“This is why we dream of each other and have every night since we met.” He took her other hand. “It is why I have desired you, almost to the point of obsession, and why I love you, and fell in love with you so quickly. You are meant for me, and I am for you.”

  “No,” she insisted, shaking her head.

  “Can you deny that you love me?”

  “You are my friend. Of course, I care.”

  “That was not my question.”

  “She made a mistake.”

  Orion arched a brow. “Are you accusing the goddess of nature of making a mistake?”

  Nina closed her eyes and a small tear trickled down her cheek.

  “She saved you. Was that a mistake?”

  Her pewter eyes grew troubled. “Perhaps it was.”

  “No, it was not!”

  Was his loving her so abhorrent?

  “No,” she finally admitted. “I am glad to have had these years and until I met you, I was completely content with my life.”

  “Were you?” he pressed.

  “I accepted and was not unhappy. Curious of the world but understood that this was my lot in life.”

  “Until me.” He smiled.

  Nina held his eyes. “Until you.”

  He leaned forward, intent on kissing her. Nina pulled back. “Do not.”

  “Why?”

  “It cannot be.” Another tear leaked out of the corner of her eye.

  “I love you and I suspect you love me.”

  “It matters not.”

  “It matters to me.” This time he pressed his lips to hers and Nina didn’t pull away. Orion drew her close, deepening the kiss as her arms went about his shoulders. The dampness from her tears also left his cheeks wet, but he didn’t care. Nina was kissing him back. She hadn’t said that she loved him but hadn’t denied it either. She was his heart.

  At the tug of the vines on his legs, she broke the kiss and looked down then gave him a a sad smile.

  “Thank you for the love, for showing me how it could be if circumstances were different. But most of all thank you for your friendship.” She placed a hand against his cheek, kissed him one more time then stepped away. The vines caught on her foot, and she shook them away. “Goodbye, Orion, I will treasure what we shared always.”

  Then she turned and ran. Orion started after her, nearly tripping on the vines, but she was too quick and by the time he made it to the other side of the temple, she was gone.

  She had left him. It was a goodbye.

  She couldn’t mean it, could she?

  Why was she being so difficult? They could be happy. Few people met the person they were truly supposed to spend their life with, and he had found her, and he was not about to let her go. Luckily, she couldn’t go far, but without knowing where her cottage was and, if she never left it, he might not see her again.

  “We will take you to her.”

  He turned to find the five dryads emerge from the woods.

  “Lady Wharton told us of the vines and why you were allowed back in the grove,” one of them said. “You are the goddess of nature’s choice for her and her for you. We must assist.”

  “Come along.” Another grinned at him, and Orion eagerly followed. He would not leave until Nina agreed to be his wife. Certainly, he could overcome any objection she may have and there should be nothing that stood in their way of happiness.

  Nina heard the knock on the door but did not wish to speak with anyone. If she ignored it, perhaps they would go away, assuming those on the other side were dryads and were here because they had witnessed what had occurred in the temple. Except, it was incessant, so she stomped across the floor and cracked it open, ready to tell whichever dryad was on the other side to just go away. Instead, she found Orion.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “There is more that we need to speak of.”

  “No. There is nothing more to say. You promised to be my friend and not kiss me again, yet you did.”

  She tried to close the door, but he grabbed onto it and pushed his Hessian boot between the opening.

  “Please go,” she practically begged.

  “I cannot. Not until we have settled this,” Orion insisted.

  For the first time since meeting Orion, Nina experienced fear. He had always stopped pursuing her when she asked, but now he was practically forcing himself into her home.

  As if sensing her thoughts, Orion let go of his hold on the door and pulled his foot back, leaving the door ajar so that she could open it and welcome him in, or close it, locking him out.

  “I just want to talk, Nina. Please let me in.”

  He had not harmed her before, at least not intentionally or physically. But she was alone in her home and without an easy way to escape him as it was in the woods where she could hide. “Do you promise not to touch me?” she asked.

  “I promise.”

  “You will not kiss me either,” she insisted.

  “No matter how much I desire to do so, I swear I will resist the urge,” Orion promised. “I just need to speak with you. To understand what is happening.”

  “I know what happened. You kissed me after you promised that you wouldn’t and that we were friends.” Could she trust that same promise now?

  Nina moved to push the door shut but his booted toe stopped it once again.

  “Please, Nina, let me in.”

  The anguish in his voice was almost her undoing. It echoed what was in her heart. Slowly, she stepped back and opened the door.

  “I meant what I said in the grove. It is impossible. You cannot love me.”

  “Why not?”

  “We have not known each other so long as to develop love.”

  “There is no time limit, especially when it is a love that is meant to be.”

  She frowned. “Only fools fall in love so quickly.”

  “Only fools deny what is real when it is right there, such as what we share.”

  “I am not a fool, Orion.”

