by Lila Dubois
Harris climbed to his feet.
Kim swung the heavy door open. She was smaller than he’d thought, coming up to his chin, and slender.
Harris stepped out, and she retreated a step, swallowing.
He took another step, and once more she matched the movement.
He backed her up until she brushed against the roses. She jerked around to look at them, then sprang forward at the same time he took another step. She smacked against his chest. Harris caught her by the upper arms, careful to touch her only where clothing prevented flesh-on-flesh contact.
Kim tipped her head back, looking up at him. “Please, Mr. Barclay.”
“I told you not to call me that.”
“Please, Harris. I need your help.”
Chapter 4
She’d made a mistake. What that mistake was, she wasn’t sure. Had it been kidnapping him in the first place? Possibly, though Goddess knew this was an act of desperation because she’d exhausted all other possibilities. Not buckling the dampening belt tight enough was another misstep. Handing him the coffee was also a good candidate for major mistake. If she hadn’t done that, their magic wouldn’t have reacted. The earthquake that had cracked the walls had allowed his own magic to pull in flora. Her legs were throbbing where the thorns had pierced. Not stopping to bandage her wounds was another mistake. Blood could be used in the craft to focus a spell, and right now there was plenty of her blood lying around.
But really, the biggest mistake was opening that door before she was sure that he’d help her. The plan had been to negotiate with him. There were things she could offer him—spells, workings, and even money—that she’d hoped to use to pay him for the help she was requesting. The kidnapping was just a way to get him alone so she could talk to and reason with him. It was meant to make sure he was safe from any repercussions, not to make him help her. She couldn’t force him to use his magic for her.
Without his cooperation, the plan would never work. She’d have to dampen her own magic while he worked, which meant she’d be nearly defenseless.
Not totally defenseless. She had a Taser, and had planned to use it as a last resort.
But her very logical plan didn’t seem so smart now that he was towering over her. Admittedly, she was on the short side, but he wasn’t just tall—he was broad. He was holding her upper arms with a firm grip, just enough pressure to make her hyper aware of how much more physical power he had.
Mistake. Opening the door had been the mistake.
The earth rumbled under them.
“Don’t,” he growled down at her.
Kim clenched her teeth. “I’m trying not to, but you’re scaring me and I’m hurt. It’s making it hard to control it.” She still hadn’t tightened the damned dampening belt.
Harris blinked and let go of her, as if she’d burned him. “I’m scaring you?”
“Yes. And also, yes, I know that I’m the one who kidnapped you, but now you’re out, and neither of us can use our magic without risking blowing ourselves up, so that just leaves the physical.” Kim gestured to him. “And I don’t think I could hold you off for long.”
“Hold me off?” Now he sounded offended.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
“I mean that… Okay, let me try again. Harris. I need your help. I know it’s ridiculous that I ask for it after what I’ve done, but I can pay you. In magic, and money.”
He looked at her. “I have plenty of both.”
“You can never have too much of either,” she shot back.
He grinned, and some of the tension faded. “Fair enough.”
“Can you just come look at my crops? Please, Harris.”
“Yes, I will, but I won’t take money or magic. I want something else.” His gaze was focused and intent.
Please let him ask for sexual favors. Please ask for sex.
“I want answers.”
Her libido went to pout in a corner of her mind. She would make sure it stayed there. This was a wildly inappropriate time to be distracted by how handsome he was, and if he really had asked for sex his attractiveness levels would have dropped into the center of the earth.
“Answers?” she asked.
“Yes. Answers.”
She narrowed her eyes. “One answer. One question.”
“Three. And real answers. You will answer in full as if to a friend.”
Damn it. That was a good way to phrase it to stop her from giving him a vague or one-word answer to a complex question.
“Three answers, in exchange for your help.”
Harris shook his head. “Three answers, in exchange for looking at your plants. I won’t promise help I might not be able to give.”
“And if you can help?” He had to be able to help. There wasn’t time for her to start over. Her birthday was in three months.
“Then we’ll have to decide on a price for that.”
Her libido sat up and took note. “I’ll pay it,” she breathed. “Whatever it is. I’ll pay it.”
She must have sounded as desperate as she felt, because Harris frowned down at her. “Where are your crops?”
“This way.”
Nim took a few small sideways steps, doing her best to keep from touching either Harris at her front or the roses at her back. Her little concrete house was probably damaged beyond repair. Normally she’d be scared that the earthquake might have done more damage, but that hadn’t been a real earthquake—the tectonic plates hadn’t moved. Instead the layer of stone deep under the forest floor had shifted around, using the pockets of natural gas also trapped in that layer as wiggle room, all that in response to the sudden burst of magic Harris’s touch had elicited.
If she hadn’t been so anxious to show him her crops she would have taken the time to bind her rose-induced punctures. She was covered in small wounds, from both the wheat and the roses, but it was no more than she deserved. She did stop to shut off the water to the bathroom, before her cistern went dry. She’d have to deal with the plumbing issues later.
“What is this place?” He was looking around the concrete walls, floor, and ceiling.
“Technically, it’s a prefab bunker.”
“Non-technically, what is it?”
