he was the same man, or at least a third of him, so they worked perfectly in tandem and didn’t need a signal to tell each other when the table was hot. The third teammate—the one with the leonine mane of dark hair who occasionally called himself Rick—sat across the smoke-filled casino wary as a hunter on the prowl. He had preternatural instincts about when security was getting twitchy. And Nick didn’t even need to glance in his direction to know that two big, beefy guys with radios were making their way toward Nick’s table; he could see it through Rick’s eyes.

Card counting wasn’t illegal but if security caught him there’d be trouble. So Nick gathered his winnings and swiped a pen with the Evergreen logo. Not exactly an effective defensive weapon, but it’d have to do. It wasn’t that Nick was particularly afraid of casino security; sure, they might break his legs, but Nick had been wounded before. His real worry was that they might put his face into a database and alert the authorities. And if they figured out who he really was—what he really was—they’d lock Nick up for good.

Rick and Vic fled toward the botanical gardens where guests went to escape the jingling of chips and ringing slot machines.

Security was already about halfway across the floor, so Nick stood up and followed his partners in crime.

As the doors of the glorified greenhouse closed behind him, Nick found himself awash in green foliage and serene music.

It was a geodesic dome—a nature enclosure and a wonder to tourists. But Nick knew what it was like to be in a real forest. He had met her in the wilderness whereas this was just a man-made mimic.

He rounded a cluster of bushes and found Vic right away. Urgently grasping his arm, Nick pulled the recalcitrant body into his own. They’d merged a thousand times before, but it seemed to get more painful every time. His sinews threaded together and muscles strained as if under a thousand-pound weight. By the time both bodies had become one, sweat pooled between his shoulder blades and glued his expensive dress shirt to his back, whereas Vic’s clothes lay in shreds by his feet.

There was no time to catch his breath. Nick’s more savage third was crouched low behind the fanned trunk of a buttress tree. He pounced, grabbing Nick’s ankle and they both nearly went down with the force of it. It felt like bones crushing as they melded together as a complete whole.

Gasping in pain, Nick tried to regain control. It was easier now that he was one man, not three. But security was still after him and the crackle of their radios cut through the garden’s tranquility.

Looking for the nearest exit, Nick stumbled into an open expanse of cultivated flowers. There was nowhere to hide.

Bad fucking luck.

In moments, security would find him, and then it’d be all over. All over. Is it any wonder that he imagined hearing her voice. He wanted to hear her sweet whisper just behind his ear, as it had been the first time he met her.

“Lieutenant.”

It had been a long time since anyone had called him that. He almost dared not turn around. But when he did, there she was.

Was that figment of his war-fevered imagination actually standing in front of him? Could she be real?

Chapter Two

Nuristan Province, Afghanistan, five years earlier

It was an autumn morning and the moon was still up. In the high leaves of a walnut tree, Dessa caressed the graceful branches. The limbs were covered in gray bark, a smooth skin over the tree’s lifeblood, which pounded in a secret rhythm only she could hear; this was the dryads’ heart tree and its pulse was just one pace behind her own.

Dew drops glistened on the leaves like perspiration on the skin of a fevered lover. With a sensuous tongue, Dessa reached out to lap at the sweet water, and she felt the tree shiver with appreciation for her tenderness. After all, the walnut tree was straining, laboring, to give birth to the ripening nuts that weighted down its branches in clusters of fat green orbs. Soon the husks would turn brown, the fruit would fall and, if a man were to happen by and taste the sweet walnuts, Dessa might finally have a mate of her own.

Dessa missed the old days when Alexander first brought the dryads here and she had frolicked with other nymphs. Now there weren’t many dryads left in the wild; most had long since abandoned their forests to live amidst the mortals. And in Dessa’s loneliness she ached for a child. A daughter to love, to keep her company and to help her protect the last forests of Afghanistan. A little dryad to help her bind nature together in this old and legendary land…

As this dream played in Dessa’s imagination, the wind rustled the leaves and she heard the trees whisper a warning.

Someone was coming.

In earlier times, Dessa might have allowed a stranger to pass through her woods unhampered. But those days were long past and there had been shelling the night before—the acrid stench of destruction still lingered in the air, muted only by the peppery perfume of her walnut tree.

Dropping out of her heart tree, Dessa followed her senses. If a timber smuggler or a warlord intruded here, Dessa would frighten him away. But if one of the wounded stumbled into her lair, Dessa would try to help.

Her bare feet were accustomed to the luxurious carpet of husks and pine needles that blanketed the forest floor, so she moved silently in the darkness, stopping only now and again to comfort a fretful cypress or to praise the bravery of one of the boastful pines.

She told herself that the nighttime intruder must be part of the mortal family who lived at the edge of her woods—the shepherd or one of his three daughters who sometimes came into the forest to dance. But it alarmed her that the intruder moved so quietly—this was no bumbling shepherd who had lost his way.

Luckily, not even a stealthy fighter with night goggles could move through her woods without tripping over the tendrils of magic Dessa had threaded between the trees. And with those tendrils she now sensed not just one intruder, but many.

Soldiers.

Second Lieutenant Nick Leandros had encountered difficult terrain in Afghanistan before; his memories were littered with the gaping maws of booby-trapped caverns, impassably jagged mountains and sun-baked deserts. But he didn’t like the look of this forest at all. It was foreboding, shadowy and ominous—with gnarled yew trees shedding their scaly bark like reptiles emerging from the deep.

As Nick’s morning patrol fanned out, primeval scents rose, steaming from the forest floor in clouds of otherworldly mist. The lance corporal to Nick’s left was looking shaky.

“It’s just an intel mission,” Nick said quietly, to reassure the kid. “We’re not expecting hostiles.”

“You willing to bet on that, sir?” the surly sergeant whispered.

Nick—whose late-night poker games with enlisted men were getting him into trouble with the brass—just smiled. But in spite of his bravado, Nick was acutely aware that his life was on the line—their staggered formation alone was a grim reminder that they had to keep outside of one another’s blast radius just in case someone set off an IED.

Getting his bearings, Nick paused beside an old tree with exposed roots all tangled together like bones beneath his feet, and squinted into the dark canopy of leaves. Nick kept imagining trip wires glittering like spider webs in the occasional patch of morning sun. What the hell? Was he bugging out?

That’s when Nick’s sharp-eyed scouts gave the signal up ahead. They’d spotted something. Nick saw it, too. A flash of white amidst the leaves, a blur of limbs in motion, and then it shot skyward into the canopy. Nick told himself it was some bird—no human being could leap into the trees like that. His finger steadied on the trigger nonetheless and a moment later, he heard a woman’s whisper just behind his ear.

“What are you doing in my forest?”

Jesus Christ! Nick spun to face her as a cacophony of shouts erupted from his soldiers. How had she ever gotten this close without his realizing it?

“Put your hands where we can see them!” Nick yelled this in the local language, as it was one of the few phrases he knew how to say in just about every dialect.

The beautiful woman staring down the barrel of his gun should have been frightened, but instead, she calmly and majestically lifted her pale arms, as if she were some kind of goddess. The scouts gave Nick a signal that everything was clear. She wasn’t some kind of distraction for an ambush, so he lowered his rifle and got a closer look at the woman he’d almost put a bullet in.

She wore a short white tribal gown that bared her arms and she looked to be alone and unarmed. Her nut-brown hair flowed freely over her shoulders, and captivating blue eyes peered at him above her cheekbones.

In spite of all his training, Nick could not help but stare in shock. It wasn’t her features that startled him, for many of the local Nuristani were said to have descended from Alexander’s Macedonian–Greek army and some extremely fair. In fact, some of these rugged mountaineers still worshiped ancient gods like Dionysus.

But nothing Nick had learned about their strange local culture could explain her. “Are you hurt?” Nick asked, because he could think of no other reason a lone woman would be wandering these woods, much less without a head covering. When she didn’t answer, he said the only other words he knew in the local language. “I’m Lieutenant Nick Leandros of the United States Marine Corp. We’re here to help. Do you need assistance?”

“Lieutenant Nick Leandros.” She repeated his name with an imperious stare. “What I need is for you to leave my forest.”

She couldn’t possibly be speaking English, but he understood her perfectly well. And from the looks on their faces, his men understood her too. Since the translator wasn’t necessary, Nick said, “We’re not here to stay, ma’am, but we do have a few questions.”

“You’re soldiers,” she said, her condemning gaze falling upon each of his men in turn. “So I imagine you’re going to ask me whether I’ve seen the Taliban fighters that exchanged fire with your forces the other night.”

Now the sergeant broke in. “Actually, we’d like to set up a shura with your menfolk—a meeting with local leaders. Where are they?”

“I don’t have menfolk,” the woman snapped and gave Sarge a peremptory glare that silenced him.

For some reason, this only emboldened Nick. “Well, have you seen any jihadists?”

“Sir—” the sergeant started to interrupt with a warning, and Nick knew why. They’d been trained to avoid even talking to Afghan women. It could be considered a grave insult and breed the kind of resentment that fed the insurgency. Yet, the strange woman had started the conversation, hadn’t she? She’d appeared like an apparition and it seemed worth a gamble that she knew something.

Besides, there was something powerfully attractive about her that went way beyond her beauty. Nick was enchanted. It was as if he’d fallen into some kind of web. “The men who fired upon us the other night—we think they’re hiding high up in these mountains. Are they?”