  “I am not saying you are,” he blew out and pinched the bridge of his nose. “All I know is that I love you. I want you as my wife. I may have fought it before, but not now. Not when we are meant to be.”

  “It is impossible.”

  “Gaia chose us for each other.”

  Why would the goddess do such a thing? Did she wish to chain Orion to the grove as she was?

  “Why is it impossible?” he yelled in frustration.

  “You live in the world. I live here.” She pointed out the obvious.

  “But I will be living here, at Nightshade Manor. I can still care for the estate and live in this house with you.”

  Her heart skipped, wishing it could be so, but knew that it would be unfair to him. Just as it was unfair to Cassian. Both set aside living in the world because of her and she’d not allow it. She had to make Orion understand that this would be a mistake.

  No matter how much she loved him, and longed for him to be by her side, it could not be. Not when it was so unfair to him.

  “What of children?”

  He smiled. “I would certainly enjoy making children with you.” He grinned and came forward.

  Nina put up a hand to stop him. “I am being serious.”

  Orion sobered. “As am I.”

  “Then you have not thought the matter through or considered their future.”

  “Nobody knows what the future holds, Nina, but we can and will be happy.”

  She took a deep breath. “Let me paint the picture for you.” Then maybe he would understand. “Let us assume that I agree. We marry beside the cove, where it is safest for me. Your family will be in attendance, as will mine, which includes the dryads, who will be hiding in the trees. We will come back here and live happily ever after. There will be a child, or two or three. The first years will not matter because I will be taking care of them, and they will grow up in the sacred grove while you spend your days at the estate.”

  “I will be here every evening and many days,” Orion interrupted.

  “I have no doubt that you will be. But those children will grow. The boys will be sent off to Eton as you were, but what do you think they would say about their mother?”

  Orion frowned. Maybe he was beginning to understand.

  “They will need to lie, or hide the truth, as we would have had to teach them that.”

  “They will already know to keep secret the fact that they have a grandmother and aunts who are witches. We have all been taught that as soon as we were old enough to understand that some things were not shared outside of the family.”

  “And you never let the word witch slip past your lips? Not once, in all the years that you were away at school?”

  He stared at her, but did not answer, which meant that he had made a slip. “Nobody would believe it as the truth.”

  “That is because anyone assumes the term was being used in a derogatory manner, believing the child was angry or did not like someone. What do they say about a mother who never leaves the grove? Or what happens when they say that their mother can never leave the estate.”

  “They will think you prefer to be here until they are old enough to understand. A recluse is not so unusual.”

  Nina blew out a sigh. Orion did not want to accept how impossible the situation was.

  “What if we have only daughters?”

  “Are you afraid they will be witches? It is likely.”

  “No. I would not care if they were witches or not.”

  “Then what is your concern?”

  “They would be raised here, but one day they would be old enough to have a Season.” Maybe now he would understand.

  “I could not accompany them, and I would miss their first dance and courtship. I would be the one waiting back here, wondering about which entertainments they were enjoying, or which gentleman they hoped would ask them to dance, which gentleman may break their heart. You will be there to see it all, but they will not have their mother. Instead, for comfort or advice they will rely on their grandmother or aunt, not me. Instead, I will have to wait until they return to hear everything.

  Orion sank into a chair. “I did not consider…”

  “No, you did not. And that is not all. They will marry. How will you explain that it must take place at Nightshade Manor, where I will be in attendance but just beyond the cove? What will they say when any of our children bring their spouse to meet their mother?”

  Tears welled in her eyes as Nina voiced all the wonderful things that women could experience, if that is what they wished.

  “I am sure they will come to visit when they can, and bring their children to visit the reclusive grandmother, who does not age. I will watch you grow older, then our children, then their children, and so forth. I will watch generations of my bloodline be born and grow old and die.”

  “Generations?”

  “A dryad lives as long as her tree,” she answered. “Basilia is two hundred and seventy-five years old. The others are not that much younger. I could live as long as they have, and my life will be nothing but watching generation after generation of my offspring grow old and die. While it would be a blessing to have known them, the continued loss would be heartbreaking, or I fear it would be.” She settled into the chair across from him, exhausted. “Maybe this is why the dryads shut themselves off from the world and do not interact with humans,” she said more to herself.

  “Nina, I am sorry, I did not realize…”

  “I know that you did not.”

  “But have you considered that you will also cheat yourself by denying love and children? You said yourself that it could also be a blessing. Life is a balance of joy and pain and mediocre. You are not giving yourself a chance to experience anything.”

  He still did not understand. “I would see everything, but still miss so much. I think I now understand how deep a pain must be to cause a woman to choose to be a dryad and have peace when they were not born of that world.”

  He reached out and took her hand. “I will not give up. I will find an answer.”

  That was her fear. “I think that it is best that you go.”

