Bound by the Vampire Queen (Vampire Queen #8)

If we have to do so, we can come back tomorrow, Jacob. We'll find her again.

But Essie might not remember the tree tomorrow.

“Here, here.” Essie clamped down on his arm. Her pace increased as she dragged him down a narrow, pitch-dark all ey that smelled of offal and several rat carcasses, remains left by feline all ey scavengers.

Sometimes, if impressions were strong enough, his precog senses worked in reverse, cal ing up past images.

This place was overrun with lingering impressions of violence.

Needles discarded, a man kicked almost to death. He'd dragged himself a few feet¸ only to die in a pile of garbage. There was stil a scrap of police tape in that pile. A hooker had been gang raped, beaten.

Others had brought johns here, let themselves be pounded against the wal . One had knelt in garbage to suck her clients off for just a few dol ars, whatever she could get for her next cocaine fix.

He'd stopped, reeling from all the images. It was a place that had seen so much evil, it col ected it, made a barrier of it.

“Jacob.” Lyssa was at his elbow, touching him.

“Where?” He spoke in a hoarse voice, trying not to sound threatening. “Where is the tree?” Essie's eyes were round, pale green pools in the darkness, but she pointed. “Back there. This is terrible, terrible place. But sometimes we're brave.

Sometimes we come, when it's daylight. We don't come at night, but you're here.” She caught Jacob's arm abruptly, fingers digging in. “Don't disappear. I brought you here, like you said. Don't leave me and my friends here.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I won't.”

Glancing down at Lyssa, he nodded, reassurance that he was all right. Because she was here. Her eyes warmed, her hand closing around his. They moved forward together.

The end of the all ey opened up into a barren area, once a parking lot for the clump of abandoned businesses that formed a square around it. The pavement was broken pieces and gravel. A scattering of strawlike grass and weeds pushed through the cracks. More garbage and syringes.

Because tal er office buildings shadowed the area, Jacob could see there was little room for sunlight, but meager shards would get through.

It was like a well. The evil pushing in behind them and the buildings and fencing before them made it claustrophobic. A cheerless steel and concrete cage for a beautiful, exotic creature.

Dear Goddess. No wonder she couldn't get back home.

Jacob nodded again, but he couldn't take his gaze from the one feature that obviously didn't belong, what had drawn Essie and her companions here during daylight hours, despite the horrid nature of the place. Now that they'd found her, he wondered that they'd even gotten out of the car to check the other trees. Though his and Lyssa's senses were far more advanced than humans', he marveled that no one other than a trio of homeless people had cal ed out the unique quality of the will ow that had survived here.

The roots had gone into that broken pavement, taken hold. During their trek here, Essie had mumbled “starlight, starbright” several times, and now he knew she wasn't aimlessly reciting a nursery rhyme. With those advanced senses, he could see the tree's aura. Blue and green fire sparkled in the darkness, limning the slender layers of leaves that rustled in the scrap of wind that found its way into this dank funnel of existence. The will ow was perhaps fifteen feet tal , the trunk ironical y the diameter of a shapely woman's waist, such that he could easily put his arms around it. Even in this soul ess place, the tree had attracted life. Birds nestled up in those branches, giving quiet cheeps. Crickets sawed among the leaves.

There seemed to be less trash and drug paraphernalia near the tree, and he wondered if Essie and her friends had tried to honor the tree spirit by doing what they could to improve her space, or the more unsavory elements had unconsciously respected the barrier around it.

Being a former vampire hunter, he considered himself reasonably exposed to paranormal things.

Then he'd met Keldwyn. The first time he'd seen the Fae lord in the deep forest, Jacob had been focused on Lyssa's protection, on his need to find her. Even so, some part of him had registered the wonder of being in the presence of a creature connected so deeply to Nature's magic.

Keldwyn had said the Fae withdrew from the mortal world when humans began taking it over with their buildings and fences, with their need for order and control. In the stark contrast between what Jacob saw before him and the dark landscape around it, he saw why their two worlds would never reunite in the same way. It was a gift they'd all lost, that would never be theirs again. It made his throat thicken and tears sting his eyes.

Your Irish is showing, my love. But though she saw and felt it differently with her vast years, she understood. Her hand gripped his.

They moved forward again. Sensing something unexpected might be about to happen, Essie and her friends held back.

“You know . . .” Lyssa spoke in a low voice. “We were so focused on finding her, I didn't consider what to do once we actual y free her.”