“I only know they aren’t here,” she said, suddenly reaching out long and elegant fingers to caress his cheek. “I don’t usually let soldiers stay in my forest.”

Nick was so surprised by her touch that he flinched away. She must be some kind of madwoman. Beautiful, but cracked. The war did that to people; and after all Nick had seen—all the blood and death—he was halfway down that road himself.

She wasn’t going to tell them anything. She wasn’t working for the Taliban, either; he was sure of it. But that wasn’t going to help her much when the next round of shelling commenced.

It was against policy to warn the locals of upcoming assaults, lest they pass that information on to the enemy, but Nick had seen enough civilians die because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. He could just about guarantee hostilities breaking out here. “Listen, this isn’t a safe place to be,” he blurted. “You should probably seek shelter in a village for a while.”

“I can protect my forest,” she said simply.

My forest. Why did she keep saying that?

“Sir, shouldn’t we get on with it?” the sergeant interrupted more forcefully.

Nick gave him a sharp look. Was he supposed to just leave this waif in the woods by herself and wish her a good day? On the other hand, what else could he do? There weren’t any psychiatric hospitals in this isolated corner of the world, and even if he could get help for her, some shrink would just lock her up and put her in restraints.

Nick couldn’t imagine a worse fate, so he reluctantly led his men away.

It was a bleating goat that warned of their approach, and three startled little girls huddled together when they saw Nick’s soldiers and their guns. The oldest of the girls could have been no more than eight, but she picked up a cook pot and wielded it to defend herself and her sisters.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, it’s okay. Nobody’s going to hurt you,” Nick said, and the translator hurriedly interpreted his words.

Nick fished some Tootsie Rolls from his pocket and held them out to the children. “Where are your parents?”

The littlest girl reached out tentatively and took a piece of candy from Nick’s hand. The eldest still held her menacing cook pot, and the middle sister cried.

“Their mother’s dead,” the interpreter told Nick after a few minutes of questioning. “The father’s a shepherd. They say he’s out grazing the flock.”

Nick’s patrol was supposed to ask about the Taliban fighters, about the nearest villages and about arranging a shura. But right now, all Nick could think about was how scared these little girls were. Given the way the middle one was crying, she’d probably seen soldiers before, and nothing good had come of it.

Crouching down, Nick took a deck of playing cards out of his pack and drew the joker. The girls stared at the card with fascination as he moved his hands over it, and—using an old trick he’d learned in Vegas—he tucked the card into his helmet while making it seem to disappear.

It wasn’t real magic, but the children reacted as if it were. The littlest girl laughed. The middle one stopped crying. The eldest lowered her pot. Card tricks weren’t going to win him a Nobel Peace Prize, but Nick thought he’d made a pretty good start. “Ask them about their older sister, or aunt. Or whoever that blue-eyed wild woman in the woods is.”

“They say she’s a nature spirit,” the interpreter said, then translated directly. “‘Sometimes she dances with us in the forest, so we make offerings at her heart tree and she gives us her protection.’”

Nick eyed the translator as if he was full of shit.

“That’s what she said,” the translator said with a shrug. “She says that sometimes timber smugglers come through the area and the nature spirit scares them away. Other times, tribal warlords try to steal the girls, so they run into the forest and the nature spirit gathers them to her arms and hides them inside trees.”

Even the sergeant raised a grizzled eyebrow at that.

Unfortunately, before Nick could ask anything else, the shepherd returned and panicked to find armed men surrounding his daughters. He shouted at them to leave and Nick should have ordered his men to continue on their patrol—but the sight of those three little girls huddled together got to him somehow.

Most Afghans were fiercely proud, so the shepherd’s reaction shouldn’t have been a surprise, but the girls’ stories about nature spirits was putting Nick on edge. He’d been fighting this shitty war long enough that he wasn’t sure he could stand to see one more kid hurt. Nick said to the interpreter, “Tell him that until the fighting calms down, he and his daughters aren’t safe here. Tell him we can’t offer any security. Tell him he needs to leave this place and seek shelter in a village. This isn’t any place to be raising little girls. Take ‘em somewhere with roads, electricity and hospitals. And they need to go to school.”

“No school for the girls,” the shepherd replied, angry and offended. “Besides, I have no money.”

Nick realized that he’d been more than a little condescending. Not everybody had the option of living somewhere safe, and he regretted shooting off his mouth.

Now it was as if the sergeant knew what Nick was going to do. “Don’t even think it, Lieutenant…”

Too late. Nick yanked his helmet off and tried to convey his sincerity by meeting the man’s eyes. “Look,” he said to the shepherd. “I’ll give you the money to move. Out of my own wages.”

Sarge scowled. “Sir, our instructions—”

Nick didn’t want to hear it. “You know our motto, Sarge: Improvise, Adapt and Overcome.”

“No, our motto is Semper Fi,” the sergeant snapped. “Lemme know when you need my help getting your head out of your ass, Lieutenant. You’re breaking every rule in the book. Sometimes I wonder why the hell you joined the Marines.”

“Lost a bet,” Nick said with his typical irreverent humor, then motioned to the interpreter. “Tell the shepherd I’ll pay his family to move to Parun City. Tell him. That’s an order.”

Emotions flittered across the shepherd’s face as if he wanted to accept Nick’s offer but was struggling against some tie that bound him here. In the end, he refused. “This is our home. Besides, once you go, the warlords will know who helped us, and they’ll kill us all. And you will go—you always do.”

From her walnut tree, Dessa watched with satisfaction as the soldiers left the shepherd’s cave, defeated. She’d never cared for warriors—not even when the most dangerous weapons they carried were swords—but these Americans seemed well-meaning. As much as it irritated her that they tried to make her people leave her forest, they’d been kind to the little girls.

Perhaps she should’ve invited the soldiers to sit beneath her heart tree. It was almost ripe. A few more days and the nuts would start falling. Then she could invite the soldiers to eat the fruit of her heart tree and choose one for her mate.

After all, they had mistaken her for a mortal woman.

Like most of her kind, Dessa could—and often did—pass for human. In her younger days, when there were other dryads into whose hands she could entrust her forest, she’d lived amidst the mortals now and again. She’d once passed herself off as a dancing girl for a Roman emperor. Another time she posed as a governess, and years later, a trapeze artist with a traveling circus in England. But always, she had returned to her forest.

Maybe it was because she’d never met a man whose pull was stronger than that of her heart tree. Could Lieutenant Nick Leandros be that man? She liked the way he gave candy to the children—the way he tried to comfort them with his card tricks. He’d make a good father to little girls of his own…

Dessa remembered how fascinated she’d been by the mortal sweat on his face and how she’d reached out to wipe it away. She’d startled him, and he’d flinched. But she could easily imagine how it would’ve felt if he’d turned his head and kissed her palm instead. She’d liked the lines of his square face, the dark knitted brow over intelligent eyes. Even now, as she watched him make his way through the woods, she liked the way he moved. He wasn’t stiff and precise like most soldiers, but languid as a Caspian tiger.

Maybe that’s why the desire to tether him to this forest was so strong. She saw the little tendril of mortal fascination billow behind him like a gossamer thread in the breeze, inhaled and drew it to her. It was a weak tether, one he could break if he tried. But perhaps it would be enough to draw him back to her one day.

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Chapter Three

It happened at dusk while Dessa tended her seedlings. They were the children of her mighty walnut, and they might one day replace her heart tree, becoming part of the unbroken chain of life. Dessa was stroking her fingers over the soft young leaves when suddenly the ground shook beneath her.

The explosion was so loud that she covered her ears and dove to the ground. The fighting was fierce. She heard shelling high on the mountain, and she heard a staccato answering call from the valley. In Alexander’s time, armies clashed swords here, but those were the old ways. Now, men launched mortars at one another—woe to anyone or anything in between.

Dessa was an immortal; bombs couldn’t kill her. But she could feel pain, excruciating pain, and she felt it now as her forest burst into flame. It had been a dry autumn, and the fallen leaves and pine needles made perfect kindling for the fire. Distraught, Dessa tried to bind the night mist to extinguish the fire, but for some reason, she couldn’t. Confused by what was happening to her, she felt a lead weight, a hollow horror that pinned her to the forest floor.

Then came the agony—a splintering down into her soul. A snapping, as if every bone in her body were cracking in half. Then she felt the weak and desperate flutter of her second heartbeat.

Her heart tree.

Grimly, Dessa raced into the destruction. The flames licked at her ankles, but she ignored the burn. She had to save her heart tree. Whatever magic she had, she must reserve it for that! She fell twice and was almost trampled by a fleeing stag. Choking on the smoke, Dessa pulled herself along the forest floor.

Thump-thump.

Her heart tree still pulsed with life, but slowly. Fleetingly. She followed the sound until she felt the husks of the walnuts beneath her. Amidst the smoke, Dessa found the great walnut tree in pieces. The trunk was split, life force oozing out. One broad branch snapped off and hung like the arm of a broken doll.

“No!” Dessa cried, throwing herself onto the splintered wood, willing her flesh to bind the wounds. But the damage was too great, the tree mutilated almost beyond recognition. Dessa wept, pressing the broad walnut leaves against her cheek as she felt the tree’s final shudder. Its heartbeat pulsed once more through Dessa’s veins then was still.