  For once, he did as she asked, but Nina didn’t fool herself into thinking he wouldn’t be back, and it wasn’t as if she could hide from him. She had nowhere to go.

  Twenty-Four

  Orion’s heart ached as he made his way back to the mansion.

  Her arguments were sound, and he understood, except she wasn’t seeing the joy and happiness they would share. Instead, Nina only saw sadness.

  How could he make her understand?

  Was it even possible?

  Orion feared that she might never admit that she loved him, let alone agree to marry him.

  She had to love him. She’d not denied the fact, and the pain in her eyes, blurry with tears, was evidence that she wanted him too.

  Why was she so bloody stubborn?

  Even if Nina never agreed to marriage, he would remain at Nightshade Manor watching over her and wishing they could be more.

  Ignoring the rest of his family, Orion took a bottle of brandy from the library and went up to his chamber. He had every intention of getting good and bloody drunk.

  Maybe tomorrow he would find answers.

  He loved her.

  Orion Drakos loved her, and Nina loved him.

  It hadn’t been an infatuation because he was the first gentleman she had ever encountered.

  It was real and true, ordained by a goddess.

  Is that why she had been saved?

  Was she being ungrateful by rejecting Orion?

  Except, it was more than that.

  So long as Nina was tied to the sacred grove, so would be Cassian and now Orion, neither venturing further than Bocka Morrow or maybe to the edge of Cornwall.

  They should not remain here for her.

  It was not fair to them.

  Nina settled on her window seat and stared out toward the cove. She could see the mansion from here. The break in the woods was just enough that she could watch, but because her cottage was sheltered in the trees, and brown, blending in, it was hard to find. Perhaps if someone were on an upper floor of the mansion, looking her way, they might notice a light, but to her knowledge, it had never been questioned.

  Was she mistaken on how far she could go? She hadn’t ventured into the orchard in years. The last time she had gotten weak, and then there was the pain and she feared that she’d been too far from her tree.

  Maybe that hadn’t been it at all?

  Could she go farther? Even to the mansion where Orion would now live?

  What if she transplanted the tree closer to the house? Would it then be possible to travel farther within Nightshade Manor and be a part of the family and household?

  She was dreaming, but she wanted it to be so. If she could marry Orion and live there, they could both be happy, and Cassian would be free to find his happiness. She would still miss out on her children in Society, but it wouldn’t be so strange being a recluse living in a mansion as it would be never leaving a grove.

  Was it selfish to want that love for herself, to enjoy what years she could with Orion and children? Would the pain she suffered in the future, as she lost them one by one be lessened by having memories? Was the pain of denying herself the opportunity for love now worse than what she would experience in the future.

  Did she dare take the risk.

  If only she could break from the grove, her tree and be fully free, she would do so. What she feared was going too far and dying.

  No, she didn’t want to live centuries, but she wasn’t ready to die either.

  What she told Orion is what bothered her the most—seeing everyone age and die, generation after generation. In time, she’d also be all alone in the grove. Her tree was only twenty years old and a cypress such as hers could live six hundred years. Basila was already two hundred and seventy-five years old and she was tied to an Ash tree, which only lived to be around three hundred and fifty. All of them would die long before her.

  Nina looked up at the dark sky, her throat tightening and tears clouding her vision. She wasn’t certain if Gaia could hear her or not, but Nina made the plea. “I do not want to be attached to a tree anymore. I want to be fully human. I want to live and love.” There was no way of knowing if Gaia even listened anymore, but Nina had to ask and then thought to add. “Thank you for saving me and please, do not think me ungrateful. I just wish to be free, as I want Cassian to feel free to do as he wishes.”

  She ended up sitting on the window seat all night, dozing on occasion. Nina knew that she should go to bed, but she didn’t have the energy to move from her place. Her heart longed for Orion and her mind wanted Cassian to be free, and as the sky began to lighten, Nina made a decision.

  After putting on the shoes that she rarely wore, and donning a dress that was the closest to what she had seen the women wear at the mansion, she set out through the grove.

  This was to be a test. She wanted to see how far she could go before she suffered discomfort or weakness. They didn’t even know if she would die if she left, but Nina wasn’t going to risk going so far that it could happen, especially since she’d had such terrible pain before. That must mean that death follows. Why else would she have no pain one moment and excruciating pain the next? Therefore, she would walk slowly and be aware of what was happening within her body so that she could return to the sacred grove before it was too late.

  The trees didn’t even whisper this morning, so the dryads must still be asleep.

  It was for the best. Otherwise, they may have tried to stop her.

  She passed her tree and smiled. At one time they were the same height. That didn’t last long and now it towered over her.

  Finding the break in the boxwoods, she made her way to the cove as she had done so many times to watch the families. This time she didn’t try to hide. She was done hiding.

  Once she was clear, Nina took a deep breath and slowly walked toward the orchard. She knew how far she could go, she was just not certain how much farther, which she would test today.