“My house.”
Harris stopped. “Wait, was that your bed I was sleeping in?”
“Yes.”
“Your bedroom has a steel prison-style door?”
“No, that was added just for you.” Nim gestured to the twenty-foot-long hallway, the one that was now full of wild roses. “You buy each room as a pod and then stick them together with the hall. I have a bedroom-bathroom combo, a living room, and a bowery.”
Harris looked around at the drab concrete walls, then at the three doors, all of which were on the north side of the hall. “We’re underground?” he asked.
“Partially. I couldn’t sink it all the way without disturbing the roots of the trees.”
“Trees? I though you said you had crops.”
“Come on.” She went to the fourth and final door, at one end of the hall, and opened it. Sunlight and the scent of forest flowed down into the bunker. She and Harris, who was a half-step behind her, both stopped to breathe.
Nim left the door open and climbed the six stairs up to ground level. Unlike the bunker, the stairs didn’t use any manmade materials. The shape had been cut into the earth, and she’d used pieces of flat stone to make the treads.
“Your, uh, house, seems a bit industrial.” It was clear from the hesitance in his tone that he was trying to be polite.
“It’s terrible, I know. But living this close to the crops, I was throwing around a lot of magic and the forest kept dismantling things. I had a log cabin for a while.”
She wasn’t sure Harris was listening to her. He was barefoot, having left his shoes in the bedroom, and his eyes were closed, face tipped up toward the tops of the trees. A shaft of morning sunlight fell perfectly on his upturned features, add
ing a halo of gilt.
She looked around at the towering pine trees. His passive magic had managed to call a wild rose to life—it would be laughably easy for him to kill her when he had a whole forest to work with, especially an old, powerful forest like this one.
Nim stopped herself a fraction of a second before she called on her own power. It had been instinctive, a response to the fissure of fear that worked its way down her spine.
Harris jerked, as if he’d touched a live wire. “We’re on the Pacific coast?” he yelped.
Nim blinked in surprise. “Do the trees actually talk to you?”
“No, but I know my forests. How did you get me here?”
“In a car,” she lied. “I drove all night.” Well, it wasn’t really a lie. She had used a car, but she’d also used a private plane. She didn’t want any blowback against the slightly shady charter company she’d used.
Harris just stared at her. “The risks you’ve taken…”
Nim raised her head, though she had a bad feeling her hair was a tangled mess. “I told you, I’m desperate.”
“Show me these plants.”
“Do you want to get your shoes?” she asked.
He shot her a level look. No, he wouldn’t want shoes. Bare feet would give him easy access to the plants that peppered the forest floor.
She turned a hundred and eighty degrees, and led him along the side of her little bunker. From ground level it was only four feet high. She’d piled dirt around and on it, and the forest had taken it from there, blanketing her prefabricated bomb shelter turned forest hideaway in small plants. Harris reached out, trailing his hand along the top of the shelter. The plants reached for him, growing even as she watched.
“You can do that with just passive magic?” she asked.
“Yes. When the plants are strong enough. A random bush planted in a parking lot would not react that way.”
They reached the end of the long, rectangular mound of her dwelling. There was a small clearing here, and she’d hung up a clothesline and a solar cooking area, including a solar oven and condensation water purifier. Tall trees surrounded the clearing, made to seem even taller because she’d set up her mini headquarters at the bottom of a small depression. On all sides, the hills of the Six Rivers Forest rose around them. The trees marching up the slopes gave the unsettling impression that she was in the center of a ring of forest that loomed over her, the tallest and strongest in the back, looking down on them while also holding her captive.
To the right, between two younger trees, was the path that led up the hill to the crops.
“Follow me.” Nim motioned with a tilt of her head, and started walking the familiar route.
Harris stayed behind her, which made her a little uncomfortable, as she was still all too aware of what he could do with all these trees. He’d turned wheat into needle-sharp darts. What would he be able to do with actual pine needles?
They were quiet as they walked. It was steep enough that they had to pay attention. The long-sleeved tunic she wore was a bit too thin for the chilly air, but she hadn’t thought to stop and grab her jacket.
“If you want to go back for your shoes, say so now,” she called over her shoulder.
“No, it feels good, after my long captivity.”
Nim snorted. “I already apologized—now you’re just whining.”
“You kidnapped me.”
“Really, Harris, aren’t we ready to move past that?”
He laughed, and it was a warm, rich sound that made her bite her lip to keep silent. She wanted to say something funny, something witty, that would make him laugh again.
After another five minutes of slow, careful hiking, they crested the rise. They stood on the ridge looking down into a long shallow valley with a stream cutting through it. The trees along the ridgeline were dense, so they couldn’t yet see her crops. Harris stopped beside her and took a deep breath. He frowned and took another. “Redwood. We’re near one of the old trees.”
“You can tell that?” Nim felt a bit stupid asking the question, as if she should have known more about how Saol magic worked, but there was very little information sharing between cabals.
“Trees like that, they have a presence.” He put his palm on the pine tree closest to them. “All the trees are aware of her.”
“Her?”