Dessa stumbled back, covered with sap and soot. Her once-mighty walnut tree was felled, its excavated roots exposed at her feet like tangled limbs in a mass grave. Her heart tree was dead. Her forest was burning. All the life she’d bound together with her magic tethers was coming apart.

She was too horrified even to scream.

As Dessa staggered toward the edge of the forest, her foot hit something hard, cold and metal. It was a cook pot; the burning forest illuminated its shape perfectly well. Dessa knew she must be near the cave, so she called out to the little girls, climbing over fallen rocks to get to them until she felt something soft and fleshy beneath her fingers.

It was a foot, five cherubic toes curled stiff in death.

Little toes belonging to a little girl who would never dance with her in the forest again.

The whole family was dead. Dessa knew it for a certainty, because the tethers were now as broken as their bodies beneath the stone. Just as certainly, Dessa knew it was her fault.

In the rubble was a scorched playing card—the lieutenant must have dropped it from his helmet—and now the joker on its face seemed to mock her. If only the family had gone with the lieutenant, they’d still be alive. But Dessa had bound them here, hoping she could protect them. She’d loved those little girls, thinking of them as the only daughters she might ever have, but Dessa’s dryad powers had been no match for bullets and bombs.

A light rain began to fall, dampening the fire, but there was no saving her forest now and she’d been wrong to think there was still a place for dryads in the modern world.

There was nothing left for her here, nothing left of the old races. It was time for her to live amongst the mortals, this time for good.

Heartsick and sobbing, Dessa stumbled away.

Chapter Four

Sudden tracers of gunfire flashed across the blackened sky, and Nick took cover. He hated night patrols. He hated them because he ended up shooting at muzzle flashes and silhouettes, never seeing the actual enemy and never knowing whether he hit his target. He also hated night patrols because of the ease with which you could get separated from your patrol—like he was now. And it would be just his luck to be the victim of friendly fire.

Nick scanned frantically for sudden motions amongst the trees. He knew the enemy was salivating to get their hands on a lone American soldier, so he was more worried about being captured than he was of the blasts.

It was raining fire; flames literally dripped from the tree canopy and Nick was forced from his hiding place by the heat. As he scrambled through fallen leaves and brambles, sweat leaked into his night goggles, which illuminated the dark mountain pass in an alien shade of green.

His training told him that Pakistan was to the east and that base camp was to the west and he should head in either one of those directions, but his instinct was to go deeper into the forest.

Damn it.

If he lived through this, he was never going to live it down. Sarge would add this to the list of reasons why Second Lieutenant Nick Leandros was never going to make first lieutenant—not that he cared too much about that. He just needed to get his shit together.

Just then, the bombardment stopped as suddenly as it started. Though Nick’s ears were still ringing, his footfalls crunching on the forest floor were the only real sound. Everything else was deafening silence. But something was still drawing him into the forest, where scorched trees loomed like skeletons in the night.

Some force, some strand of recognition, guided him as if he were following a string through a maze. And then he knew why.

This forest. He recognized it even in the dark, with the stench of soot beneath his boots. He remembered the woman, her delicate features and haunting blue eyes. Was she huddling somewhere out here in fear or, worse, burning alive?

Thinking of her, he was more determined to follow his instincts over his training. He had to find her and the little girls. He had to get all of them out of here before the shelling started again.

Nick picked up the pace, pounding over cooling embers. The sun was starting to rise, and through its glow he saw the trees were shorn by fire; even the conifers were black and naked.

And in the midst of the destruction, his foot came to rest beside a cast-iron cook pot. It took him a few moments to make sense of what he was seeing. The cave—where he had found the shepherd and his daughters—was a pile of rubble. And protruding from the rocks was a tiny foot with a dried trickle of blood down the ankle.

God. They were under the rubble!

Nick dropped his rifle. With gloved hands, he shoveled pebbles aside and hurled stones into the forest. Past and present horrors twisted together and under Nick’s hands and the stones became the warped steel of a wrecked. The struggle was the same. The result was the same. Three broken bodies emerged.

From the way they were laying together, Nick knew the little girls had huddled with one another for protection from the shelling, just as he had seen them the first time. It had not saved them. He had not saved them. Again, he had not saved them.

How many air strikes had he called in that ended up like this one? How many mistakes had he made in his life that ended up with people dead?

Lifting the littlest corpse into his arms, he saw she was clutching something. Gently, he opened her hand and found a half-eaten candy still in its wrapper, a little piece of sweetness she had not lived long enough to finish. And a sound of grief came out of him—something between a retch and a sob.

That’s when pain hit him between the shoulder blades, a searing sensation like being cleaved with an ax. He was out in the open, so he shouldn’t have been surprised to be shot, but he’d never heard the bullet coming. Still, it threw him to the ground. Reeling from the pain, Nick crawled a ways before he was hit again. He fell face-first into the dirt, the taste of scorched pine needles in his mouth along with the bile.

Whatever hit him was tearing him apart. It ripped through his torso, exploding behind his skull. He was sure he’d lost his right arm because, in the fog of the pain, he saw it move away from his body. He shrieked as his left leg came apart with a hideous shredding sound.

Then Nick lost consciousness altogether.

Soldiers near death sometimes claimed to see Jesus. Some saw a bright white light. Nick wondered what kind of narcissist he was that he saw himself. It was like some out-of-body experience, looking down where his corpse lay on the forest floor. But then he saw his own face looking back at him.

It was his face, wasn’t it? Only with as fierce a stare as a lion. Nick turned his head and saw a third self sitting naked beneath a destroyed walnut tree, arms stubbornly folded. It was like he’d been split in three. Three heads. Three bodies.

What the fucking hell?

Nick felt himself for blood and bullet wounds, but found none. It was the dissonant sounds of the dying forest amplified through six ears that hurt him. His limbs were stiff and unwieldy. He tried to lift his right arm, but the Nick under the destroyed walnut tree was the one whose arm moved. Now, with six arms to move, it took a moment for him to get the correct limbs under control.

Still convinced he was dead, the uniformed Nick pulled himself to his feet so as to better appreciate whatever hell he’d been condemned to. He was shocked to find himself weak with thirst and hunger.

So this was hell, then.

He finished what little water remained in his canteen then noticed the walnut shells cracking beneath his boots. He doubted they were real. It had to be some kind of trick. Like Tantalus in Greek myth, would he reach for the nuts only to have them disappear? Experimentally, Nick gathered a few and popped them into his mouth, only to be rewarded with the rich taste of walnut.

Dazed, Nick pocketed the rest of the nuts and started walking, somehow knowing that his other selves would follow. And they did.

All three of him ended up where the little girls still lay dead. Was it his eternal punishment to endure seeing their tiny corpses through three sets of eyes? Was this his fate—to be split and broken into pieces like their little bones?

He couldn’t just leave them here for the scavengers, so Nick used his helmet to dig a grave. His other selves did the same; one using bare hands, the other using the discarded cook pot. He could not say how long the three of him dug, but the sun was high in the sky by the time they had buried the bodies. With each set of his hands, he tenderly pulled a quilt of dirt over each girl, tucking them into their final beds.

Some instinct he could not explain compelled him to plant the remaining walnuts atop each grave. Maybe someday, the girls could become mighty walnut trees, as beautiful and ethereal as the woman they’d called a nature spirit.

That’s when Nick had to acknowledge the girls in the graves were dead and he wasn’t. He’d simply gone mad. He’d cracked—just like the beauty in the woods. Perhaps there was only so much horror a person could take in before it shattered them.

Experimentally, Nick reached out with filthy hands, and clasped hold of the second self to his right. It was real—it felt like skin. And as he grabbed hold of it, there was a sudden jolt before the body began absorbing back into his own. It hurt, but not as much as it had hurt coming apart.

The sickening squish of flesh as it melded together made Nick gag, but then he was no longer three—only two. Looking at his remaining extra self, Nick shuddered. Now he didn’t want to touch this creature, so foreign and so familiar. Steeling his courage, Nick reached out with both hands and explored the contours of the face opposite him. It was his own. The same dark brow, the same square shape. He felt his own fingers upon his skin, rough and calloused as he absorbed the extra body back into himself.

This time, he did gag. Then he was one again.

Perhaps he’d imagined it. By now, his men would be combing the woods for him. And what would they find? Would they see his body in pieces? Would they notice three of him? Or would they find a blithering madman to lock up in some asylum. It was the one thing he couldn’t endure. So when someone shouted his name in the distance, Nick didn’t answer.

Chapter Five

Evergreen Resort Casino, Queensland, Australia, five years later

The dryad was on her lunch break. She’d been living amidst the mortals for five years now, but there were still things she couldn’t get used to. Hard floors, straight lines and steel buildings all made her feel confined. And that’s to say nothing of the high-heeled shoes!

With a sandwich in one hand, Dessa kicked off her pumps and stretched out on the park bench in the resort’s botanical gardens. She’d taken the job as assistant manager at the Evergreen Resort Casino because it was a nature preserve, nestled inside many acres of wild parkland.

Now, with her free hand, she brushed the friendly cycads. They were amongst the oldest trees in existence—as old as the dinosaurs—and, just like her, completely out of place here. Like Dessa in the mortal world, this cultivated landscape was too clipped, too restrained and too well-groomed. After all, overhead was not an open sky, but a marvel of mortal architecture—a geodesic dome.