“I'm not sure there's a section on the Internet about how to feed, water and care for your liberated dryad.” Jacob grimaced. “We'l figure it out. Let's just see if your touch works its magic this time.” As they reached the tree, he held a curtain of slender branches to the side, all owing Lyssa to step beneath the canopy. That aural energy shimmered over his arm. Glancing up, he saw a tiny cadre of moonlit-colored moths dance upward to a higher elevation to avoid the intruders. They moved toward the sliver of fading moonlight partial y obscured by the silhouettes of the leaves. His eyesight was good enough to see a spider web the size and shape of a perfectly round quarter. The occupant was so smal that it took Jacob's vampire eyes to detect the pencil-tip-sized body, the eight, tiny threadlike legs.

As they reached the trunk, he dropped to his heels, holding Lyssa's one hand as she reached out with the other. She laid it on a curve in the trunk that was reminiscent of a woman's shoulder, the shal ow dip above it the swanlike curve of neck. When she paused, Jacob saw her attention directed inward, as if she were listening to a whispered voice. Dipping into her head, he sensed an oscil ating surge of energy, the taste of her Fae magic as it was stirred by the presence of this tree like a spoon dipped into slow flowing honey.

A vibration of response shuddered through the tree, down through the roots under his feet. Distress, like a sleeper woken from a nightmare. Terror, and all of it female. Reacting without thought, he laid his palm below Lyssa's, adding to the calm energy she was pouring into the tree, since she of course was detecting the same thing he was.

The vibration got denser, implosive, and then everything went stil . The crickets were silent, the moths gone. Jacob heard the tiny peep of one bird, a question, fol owed by more silence. He met Lyssa's eyes, and so he saw them widen before he felt the touch.

The bark shimmered over his hand. It distorted, smoothed, then became slim long fingers that overlapped his, testing. When the root beneath his boot twitched, he moved it. The trunk quivered, a cambered section becoming a bare leg. The visible root edge sculpted into the tiny, delicate foot.

Jacob rose, turning his hand over so the dryad's fingers rested in his palm. Gently—as gently as if he held one of those moths, afraid to dust their wings with his flesh and take away their ability to fly—he closed his fingers on hers. Lyssa was gripping the other hand. In sync, they backed up, drawing the fairy out of the trunk's hold like Excalibur from the stone, with all the same awe.

As she came out, the trunk twisted and molded back into a closed shape, one far smoother than when it had held her body in its embrace. Jacob looked into large, almond-shaped eyes the color of gray-green moss. A tiny pink mouth underscored features that at first seemed too smooth and delicate to be real, but then he realized just the opposite was true. She was as real as leaf or stream, a cloud in a blue sky.

When she col apsed, he and Lyssa caught her together. Her head fel on Lyssa's shoulder, while her hand remained locked in Jacob's sure grip.

“That's a crazy girl for sure,” Pipe Guy affirmed.

“Can't no one live in a tree. She crazier than Essie.” 5

“HERE.” Pete poked Jacob's shoulder. He was holding the long, tattered jacket he'd been wearing.

“N-n-aked girl b-b-be cold out here. And attract b-b-b-bad things. Don't s-s-ssmel so clean, but it'l stil w-w-w-work.”

The two men worked in tandem to wrap the girl up in the coat and Lyssa helped fasten the buttons on the old duster. As she did, she noted that Jacob was sweating. The strain of staying out this close to dawn was starting to tel . They had about an hour before the sun's rays would spear through the city skyline, and by that time Jacob would be extremely uncomfortable.

Don't worry for me, my lady. I'm fine. Though she and Jacob both possessed more than enough strength to carry her, he was the one who lifted the dryad. A man his size carrying a female would attract less attention than a woman of her stature. Beyond that, the girl, even in her unconscious state, would draw a sense of safety from his embrace. Lyssa wasn't at all surprised that, while her touch had freed the girl, Jacob's had given her the bravery to reach out, accept the rescue. His effect on women, particularly damsels in distress, could by turns intensely irritate or quietly delight her. Today's response was mixed—she didn't want to see him turned to a pile of foolishly chivalrous ash by the rising sun.

As they moved away from the tree that had sheltered the Fae for so long, Lyssa sensed something amiss. Pausing at the entry point between the two buildings, she looked back.

“Jacob.”

At the same moment she spoke, Essie's cry of distress split the air.

Wil ow trees, with the long strands of leaves like thick tresses, and the trunk shape like the curving female form, had long been considered a sacred Goddess symbol. Now it was as if the Maiden aspect was becoming Crone, but not in the gradual way nature intended. The leaves were browning, dropping away, the trunk thickening and gnarling, hunching in on itself. The roots split the ground, as if the tree was going to pul itself out of the earth and fal over.