“Yes. Trees are plants, just plants.” He said that last as if he were trying to remind himself of the fact. “They are not aware in the way animals are, but they are not isolated.” He shook his head. “I say they’re not aware, but they are, just in a way that’s hard to understand. They know what a storm is, because they reach their roots down deep to hold on when the winds blow. In the same way, they are aware of the presence of the redwood.”
He looked at her. “If you’ve cut down or harmed any of the old-growth redwoods, I will kill you.”
Nim took a half step back, and the earth trembled.
No. She had to be careful.
Nim reached up and made a fist around the pendant, making sure one of the sharp edges pierced her palm. Her awareness of the earth disappeared, as if she’d stepped onto concrete. No, not concrete. Though it was manmade and hard for her to feel or manipulate, it was still just sand and rock, and if she had to, she could resonate with concrete.
“I have not harmed the redwoods. I would not. And you’re right, we are near the great redwood forests. We’re in Humboldt County, California.” Harris’s face had yet to lose the stony expression, and she had no trouble believing he would kill her. “Most of the redwoods are on national park land, on the coast. We’re inland from there, but there are a few of the old trees in privately owned forests, like this one.”
Her babbling must have convinced him not to kill her right now, because he nodded and looked around.
He considered the forest, the shot her a pitying look. “This isn’t good land for crops. Even if you clear-cut the forest—” He looked slightly ill at the words, as if he’d said “clubbed seals” or something equally heinous. “Even if you clear cut, the land is too hilly to make farming practical.” He narrowed his eyes. “So why am I really here?”
“I’ve told you the truth. I need you to look at my crops.”
He nodded slowly, and she got the distinct impression he was considering the possibility that she was delusional.
“Just follow me.” She picked her way across the ridge, then started down the path on the far side. She was able to move quickly, and probably could have done it in the dark. Actually, she had done it in the dark. She’d tried over a hundred spells to cure the blight. Many of them had been cast by moonlight. She’d gone sky-clad under the full, waning, waxing, and new moons. Each failed casting tinged just a little more with desperation. Nothing had helped.
Despite her quick pace, Harris kept up with her, and less than five minutes later they arrived at the first bunch of plants. At nearly five feet high, the bright green leaves were beautiful against the browns of the forest. She’d carefully planted the crop in the spaces between the trees. There were signs that the profusion of tall bushes with lovely, symmetrical clusters of jagged-edged leaves was not naturally occurring. Each bush was labeled with a bright pink tag, though they were hard to see amid the thick greenery. Where possible, they were planted in neat, straight rows, though more often than not the rows had slight curves to them due to the topography.
“These are the healthy ones.” She gestured. “They won’t be for much longer. The blight started at the well.” She caught herself, then said, “I mean the center of this little valley. It spread up from there. It’s another five minutes to the bottom, but you can see the blight in a few of the plants over here.” She started to lead him along the path between plants and trees. She didn’t have the option to create a tidy little road like he’d had in Montana, but she’d left a winding path down the center of the planting area, using the existing trees as markers.
Harris caught her arm, thought he was careful to touch her sleeve
. She turned to look at him. His mouth was slightly open, his eyes wide.
Damn. She’d had a bad feeling this would happen. “Harris?”
He blinked, then focused on her. “This is your crop?”
“Yes.”
More blinking. He looked at the plants, then back to her. “You grow pot?”
Chapter 5
He’d been kidnapped by a Salachar witch who grew pot.
Right.
Maybe he was hallucinating.
No, the effect of their touch and the reaction of their passive magic had been all too real.
“You kidnapped me and brought me all the way to California so I could look at your pot plants.”
“Cannabis indica and Cannabis sativa.”
He followed her down the forest path, head-high cannabis plants on either side of them creating a green tunnel. He brushed a leaf lightly with one finger. “These are Cannabis sativa.”
She turned to look at him over her shoulder. “You can tell just by touching?”
“Their Latin name? No. Plants have no idea what their Latin names are.”
“Then you know a bit about cannabis.” She sounded relieved.
Harris raised a brow. “I’m a plant witch. Yes, I know a bit about cannabis. Secretly growing a pot plant is the major act of teenage rebellion in my coven.”
“Well, it’s more than teenage rebellion in mine.”
Harris considered what she’d said so far, and it started adding up. “You said your coven depends on this.”
He watched her dark hair shift as she nodded. They were still walking, but moving slowly, almost strolling. She’d set the pace, not him, and he was curious as to the shift from hurry-up-and-help to casual stroll. “Yes, we do.”
He looked around at the profusion of bushy plants. “This is your livelihood.”
Another nod.
It was easy to forget that not all covens were like his, wealthy and well established. The cabals, to some degree, supported and protected their member covens, but the cabals were predominately there to enforce laws. The covens were expected to take care of themselves, and each coven was structured and run a little differently. Some really were just families, with a matriarch or patriarch serving as the baron, and each generation splitting up to form their own, new, nuclear family covens. Others, like Barclay, were based on a dynasty. Anyone who married in—male or female—took the Barclay name and obeyed the baron of the coven, which for him was his uncle Fitz. The Barclay coven was huge, with well over fifty members, and powerful, both in wealth and magic.