She told herself she shouldn’t complain; perhaps glass and aluminum would protect this forest as her dryad magic had not protected the forests of Afghanistan.

She’d just finished eating when the radio at her hip crackled with an update; casino security suspected a card-counting team in the casino. Dessa found it hard to care. The only card that interested her was the one she kept always in her pocket—the joker, with its scorched edges, a reminder to her of all she’d lost. Since she left the forest, her powers had been slowly waning. Soon, she supposed, she would forget her heart tree; she would forget she was once a dryad at all. But until then, she used what little magic she still had to tether guests to the resort.

Dessa was so good for business, in fact, that her boss predicted she’d be running the place in a year or two. So she should care about card-counting teams in the casino; but mostly, she just wanted a few quiet moments to herself.

She switched the radio off.

It was harder to ignore the newspaper a guest had left behind on the bench beside her. If she opened it, Dessa knew what she’d see. The war in Afghanistan was still raging and the forests were almost all gone. Without the forests, the soil was eroding, and creating an ecological misery for the people. Perhaps she’d been wrong to leave, but she couldn’t do it alone. If only she’d had a daughter…but that dream had died with her heart tree.

Closing her eyes, Dessa tried to remember the insistent throb of life that had once thrummed through her veins. The memory was strong; she could feel its erotic pull. She felt the tiny pulse as it beat a warm path down her belly to the warm place between her thighs. Her breath quickened and she felt the lethargy of mortal life flow away.

Suddenly, Dessa’s eyes flew open. The pulse wasn’t a memory at all. She suddenly was sure it was real. It was the faint heartbeat she sensed just a pace behind her own. The familiar echo of her heart tree. But it couldn’t be!

Forgetting her shoes, Dessa ran down the path toward the casino. Some tendril of connection, some long-forgotten tether, was leading her there. Instinct made her duck into the shadowy hollow of a buttress tree and, from her hiding spot, she saw three men in the underbrush—all dark haired, with broad, beastly shoulders.

The one with the sunglasses reached for the other’s arm and Dessa watched the two men merge together into one. In spite of herself, she gasped.

Who was he? What was he?

As a dryad, she had the power to bind mortals to her, but as she watched the remaining two men join in a coalescence of sweat, sinew and skin she knew he was not like her. She saw mortal pain flash across his face—his familiar face—and then knew exactly who and what he was.

“Lieutenant.”

It had been a long time since anyone had called him that. Nick almost dared not turn around. But when he did, there she was. Was that figment of his war-fevered imagination actually standing in front of him? Could she be real?

In spite of the fact she was wearing a black skirt and a white blouse with the emblem of the Evergreen Resort on it, he knew her instantly. She didn’t look like some wild nature spirit anymore; she looked like an officious employee who had somehow lost her shoes. But he’d seen those eyes in his mind every night for the past five years and wouldn’t have mistaken her heart-shaped face for anyone else.

Casino security was still on his heels, but he couldn’t seem to move.

“Hurry,” she said, reaching out for his cheek, just as she had all those years ago, and this time he did not flinch away. Now her hand caressed him and he felt as if his skin were melding with hers. She kissed him. Her mouth, bittersweet, tasted like syrup and walnut. And in that kiss, he felt an unfamiliar throb, as if there were another heartbeat inside his chest.

Nick had lived in separate pieces ever since the day he came upon the dead bodies of those little girls. Now it felt as if he were somehow being bound back together. Not just within himself, but within her. As if he were being pulled to her, like tree vines were wrapping around his ankles and calves, drawing his hips to press fervently against the curve of her own. He felt the heat between her legs. He smelled her, a wild scent somewhere between musk and lavender. She was drawing him into her, like a lover, and he felt himself harden in response.

But this wasn’t sex and his cock wasn’t the only rigid part of him. His legs became tree trunks and he watched with horror as the skin of his arms quickly covered over with bark. She wasn’t just pulling him into herself…she was pulling him into the tree.

Just then, security rounded the corner and Nick was sure he’d been caught. But security walked right past as if he wasn’t there. Nick was hidden, no longer in danger of being arrested, but when he tried to move, he couldn’t. He was trapped!

Inside, he flailed. Nick had never been the kind of man who could stand being restrained. He needed his freedom, he needed his independence, and he lived by his own rules—part of the reason he probably hadn’t really been cut out for the military in the first place. But just as he thought he’d break free or die trying, the bark on his body became skin again.

They fell forward together, away from the tree. She released her hold on him and he was no longer inside her—a sensation that left him with a strong and unexpected sexual longing.

“Who the hell are you?” Nick demanded, his blood boiling.

“Dessa,” she said simply, as if he’d been asking her name.

“What the hell are you?” Nick clarified. He should have been thanking her, but he couldn’t hide his fury.

In the face of his anger, the woman blinked those astonishing eyes. “I’m a dryad. A tree nymph,” she tried to explain.

Sure, why not? Nick had seen his own body split into three parts. Hell, he was even calling his other thirds by their own names these days. Why not add a tree fairy to his rampant madness?

As if she could read his mind, Dessa shook her head. “You’re not mad. The old stories are real. The worship of people in Nuristan Province aren’t just silly superstitions. You just stumbled on to the truth that most mortals never see…”

“Lucky me.” Nick laughed darkly.

“You’re not lucky,” she said very sincerely. “You’re hurt. You’re broken.”

What did she know about it? Suddenly, he felt vulnerable, and her intense gaze seemed cloying. He needed to get out of here. “Look, thanks for hiding me. I need to be on my way before security doubles back.”

“I’ll hide you,” she said.

“No.” He feared she’d trap him inside that tree again.

She took out her manager’s passkey. “Trust me.”

It wasn’t as if he had many options, so Nick let her lead him down a series of hallways. “The path we took avoided the cameras. They won’t look for you here,” she said, locking the doors behind them.

In the dim light, Nick squinted and made out a cascade waterfall beneath a canopy of indoor trees. There were plastic sheets draped over chairs; the air was muggy, and it was darker than it had been beneath the geodesic dome. “What is this place? A dryad’s lair?” he teased, trying to cover his unease.

“It’s going to be a new tropical addition to the gardens, and part of the renovated spa. Only a few employees have the key. If we wait until dark, we can probably go out the back and sneak out across the grounds.”

“We?” Nick asked.

“This resort is surrounded by acres of forest,” Dessa said. “I’ll need to show you the way.”

“Not to nitpick, but aren’t they going to notice you’re not at your desk?”

She gave an enigmatic smile. “I think my co-workers all suspect by now that I’m a little eccentric.”

“I thought you were dead,” Nick suddenly sputtered. “I thought you died in that forest fire. How is it that you’re here? Are you following me?”

Dessa shook her head. “No, there’s a…connection between us. You’re following me, and I’m glad, because I think I’m the only one who can help you.”

So, she’d seen him meld together. She’d caught him in the monstrous act that he’d been trying to hide from the world. He couldn’t look her in the eye.

“You think you’re broken here,” she whispered, touching his forehead. Then her fingers trailed a scorching path down to his chest. “But it’s your heart that’s broken.”

Afraid of her touch, he grabbed her hand in a crushing grip. He must have been hurting her, but she only stared at him and said, “You’re a chimera, Lieutenant.”

Chapter Six

“A chimera?” he asked, and Dessa watched his lips curled with doubt. “Like…?”

“Like in ancient Greek lore!” she cried. He was hurting her—the way he gripped her fingers tightly—but truth was pain, and after five long years, she was tired of living a lie. “Have you never heard of a chimera?”

“That hideous creature?” Nick snapped. “With the goat, and the lion, and the fire-breathing dragon?”

It didn’t seem to soothe his temper when she nodded her head.

“First dryads, now chimeras. That’s some funny shit. I’m too old for fables and fairy tales.”

“Where do you think those fables and fairy tales came from?” Dessa asked. “At heart, chimeras are creatures with three parts and that’s what’s happened to you. You’ve split in three. You’re a war-forged chimera.”

He shook his head with denial, and she could see that he didn’t believe her. How could she explain in a way a mortal would understand? “War has always made men into monsters.”

“So you think I’m a monster,” he said then let out a dry unpleasant laugh. “You would, wouldn’t you? You were in Afghanistan. I knew they were going to call in air strikes near that forest. I knew there was a chance you’d be hurt, a chance you’d be killed—”

His voice broke then as some dark agony wrestled its way through his body. He was starting to fracture again—but Dessa used her strongest magic tendrils to bind him, to keep him together and to keep him with her. “Lieutenant, what happened in Afghanistan is a wound you need to heal. If you keep going on this way, you won’t be able to pull the other parts of you back inside. You’ll lose yourself, and become three separate, and lesser, men.”

“I’ve heard enough,” he said, turning to walk away. But couldn’t. He couldn’t see the gossamer threads of magic, but seemed to know that Dessa was holding him there. “What are you doing to me?”

“I’ve tethered you,” Dessa admitted.

His eyes flashed with a shadowy, dangerous warning. “Tethered?”

“It’s the power of the dryads,” she said, not wanting to reveal just how little magic she had left since her heart tree had been destroyed. “We bind nature together. We turn a stand of trees into a forest. We hold life—”

“You’ve tethered me?” he asked through clenched teeth. “So I can’t walk away?”

