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him to assess—and it was then she noticed the torn and bloodied
material on his right calf. As she watched, he stumbled and swore in a language
she didn’t recognize. Ball moved aside, giving her the freedom to choose to
approach the man if she so desired.
    Despite the dangerous aura he wore, despite the warning
clanging in her head, her heart moved her to action. He had come at her behest,
was wounded and bleeding on her land, and so she was bound to welcome him. It
was her responsibility as a daughter of nature to tend his wound, no matter how
threatened she felt by all that had transpired in the past few seconds.
    Vetiver was beside him instantly, unhesitatingly. He was so
tall—perhaps just shy of seven feet, whereas she was only a few inches over
five feet herself—so it was awkward work, but she managed to position her
shoulder underneath one of his and tilt her hip so he could take weight off his
freely bleeding leg.
    “Can you walk?” she asked, raising her voice to be heard
over the raging gale. “It isn’t too far to the house.”
    He looked down his nose at her, haughty and proud, and it
was then she realized how stunning he was. Not beautiful, not handsome, but an
exotic mixture of both, doused with an inordinate amount of power that made her
feel like a novitiate by comparison. She was suddenly aware of her plain shift,
smeared with her own blood, and of her wild tangle of hair. Her lack of makeup.
Her bare, dirtied feet.
    He said something in a language that touched upon the
infinite wonder in her spirit. But she didn’t understand his strange, musical
words.
    “I don’t know what you’re saying.”
    “What is this place?” Now he spoke in English, his words biting
and faintly accented, his sharp gaze scanning the terrain. “It is so heavily
warded. You should not be here, human, this is surely perilous territory.”
    Vetiver frowned and put her left hand around his hips, her
fingers tingling where they rested just below his waist. “These are my lands. I live here,” she said defensively. “The wards are mine. We’re safe
here.” For now.
    He attempted to rebuke her offer of help, shrugging off her
hand so that he could put weight on his bad leg. Beneath his dark complexion,
his face bleached white as pain struck him. He made no sound, merely slumped
against her, taking her to the ground with the full bulk of his solid weight.
Vetiver yelped as she lost her footing. But Ball was there, his shoulder ready
for her to pull herself and the half-conscious stranger back up.
    She felt Ball touching her mind, saw a strange vision that
stopped her in her tracks.
    “Shut up!” she told him, agape.
    Then, not waiting for a response she had no patience for,
she resumed her forward motion as a misty rain began to slowly fall. It was
only the power of the armlet she wore that enabled her to drag her heavy
passenger to the safety of her home. That and Ball’s great muzzle, nudging them
forward out of the oncoming rain that followed the closing of her back door.
    But the vision Ball had sent her lingered, and it terrified
her.
    It was the picture of a tiny, perfectly formed baby girl.
With eyes like amber fire and dark waves of hair the color of Vetiver’s own.

Chapter Three
     
    Boreas eyed the little witch as she tended his wound.
    Despite the fact that she herself had an injury on her hand,
she took only a moment to ease her own discomfort with a strip of cloth to stem
the slowly oozing cut. He didn’t have to ask how she had hurt herself—it was
plain she had broken a powerful binding spell. He would never have been able to
pass through the doorway if she hadn’t.
    The pain on his bleeding calf had disappeared the moment her
fingers touched it. He was dizzy from the Daemon venom swimming in his veins
and from being so close to this enchanting creature. Sitting in her bed now,
the woman perched on the edge near his foot, he could smell her woodsy, earthy
scent on the patchwork quilt, a mixture of