Excerpt: The Demon & the Dryad

Naya could walk quickly when she needed to. She could not actually fly, but she could flow as fast as a river over the land, seeking out all the low spots, working with the terrain rather than against it. Her light, skipping steps quickly brought her to the spot in the river that her tree had requested.

To her amazement, just as she arrived, she saw a huge pick-up truck, the kind that many of her workers used to haul wood and rocks, careen down the hill, headed toward the river. Naya realized it was going to splash into the river and possibly drown whoever was inside. She could see there was an occupant, although he appeared to be passed out. Normally, the shield around her forest kept out intruders, whether mundane or arcane. How had he smuggled his truck in here? Her spell particularly kept out any heavy machinery or vehicles because she didn’t like them driving around her forest, scarring the trees and crushing the shrubs. Either a powerful counterspell had brought him here—or for some reason the forest spirits and the river goddess had decided to allow him in.

To stop his truck hitting the water and risk him drowning, she activated her dual powers of Elemental Stone and Water. She pushed the edge of the river back, while at the same time, she lifted the dirt and rocks on the path of the truck so that it created a curve in the other direction. The car rolled up this and then rolled back down and came to a rest at the bottom of a U-shaped cup of dirt.

Naya ran to the driver’s side of the truck and found an unconscious man. He was a gorgeous specimen, notwithstanding that his clothes were filthy, and his right leg was caught in a nasty trap. She pulled him out of the car. Using waves of Elemental Stone and Water to help her convey his weight, she maneuvered him to the banks of the river. Was this why Quigley had requested water from this pool? Had her Hamadryad anticipated that this man would need her help?

Naya first rinsed his injury in the river. Next, she tried to unlock the trap, but she quickly saw that the trap was designed to ensnare an arcane. That made her frown.

Who would do such a thing? And who would dare do it on her land?

She knew there was a military base not far from her protected area. She hated those scum. They trapped Shifters. And possibly worse. If the dark conspiracy theories were true, there was a secret laboratory at the base, where sadists performed foul experiments on innocent arcanes in the bowels of the mountain. Naya had helped some of the Shifters who had escaped from there, so she did not dismiss the stories, although she had never seen the laboratory herself.

Obviously, the injured man was an arcane, probably a Shifter. An enemy had endeavored to trap him, but he had escaped. The forest must’ve allowed him in to help him because he was a good man fleeing evildoers. Not that it mattered. He was injured and Naya always helped those who were injured and helpless, no questions asked.

She bathed the dirt from his face and his body, although at this point, she did not remove his clothes. She still needed to take him back to her house to fully treat him. 

Still, she could not help but notice how incredibly handsome he was. Like most Shifters, he was incredibly physically fit, or had been at one time. Right now, his body showed signs of starvation and abuse. Nonetheless, even that could not completely hide the fact that he had once been muscular and sleek. His hands were soft with no calluses. Interesting. Whatever work he had done, it wasn’t the kind they did around her mountain. Even Naya, who had softer hands then most of her workers, still showed some signs of her outdoor labors. This man had the velvet smooth fingertips of an office worker whose heaviest machinery was a keyboard.

His face was almost too gorgeous. Men should not have such long lashes, she thought. But his cheekbones and his jaw were well defined and masculine. She wondered what color his eyes were. His hair was deep brown like the earth that she loved. It was filthy at the moment, but when she washed the dirt out, the short curls turned smooth and silky under her fingers. She blushed and realized that she had been caressing a man who was unconscious and needed her help. Where were her healers’ instincts? She needed to get this man back to her home, where she had a spare room for patients who came to her for healing.

He was much too heavy for her to carry, and she couldn’t use her Elemental magic the entire way back to her house. She was at the edge of her territory as it was.

She glanced at the truck. Fortunately, she knew how to drive, and in fact she had a pick-up truck of her own. Her bias against machinery was not as extreme of that of many Dryads. In fact, she had nothing against machines as such. Everything, when used in moderation, could be good. It was only when something was used to excess, out of balance with nature and with no respect for conservation for the future, that a thing became evil and dangerous.

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