“Not yet, no…”

But that didn’t stop him from trying. He turned, marching in the direction of the door until his footsteps suddenly stopped. As if he’d come to the end of a leash. Then he turned on her like a rabid animal. “Let me go.”

“Casino security is still searching for you,” she warned.

“I’m a gambler,” he said. “I’ll take my chances.”

Dessa was less worried for him than she was for security. She knew what she’d seen; she knew about his monstrous powers. Nick had the strength of three savage men, and when he was separated into those parts without a single conscience, he might not have scruples about killing people who got in his way. But if she were honest with herself, she’d have to admit that what she was most afraid of was losing him so soon again. “I can’t let you go.”

“Why not?” he asked, his temper calming slightly as if he thought she might have a good reason.

“Because I need you.”

“You need me?” he asked, his handsome features struggling to understand. “What do you need?”

How could she explain that he was quite possibly the only man in the world who could give her a child? “When you were in Afghanistan, you ate walnuts from my forest, didn’t you?”

He took a sharp intake of breath. “There was a destroyed tree—”

“It was my heart tree,” Dessa explained, tears welling. “I feel its essence inside you and now it’s the only place I’ll ever find it again. There’ll never be any more fruit of my heart tree for another man.”

Nick came toward her, and she didn’t need to draw him there. He still seemed angry, but also genuinely concerned. His warm hands closed on her shoulders, and he looked down into her eyes. How had she never realized how tall he was before? “You’re crying,” he said, brushing away her tears. “Should I not have eaten those damned walnuts? I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“No, I should’ve offered them to you,” Dessa said, having trouble speaking over her emotions. “But it’s no matter now. In touching you, I can feel the magic and know I’ve found my mate.”

The word mate did something to him. He tilted his head slightly, and a confused smile passed over his lips. She knew he wanted her. Primal passion was no different for humans than it was for the animals—no different for mortals than for dryads. She could feel desire in his touch.

But he pulled away.

Mate? Nick would have been lying if he said that he didn’t want her. But he was still angry at the way she’d used her powers to hold him still. Besides, she’d given him a lot to take in. There was the kiss, the way she’d hidden him inside the tree and the things she’d said about him being a chimera…The events of the past hour all had a dreamlike quality, and he needed time to think.

“Not that I’m not flattered, but a man likes to be wooed,” Nick teased to lighten the mood. “Some drunken, noncommittal groping in the backseat of a car, or maybe a little dinner—”

She squinted as if she didn’t understand. “I can go to the restaurant and sneak dinner back for you before you give yourself to me.”

Give himself to her? Ug! His lips parted with surprise when he realized she was sincere. With the cascading water behind her, she was looking at him with undisguised hunger, eyes smoldering with sensual need. He’d be a fool to refuse her frank sexual invitation. It’d be a long time until nightfall, hours before he could escape. Was there really a better way to spend the time?

But when it came to women, Nick liked to make the first move. He was the suave seducer, not the seduced. And being locked up in this…spa, greenhouse, tropical whatever…made him feel as if he was about to crawl out of his own skin. Again.

He was about to gently rebuff her advances when she lunged at him. “I need you,” she said fiercely, pressing her lips against his.

This kiss was different than the one before. This one was primal, savage, crushing. He’d once mistaken Dessa for a helpless waif. Now that she was pressing him back against the wet rock wall, he realized how strong she was. As the water flowed over his hair and back, his military training kicked in and powerful forearms strained against hers, forcing the dryad’s hands back until she was the one pinned.

He felt her pert breasts against his chest, her thigh between his and her teeth grazing his lower lip. Releasing one of her arms, he gripped a fist of her wet hair; she was trying to ravish him and it was turning him on almost as much as it was pissing him off.

“I need you,” she whispered again, pale throat exposed. In the midst of their struggle, she’d somehow worked her skirt up over her hips and was pressing against his thigh.

All righty then, maybe this was going to happen after all. Nick wasn’t exactly known for his willpower and he wasn’t a saint. Refusing her now would take more self-control than he had. “Is this what you need?” he asked, sliding his fingers into her panties to stroke her.

“More,” she demanded. Then her hands worked at his zipper.

He grabbed her wrist. “Hey,” he growled, low in his throat. “Ask nicely.”

His words seemed to startle her. “All right…” Then she peeked up at him beneath lowered lashes and whispered, “Please give me a child.”

“Whoa.”

It was the last thing he’d expected her to ask. And Nick suddenly realized just how cold the water was that trickled down his spine.

Chapter Seven

Dessa fumed. Dryads did not ask nicely for the things they wanted. Dryads were worshipped as goddesses in some places; they ruled forests and bent nature to their will. The only reason she’d deigned to ask nicely was because it had seemed to arouse him. And what was her reward for asking him to father her child?

He’d recoiled.

Leaving her heated and aroused, he slogged out of the artificial pool and sat on one of the spa chairs, taking a moment to push his wet hair out of his eyes. “Dessa…” It was the first time he’d said her name, but his tone was filled with regret. “This is crazy.”

“Why?” Dessa went to him. “I want a daughter and you can give her to me. Our heartbeats pulse together and I know you want me…”

His eyes drifted over the curves of her body. “You have no idea how much. But we don’t know each other, and even if we did, you don’t want a guy like me to father your kid.”

“But you like children,” she protested and took the damp joker from her back pocket. “I saw you doing card tricks for those little girls at the edge of my forest…”

Her voice died away when she saw the look on his face. She realized that he knew they were dead; somehow he knew. And as he stared at the charred edges of the playing card, the memory seemed to hurt him almost as much as it hurt her. Had he come upon their dead bodies? Is that what broke him?

Dessa was too afraid to ask.

Instead, she took his hand and said, “We’re connected. Something brought you to my forest even before—”

“War brought me to your forest,” Nick said. “An intel mission. Just another day’s work, the end of which results in dead kids.”

“And yet, you chose the life of a soldier,” she said. “Why?”

“I lost a bet,” he jested, but she could see the strain around his eyes.

“That’s not the reason…”

He shrugged. “When I was just out of college, my mom and my little sisters and I were in a car crash. I was the only one who lived through it, so after I got out of the hospital, there wasn’t anything for me to go home to. The military seemed as good an option as any other.”

“You were driving the car,” she said, somehow sure of it.

A muscle twitched at his jaw and he looked away.

She didn’t press him on the point. Instead, she said, “So you don’t have any family anymore. But we can change that.”

“And then what?” Nick asked. “Are we going to live off my ill-gotten gains and drag our kid from one casino to the next?”

Did he think she planned to stay with him, to go on living in the mortal world? Did he think she was going to raise her daughter away from nature? “I’m going back to Afghanistan,” she said, realizing it for the first time.

Now he looked at her as if she was the crazy one.

“I was wrong to leave,” she said. “I should’ve tried to plant seedlings. I should’ve tried to grow a new heart tree. I should’ve stayed to protect the forests, and with a daughter to help me, maybe I can do better this time…. Without dryads like me, look what’s happened in Afghanistan.”

“You can’t be serious,” he said. “Thirty years of war caused deforestation—not demoralized dryads.”

“I’m going back and you should, too,” she said, kissing his palm. “It might be the only way you can heal what’s been broken inside you.”

Reluctantly, he pulled his hand away. “No, I’m done with war. And this thing between us can’t happen. I’ve gotta get out of here, and I can’t get you pregnant.”

“But you can,” she insisted. “You may be the only man who can. You must.”

“Look, I’m not some kind of animal you can breed. My answer is no.”

She couldn’t quite believe he was going to refuse her. No mortal man had ever refused her, even without having eaten the fruit of her heart tree. Embarrassment and anger made her cheeks burn. “Then I hope you like being tethered, because I’m not letting you go until you change your mind.”

That seemed to infuriate him, and he started to get up, but couldn’t. Rage darkened his features when he realized she’d tethered him to the chair. He wanted to shout at her. She could almost see the words forming. He wanted to call her a crazy bitch. But he was concentrating too intently on whether or not he could break the enchanted bond.

Meanwhile, Dessa was spending her remaining magic at a prodigious rate to keep him there, but she knew the bindings would hold, so she started for the door.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“To get you some dinner,” she said. “You said a man likes to be wooed.”

Crazy bitch!

Nick’s muscles strained against the invisible bonds that held him to the chair. Whatever ardor he’d felt before was well and truly cooled. Inside, his three parts were at war. Stubborn Vic wanted him to just wait her out—eventually the dryad would get tired of holding them captive and let them go. Rick wanted to fight, to thrash, to claw her limb from limb. And then there was the greedy playboy gambler—the dragon, the lizard brain in Nick—who wondered why he was making this so hard on himself.

All he had to do was knock this chick up and be on his way. How hard was that? What was the worst she could do? Sue him for child support? She couldn’t possibly have a better legal team than the U.S. Marine Corps, and in five years they hadn’t managed to drag him back to meet his obligations.

That thought brought a sour taste to his mouth. The car crash wasn’t the only reason Nick had joined the Marines. And it wasn’t just because he’d lost a bet. He’d wanted to do something good with his life, and he used to be a believer. Semper Fi.

But there was something else he’d learned as a Marine, and it might just help him now: Improvise, Adapt and Overcome.

Chapter Eight

The first thing Dessa did was retrieve her discarded shoes and radio; she didn’t want her co-workers thinking she’d been kidnapped. Casino security was still on the alert, but not actively searching for Nick. Card counters weren’t the worst scoundrels casinos had to deal with, after all.

The second thing Dessa did was return to her suite, change into a dry set of clothes and call down to the lobby to tell them she was taking the rest of the night off. Then she started rummaging for food in her kitchenette, a task made more difficult by her shaking hands.

She wasn’t as powerful as she used to be—using her dryad magic on Nick had taken its toll and she didn’t want him to see it. Even now, she felt him straining as no one and nothing had ever struggled against her before. It was draining; she wasn’t sure how long she could hold him against his will in the unfinished spa. But if she let him go, she’d never have the daughter she needed to save the forests. Moreover, she’d never be able to save Nick from himself.

If Nick didn’t go back to Afghanistan and help his fellow Marines repair the land in which so much blood had been spilled, he might never be whole. One day, he might not even be able to merge back together into one man—before her powers failed her, she had to make him understand that.

When she was finally sure she could face him again, Dessa used her passkey to let herself back into the unfinished spa where she found Nick.

All three of him. The goat, the lion and the dragon.

The first incarnation was still sitting in the chair, stubbornly and methodically shuffling a deck of cards. He looked slightly different than the Nick she was used to—with an unkempt goatee. He was also naked, and Dessa struggled not to stare at the hard muscles of his sinewy body. There was not a spare ounce of flesh on him; he was perfect.

A second incarnation was also naked and crouched a few feet away with a pen in his hand. He had longer hair and looked like some wounded animal, like a lion with its paw in the jaws of a trap. As soon as Dessa started to speak, that one lunged at her, trying to stab her with the pen, then growled with frustration when the tether held him back.

Finally, there was the one who looked most familiar to her—the cunning, reptilian version of Nick who stood there in his wet clothes daring her to come closer.

“Nice try,” she said, trying to hide her fear, “but I anticipated you’d try this.”

It was false bravado. Dessa had lived in the forest long enough to know that men were dangerous predators in their own right. Nick was strong, but she could hold her own against him. She wasn’t sure she could fight off all three of him. Luckily, he had only loosened his bonds enough to fracture like the chimera he was. He hadn’t managed to break the tethers altogether.

“I brought wine,” she murmured, realizing that she’d have to bind him back together before she dared come closer. But she was so tired, so very tired.

“Did you bring candles, too?” Nick mocked her. “Maybe we can each take a turn with you. How’s that for romance?”

“Don’t be this way.” Dessa sighed.

“Don’t tell me how to be,” his inner dragon demanded. “I’m better at giving orders than taking them.”

She preferred him as one man. When all his aspects combined to form the proud—but ultimately gentle—warrior, he was a man she could care for. Maybe even a man she could love. But when he was separated, his sense of humor took on a deeply bitter edge and he couldn’t be trusted.

Spreading a blanket on the ground, Dessa quietly laid out a humble feast. Some raspberries, cold fried chicken and half a loaf of bread. All three of Nick’s selves looked on hungrily, but until she loosened his bindings, he couldn’t get to her, or the food.

“Do you want to sit with me and eat like one civilized man?”

“I’m not a civilized man,” one of him replied—she didn’t look up to see which one. “I’m a monster. You said so yourself.”

“Maybe you don’t have to be,” she said, pouring the wine. “If you go back to Afghanistan—”

“I can’t go back even if I wanted to. I’m AWOL.”

Dessa pretended she understood. “What will the Americans do to you if you return?”

“They think I’m a deserter, Dessa. What do you think they’ll do?”

Careful not to step within the boundaries of the tethers that held him near the chair, Dessa handed the crafty incarnation of Nick a glass of wine. She felt certain that if she handed it to the crouched one with the longer hair he’d dash it out of her hand. “I need two more glasses,” Nick said.

“Merge back together and you won’t.”

He shook his head. “It’s not that easy. It’s painful.”

“It’s only going to get more painful. At first, your other selves probably just felt like extra limbs, but now they’re taking on personalities of their own, aren’t they?” When he didn’t answer, she continued, “Do you know what I think? I think you don’t like being a deserter any more than I do. I think we both had a duty and we’ve only hurt ourselves in abandoning it.”

“A fine lecture from someone like you,” Nick said, taking an experimental sip of wine, those predatory dragon eyes hard like obsidian. Since this incarnation seemed like the only one willing to talk, she loosened his tether and let him come a little closer. When he realized it, he sat on the edge of the blanket. “You’re used to using your powers to get whatever you want.”

Dessa took a bite of bread and chewed slowly, because he did have a point. And yet…“I didn’t want my kind to drift away to live in the mortal world. I didn’t want my forest to burn down. I didn’t want to lose my heart tree…but I couldn’t stop any of that. I want a daughter to help me guard the forests and that’s one thing that’s still in my power.”

“You think so?” he asked, fire in his eyes.

“I do,” she said. “You may be a chimera, but I can bend you to my will.”

“Is that how you want it to be?”

He was so infuriating, so willful, so…desirable. It was as if he, a mortal man, thought himself her equal. Maybe that’s why he was her chosen mate. She’d known it the first day she saw him. It’s why she kept that scorched joker with her—not to remind her of a soldier who helped condemn those little girls to die, but because it reminded her of a man who made those little girls laugh.

“No, I don’t want it to be like that,” Dessa confessed. “But I’m desperate. I’m asking you, I’m begging you—”

“I’ll make you a deal,” Nick said, the avarice of a gambler in his eye. “I’ll make love to you, but not here hidden and caged up like an animal, and not while I’m in your power. You don’t get to be in control; you’ll have to put yourself in mine.”

Chapter Nine

Dessa should have known better than to make a deal with a dragon; it had to be some kind of trick. But by nightfall, her powers were waning and she’d exhausted all other options. They’d eaten her makeshift picnic, they’d finished the wine and she’d already told Nick that sneaking him out of the resort was best done under cover of darkness.

“Damn,” he complained, staring out the window. “The moon is out.”

“Don’t worry,” Dessa said, shaking with exertion. “Casino security isn’t going to shoot you. It’s just a matter of slipping past the cameras and navigating through the woods to the road.”

“You’re going to keep your word, then? And let me go?”

It’d taken so much out of her to keep him bound she was not sure she could stand. But somehow she found the strength. “A dryad always keeps her word.”

She wasn’t so sure about chimeras.

She allowed all three men to stand and follow her to the exit. Then, as they stepped out behind the building into the moonlit night, she let the tethers grow slack like she might do with three pets on the end of a leash. He could run quite a ways before realizing that he was still bound, but he didn’t try. None of him did. The three men simply crept into the forest beside her, trusting her to guide the way.

It was some time before they were in the thick of the wilds, away from the Evergreen Resort and its guests. Crickets chirped into the night air, and Dessa took off her shoes so as to feel the forest floor beneath her feet. When they reached the foot of a crimson firewheel tree, Dessa stopped and closed her eyes.

She had to let him go. She had to let him go free, but she was afraid. One of him seemed to realize it—the savage one with the leonine hair who didn’t speak. He stopped behind her. She turned her head to the side to see his teeth bared, and for a moment, she feared he would devour her. But instead, he bit her softly at the nape of the neck, his breath warm in her ear. She pressed back against him, groaning with the heat that flowed through her body.

“Am I still tethered?” Nick asked, his voice coming from another body, from farther away.

Dessa broke the gossamer threads and let out a small, exhausted cry. “Not anymore.”

He was going to leave her, and there’d be nothing she could do to stop him. He was going to run. Just as he’d run from the car crash. As he’d run from the war. As he’d run from security.

He said he was a deserter, after all.

But against all reason, he didn’t run. Nick’s leonine aspect caught her hands and held them at the small of her back. The one with the goatee took her round the waist, working his fingers at the buttons of her blouse. And the one with the dark dragon eyes cupped her chin and kissed her.

For a moment, Dessa felt crowded, overwhelmed. She tried to free her hands, but there was no escape. “Not like this,” she said.

“I thought you were a dryad…do we really need to find a hotel room?”

“No,” she said. “I mean, not like this with you all…fractured.”

“You promised you’d do it my way,” his dragon self replied, almost cruelly. “Unless you’ve changed your mind?”

He’d been right about her. Dessa was used to having her own way. Used to being strong and powerful, used to ruling forests and men alike. Even when she’d lived amongst the mortals, she’d always known it was play-pretend. They’d never had her in their power the way Nick had her now.

She was drained of magic and at his mercy; only he could give her a child. “No,” she said. “I haven’t changed my mind.”

“Good,” he replied and then kissed her hard. The rush of it flowed over her senses. With six hands, he undressed her easily, exposing her nudity to the night air. One set of hands cupped her breasts from behind, kneading the flesh until the nipples tightened with a pleasurable ache. Meanwhile, a warm, insistent mouth sought the downy cleft between her legs. All the while, the controlling, manipulative dragon aspect of him was staring into her eyes.

“You’re so sexy,” he murmured between kisses. “It’s amazing to taste you, touch you, kiss you—all at the same time.”

Dessa shuddered with the unfamiliar thrill, overcome with sensation. There were too many hands on her, too many mouths on her, to focus on any one pleasure. There was nothing she could do to stop it, nothing she wanted to do to stop it. Abandoning all pretense of composure, Dessa moaned, wanton and shameless.

She was yearning, shaking, aching.

At length, Nick pulled her down to the forest floor. She straddled him and sank down until he was buried deep inside her. With her knees on the cool life-affirming earth, she pumped her hips until a second set of hands grasped her bottom and spread her cheeks. A second hardness was pressing slowly but insistently behind, another body wanting to join with her.

“You have to open yourself to me,” Nick whispered.

What he was asking was base, so why did she want it so much? Because sex was a union, a kind of natural binding all its own, and she wanted to feel at one with him. Relaxing herself to accommodate the savage lion behind her, she felt herself taken a second time. The soft mounds of her buttocks quivered against his groin, and then she was captured, caught between his two bodies, and filled like the earth itself as tumescent tree roots penetrated the soil.

Nick’s third self—the one with the goatee—was close by, only staring. It unsettled her. It was wrong. Now, she didn’t want some part of Nick just to watch; she didn’t want him to hold some part of himself aloof. The pulse of her heart tree beat in all his parts. They were connected, and she wanted him. All of him.

She reached out and drew his third erection to her lips. She took him into her mouth; she took Nick into every part of herself she could take him and some cycle completed, some bond forged. She felt their bodies meld together—the orgiastic pleasure unbearable to contain.

Her orgasm blossomed inside her, exploding like flowers in springtime, a cacophony of color and beauty. Her body convulsed like a butterfly shedding its cocoon. Then her moonlit world went blindingly white.

It was only after a few moments, when she could see again, when she could breathe again, that Nick stiffened beneath her and flooded her with his seed. He came with a sound that gave her deep contentment.

It was just the two of them now and she felt fertile as the earth. She hadn’t imagined the merging of bodies and souls. But had Nick’s other selves gone back into him, or into her?

She felt the life quicken inside her, and she knew the answer was both.

Chapter Ten

“Did you put me back together?” Nick asked, as if bewildered by the fact that he was whole.

“Not on purpose,” Dessa whispered, falling forward onto his chest where he cradled her. “But in joining with me…it just happened.”

“I guess three was a crowd.” That sense of humor returned now that he was one man. “You swear you didn’t tether me?”

Dessa shook her head. “I kept my part of the bargain. You’re free…”

“Do you think I kept mine?” Nick whispered.

“Yes, we made a daughter,” Dessa said softly. “I feel her inside me, like I used to feel my heart tree—like I still feel my heart tree when you’re near me.”

Nick rolled atop her then, laying her gently against the soil where the loamy scents of the world added to her contentment. But, as he stroked her hair from her face, he looked terribly sad. “You know I wouldn’t have done that…if I’d been myself. Some part of me wanted to shame you for having trapped me.”

“I’m not ashamed.”

Nick sighed. “If I’d been myself, I’d have never made that bargain with you in the first place. I wouldn’t have risked making a baby, knowing I was just going to run out on you.”

Dessa tried to keep her lower lip from quaking. What should it matter to her that he left her now? He was a mortal. She was a dryad. They came from different worlds. They’d return to different worlds. But she was worried for him. “How long can you keep running, Nick? What will they do to you—truly—if they catch you?”

“The best-case scenario? They’re so desperate for soldiers they might send me right back into the fight.”

“And the worst case?” Dessa asked.

“They’ll lock me in an insane asylum for the rest of my life.”

“And the most likely?”

“Most likely they’ll give me two years in prison, but I don’t think I could live through even a day of being locked up.”

“But you did survive a day of it,” Dessa said. “I held you against your will today and it didn’t kill you. You’re stronger than you think, but you’re not free—not when you can’t even keep yourself together.”

He knew that she could help him—she saw it in his eyes—but he was too proud to ask. “I don’t like to rely on anyone else. I don’t like to be in someone else’s power.”

“Maybe sometimes you have to give yourself up to another power before you can get control of yourself again. I think you taught me that tonight.”

“You’re really going back to Afghanistan?” he asked.

She nodded, sleepily. The ground was warm beneath them and the wind rustled the trees like a lullaby. Still, he was whispering something in her ear. “Dessa, I want you to know that I planted the seeds of your tree—the nuts—I planted them over the graves of the little girls. I don’t know if that helps anything, but…”

Dessa’s joy welled up so suddenly that tears flowed over her lashes. Could she return to Afghanistan and find little walnut trees? Could she at least dance with the spirits of her little forest girls again? As a dryad, she knew that the cycle of life was eternal. Somehow the war had made her forget it. Now this mortal, this wonderful mortal, had made her remember again and she wanted this moment to last.

So she closed her eyes.

While Dessa slept, Nick got dressed. Moonlight illuminated Dessa’s naked body, earthly in the night. He searched for her clothes—the costume she wore to pass in the mortal world—and gently covered her as best he could.

As he did so, something fell out of her skirt pocket, and he squinted until he realized it was the joker, all curled and burned at the edges.

She shouldn’t be carrying it. What happened to those little girls was his burden to bear, not hers. He hadn’t wanted any civilians to get hurt, but that’s what happened in war. He hadn’t wanted the fighting to destroy Dessa’s heart tree or burn down her forest, either, but he was a soldier. He knew it could happen. He’d tried to warn her, but he didn’t expect her to forgive him for his part in that horror.

Especially not when it had resulted in the extra humiliation of having to ask him—beg him—to make love to her so that she could have a child. If her heart tree hadn’t been destroyed, and he hadn’t been the one to eat those walnuts, he was pretty certain she’d have never let him touch her.

And he shouldn’t have done it; not because she wasn’t beautiful. Not because he regretted one moment of the mind-blowing experience of taking her so completely. But because she might really be having his kid…and what if she was right, and it was a little girl?

Crouching down beside Dessa, he couldn’t imagine how she could sleep so peacefully—how she could make herself so comfortable on the bare ground. Then again, she wasn’t like him. He didn’t even feel comfortable in his own skin anymore—and maybe he only had himself to blame.

Nick felt his chest constrict, remembering his little sisters and the way they had cried out for him as the crushed car sparked and teetered at the edge of the highway. He’d tried to get to them, but he’d been trapped. His legs had been pinned beneath the steering column and the seat belt at his throat. Like a chain, like a tether.

For months afterward, he’d been trapped in that hospital bed in casts, locked up, and he’d sworn to himself that he’d never let himself be trapped again. But what was this life as a chimera, but one more cage?

Dessa startled awake, squinting into the morning light. She was in a forest, but not her forest, and the events of the night before came flooding back.

“Nick?” she called softly. When there was no answer, she realized she was clutching something in her hand. It was a playing card—not the joker, but the queen of hearts. On it was a scrawled note. I’m not a deserter, Dessa. I’m just bad luck for little girls.

So guilt had broken him. Maybe all soldiers felt it. But he didn’t bear all the blame for what had happened in Afghanistan, and Dessa had been wrong to let him think otherwise. She dressed hurriedly, hoping not to run into any tourists as she found her way back toward a concrete path. She worried Nick might be lost, wandering the woods, but she didn’t feel the essence of her heart tree close by. The steady rhythm was missing, leaving an emptiness in her chest.

She was too late. Nick was gone.

Dessa told herself that she should accept it. With her hand absently stroking her belly, she knew that he’d given her the one thing she most wanted. But she was filled with regret for the things she hadn’t said. If she’d tethered him, she’d be able to find him. She’d be able to pull him to her without even trying. But she’d kept her promise and let him free—now she might never see him again.

Stumbling back to the resort, Dessa didn’t even answer the manager when he asked her where she’d been and whether or not she planned to report for work. She just found her purse and keys, went to the parking lot and drove off.

She didn’t know where she was driving until she got there, but once she pulled into the parking lot of the Brisbane Airport, it seemed to make sense. She’d get a flight back to Afghanistan, or at least as close as she could get.

But after she’d purchased her ticket and made her way toward the gate, something pulled her in another direction. She turned, passed the duty-free shops and kept going. The noise of the airport was an assault on her tender dryad ears…but beneath the chatter and announcements, she thought she heard a distinct pulse, and one that she knew.

One she did know.

Nick was in line for a flight to Los Angeles. He was wearing dark shades, and his dress shirt was rumpled from the night before, but he looked still to be one man, and his shoulders were squared like he was marching into battle.

“Lieutenant,” she whispered just behind his ear.

He spun around, his expression both startled and relieved. “You’ve gotta stop doing that, Dessa.”

Sheepishly, Dessa said, “I know, but I couldn’t let you leave thinking that what happened in Afghanistan was your fault.”

Nick seemed acutely aware of the stares of his fellow passengers and, in spite of the flight attendant’s glare, he got out of line and ushered Dessa away from the crowd. “Dessa, it was my fault. I might not have called in the air strike—I didn’t personally shell your forest. But there were other air strikes I did call in and other forests I probably burned. I could’ve made those little girls leave—”

“I don’t think you could have,” Dessa said, trying to still the trembling of her voice. “I bound them there, Nick. I bound them to my forest. I bound birds and bees, flowers, trees and the humans, too. So it’s my fault. They might not have struggled much against me, but I bound that family just like I bound you last night, and for the same selfish reason: I cared for them and wanted them near me.”

“There’s more than enough blame to go around…” Nick stopped, his eyes flicking up at her. “For the same reason? What did you just say?”

“I wanted to be with you,” she said. “I still do.”

She was touched when he reached out and cupped her cheek. “I think I want to be with you, too, but…”

“I won’t tether you,” Dessa promised hurriedly. “I won’t use whatever magic I have left to force you to stay. I’ve learned my lesson.”

“It’s not that.” He sighed. “I’m turning myself in. I think you’re right—this may be the only way to put myself back together again.”

Dessa wanted to argue, but couldn’t. And as Nick rolled his shoulders in anticipation of what lay ahead, she realized how brave he really was.

“I hear soldiers in Afghanistan are working with conservationists now,” he said. “So maybe if they send me back I’ll be planting more trees. If not, I’m going to spend some time in prison. Two years is a long time. I don’t expect you to wait.”

“Two years isn’t a long time for a dryad,” Dessa whispered.

“Is that true?” he wondered. “Seriously?”

“Two years will pass like the blink of a mortal eye,” she said with a small smile, tucking her hands in his pockets.

He kissed her then, tilting her chin up to meet him. When he finally pulled away, his breath was soft on her cheek. “How did you find me, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Dessa said. “But I swear I didn’t bind you.”

Nick raised one cocksure eyebrow. “Maybe I bound you.”

“Maybe you did.” She smiled, deciding that maybe a mortal heart had a healing and binding magic all its own.

Epilogue

Dessa’s forest was different than Nick remembered it. Some of the old trees had sprouted anew from charred stumps, but most were gone for good. The psychologist had warned Nick that coming here would aggravate his post traumatic stress disorder, but the fighting had moved elsewhere in the country and it gladdened his heart to see that the three walnut seedlings he’d planted had survived.

Nick and the rest of his conversation crew would have to plant many more, but if he was to find Dessa anywhere, he’d bet it would be here, near this makeshift memorial.

And he was not wrong.

He came upon her at the foot of a wild olive tree, nestled on a blanket. Her eyes were closed and her long dryad legs were bare in the afternoon sun. Had it been years since he’d seen her last, or only days?

In prison, to keep himself sane, he’d imagine himself hiking up this mountain to find her. And since they let him out, how many times had he imagined that he glimpsed her beneath the dusty rim of his helmet?

Whenever he’d envisioned it, she’d always come running into his arms and he’d always had something witty to say. But now that the moment was here, he could only put down his rifle and creep closer, afraid that any sudden move might make her disappear.

She was even more beautiful than he remembered. Watching the wisps of her mahogany hair float on the breeze, he had only one overriding memory, so primal it crowded out all the rest. He remembered taking her in every way it was possible to take a woman. And he remembered that she had given herself to him in every part. She’d opened beneath all his hands, and let him touch her as if he had a right to. She’d said he was her mate, and he no longer doubted it.

If he was her mate, then she was also his. His. And the urgent need to claim her made him tremble when he stretched out his hand. He didn’t know what he was going to do until his fingers closed over her eyes. “Dessa,” he whispered, and when she startled awake, he held her fast. It was all he could trust himself to do.

“Lieutenant!” She laughed a sound of pure joy as she tried to pry his hand from her eyes. “Let me see you.”

“Not yet.” His mouth found the base of her throat where her pulse pounded wildly beneath his lips. “Don’t open your eyes,” he murmured. “Don’t look, don’t talk, don’t touch, just…let me…”

He felt her nod against his palm, and when he took his hand away, Dessa’s eyelashes quivered but did not fly wide. His lips drifted up her neck and across her jawline until he found her moist, half-parted lips. Then he kissed her.

And it brought him to the edge of oblivion.

Tongues tangled, teeth clashed, lips locked. The heat of it scorched the air from his lungs and some part of him was sure he’d never be able to breathe again.

But she breathed—in great shaking gasps. She was no figment, no illusion he had invented to heal his shattered mind. She was real, a brazen force of nature, sure of her desires. She reached for him as assertively as she ever had and he caught her wrist, this time gently. He kissed her palm before pressing it against the base of the wild olive tree. “Dessa, keep your hands still, like you were tethered.”

“Why?” she asked, a breathy whisper.

“So I can have my way with you.”

She smiled, as if it were playful mischief, but he was deadly earnest. This time he’d do it right. She wouldn’t have to ask nicely, or ask at all. There’d be no question that he was the one in need. And he did need her.

His self-control nearly snapped to see that she was already half-naked and open to him. Her gown had ridden up her thighs. He wanted to bunch it in his fists and rip it away so he could touch her. But instead, he worked the laces down the back, exposing her inch by inch. He stroked between her shoulder blades, down her spine, and everywhere his hands touched, his lips followed until he couldn’t tell if the hot rush he felt was sunlight or the warmth of her bare skin.

He kissed her thighs, adoring her—worshipping her. She kept her arms stretched over her head, as if he had tied them to the tree, and when his fingers slipped inside her, she shuddered. She rocked against his hand without pretense, her expression twisted with lust.

He cursed under his breath and pressed his erection against her hip so she could feel what she was doing to him. All his secrets lingered beneath her skin, and he wanted to be closer, flesh to flesh. He couldn’t undress quickly enough. He yanked at his zippers and popped buttons from their holes until he was as naked as she was.

Then he covered her with his body and felt her legs spread beneath him. When he entered her, she was wet and syrup-sticky inside so that the pleasure throbbed all the way to the base of his cock. But that wasn’t what nearly sent him over the edge. It was the way her knuckles whitened, as if the tree-roots in her clenched fists were the weathered headboard of her ancient bed.

He pushed deeper and buried his face in her hair. She still smelled like musk and lavender and it made him crazy. He had only one mouth to taste her, and only two hands to touch her. He couldn’t penetrate her everyplace at once anymore, but somehow this sex was more intense.

It was hard to hold himself back. He stilled, his breath ragged, and the whole world seemed to stop. Only a trickle of sweat moved between their two bodies. Then Dessa whimpered and pressed eagerly against his pelvis.

Her movements made pleasure jolt up his spine and Nick clutched at her hips. “Don’t—er, don’t do that, if you want it to last.”

But if she realized how tortured he was, she only smiled and asked, “Aren’t you a gambling man? Let’s take our chances.”

He laughed and it steadied him.

It was as if she understood all the rules had changed; her eyelashes fluttered open, revealing a flash of brilliant blue, like the sky was beneath him. He was falling into her, but he had no fear of shattering. Not anymore. Not against her.

With her eyes narrowed and wanton, Dessa took one hand from the tree and let it skid down his damp belly to the tangle of dark hair where they were joined. As if she wanted to watch his cock go into her—feel it go into her with her hand.

There was nothing for him to do but accommodate, and it was amazing. Her thighs went around his hips as he pumped within her. She shifted to take him deeper. And to his everlasting relief, she was the one who came first.

It seemed to surprise her, clawing up from some animal part of her that made her buck and thrash. If she made any sound at all, it was drowned out by his groan. He hadn’t been able to stay silent while watching her. Watching the way perspiration glistened on the upturned planes of her face as her glossy lips fell open in rapture. Then his own orgasm pulsed up in jagged spasms and he rode each wave, emptying himself into her.

If rockets had exploded overhead, he wouldn’t have heard them over the hammering heart in his chest. They rolled together in the blanket and all the rest of his senses were filled too. And he held her until the sun was much lower in the sky.

Afterwards, when he was dressed and lacing up his boots, Dessa asked, “Do you want to see your daughter?”

Nick’s fingers froze on the laces. “I thought—” he cut himself off. He dared to look at her. “I didn’t see a baby. I thought it might not have happened that night…”

“Oh, it happened,” she said, leading him to the mountain path that overlooked the poppy fields below where a little child danced amongst the pink petals of a war ravished land.

“But she’s—she’s already grown into a girl,” Nick stammered, his tongue thick in his mouth.

Dessa’s expression was bittersweet. “I told you,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist. “For dryads, two years is the blink of a mortal eye. I didn’t lie to you. We grow quickly. It’s our way.”

He couldn’t decide whether it made him happy or sad. He had missed those baby years, but how beautiful his daughter was now. The sense of responsibility was a physical weight that all but brought him to his knees. “We can’t let her play out there. She could be shot. She could step on a mine—”

“She’s an immortal.” Dessa soothed him. “And this is her dominion. This is one little girl you’ll never have to see bleed.”

He squinted. “Who is she dancing with?”

Now Dessa smiled, tucking a lock of hair behind her ears. “She says she sees the spirits of three little girls…”

It made Nick swallow. “Does she know me? What’s her name?”

Dessa nodded, her eyes shining. “I named her Yasmeen, because she’s a flower of Afghanistan. And she does know you. I told her she was a blossom of my love for a broken soldier. But now my soldier is all healed and whole again.”

“I thought I was healed and whole,” Nick said hoarsely. “But now…” He didn’t know the words to express what he was feeling, so he blurted, “Now I’m broken again into three parts…you, me, and her.”

“I could bind us together.”

“So can I,” Nick said, fishing a little wooden circle from his pocket. It was a carved wooden ring, a walnut trinket that had reminded him of her.

Now Dessa held it in her hand, bewildered. “What is it?”

He didn’t answer her right away. First he kissed her. But when he spoke, he was very sure. “Let’s just say, it’s a gambler’s way of saying…I’m all in.”

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ISBN: 978-1-4268-3862-0

Wild, Tethered, Bound

Copyright © 2009 by Stephanie Dray

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