Blood of the Maple

Mina’s back arched. Her head flew back. She screamed, the sound full of petrified agony.

“I don’t think you understand. Come here, Parker.” Terri pointed toward the ground in front of her as Mina screamed and screamed. “Take your time. I can wait.”

A low growl came from him, but he put one foot in front of the other and stopped where Terri had pointed. Mina’s screaming dissolved into sobs.

Whatever Terri had done to Oak was bad, possibly fatal. Mina’s skin had taken on an ashen tone, and she shuddered with each labored breath she took. Amara hoped the witchdoctor would be able to fix Mina, or all hell would break loose. When Dragos saw Mina’s wounds, he would go ape-shit.

“Do you want them to suffer even more?” A parody of a smile crossed Terri’s lips and Mina groaned. “Feed from me, Parker. Feed from me, and the others may go free.”

“Even Amara?”

She drew in a sharp breath. He couldn’t possibly be thinking about drinking the swill running through Terri’s veins.

If he did, there wasn’t enough mouthwash in the world to get that taste out of his mouth.

“Even Amara. She won’t matter to you once the spell is complete. Our suffering will be over, Parker. We will be together forever.”

Parker leaned back and took a deep breath. “And Mina will be set down, unharmed?”

“I can’t promise she won’t be damaged. My friends can be enthusiastic when I give them a task.”

Amara shuddered, remembering the wicked weed that had tried to tunnel inside Parker. Amara rooted her feet into the earth, drew back her hand and slammed it into the weed with all her strength.

The weed bent.

Parker leaned back and took another breath so he could speak again. He was trying not to breathe in Terri’s overwhelming stench. “And what task did you give them?”

She drew back her hand and hit the weed.

There was the faintest cracking sound.

“I needed the forest pliant. This was the fastest way.” Terri ran her hands down Parker’s chest, and he trembled. “I have to admit, I’m enjoying the taste of power. It’s so deep and rich and dark. The things I could do with it are endless.”

Shit. Terri had tapped into Oak’s control over the forest. Amara drew her hand back a third time and gave the weed one more whack.

It broke. Amara was free.

“I don’t think so.”

Another weed sprang up where the broken one lay, covering it, making the base stronger than the first had been. She watched the new weed sink into the old, sucking it dry of what life was left in a matter of seconds.

“You didn’t think I’d give up that easily, did you?”

Amara looked up to find herself eye to eye with the witch. “Hello. You must be Terri.”

What remained of Terri’s eyebrows crookedly rose. “And you are?”

Amara reached deep into the earth, smiling at the response she got from the forest. The cavalry was on its way. “Let me think. You’re the bat-shit crazy bad guy.” Amara’s smile turned evil. “Guess that makes me the hero.”

Up from the earth sprang a huge rocklike formation that batted down the weeds like bugs and knocked both Terri and Amara off their feet.

Terri jumped to her feet faster than Amara. “How?”

Amara rose and punched the woman right in the nose, sending her sailing across the Throne. “It’s good to have friends.”

Terri howled, and her weeds answered, lifting from the ground and writhing around, but the ground rebelled against the invader. It heaved and moved in a quake that would have destroyed a lesser place.

The mountain did not like having Terri there and was showing her the best way it could, with a little help from Rock. The huge park ranger strode into view, batting weeds aside with massive fists. He’d called on the powers of his element, armoring himself against the thorns that tried to rip into his flesh. The deep, grating sound of stone grinding against stone accompanied him as he stomped across the Throne, decimating everything in his path. Almost half the wolf pack fought at his side, their claws and teeth ripping and tearing with deadly accuracy, their alpha at the front of the battle.

Rock and the wolves entered the fray, and leaving Amara free to concentrate her efforts on Terri. She took a brief moment to wonder where the rest of the wolves had disappeared to, but the mountain took her attention. She could barely stay on her feet.

Terri did her best to evade the flying debris the battle between the mountain and the weeds was throwing up, but both Amara and Terri found themselves pelted. Amara ignored the stinging bite of the rocks, her barklike skin absorbing the blows with ease. Terri, on the other hand, sprayed bits and pieces of herself all over the place, chunks falling off with each hit. She screeched with wrath, dancing around like a lunatic, trying to evade the rocks.

She completely missed seeing the hamadryad haymaker that once again sent her skidding across the Throne.

Terri hopped back to her feet with remarkable speed and flung out her hand, screaming in a strange language. A thin green light surrounded her hand; the witch was casting some sort of spell. Amara braced for whatever Terri was preparing to throw at her. From the hatred in Terri’s voice, she’d bet it was supposed to be lethal.

Arms circled Terri from behind. “Now, pretty, we wouldn’t want to do that, would we?”

Terri grasped Parker’s arm and jerked. “Get off!”

“That wasn’t what you were saying that night in the desert,” Parker cooed. “Don’t you remember how sweet it was?”

Terri stopped struggling. Her head tilted to the side, her eyes closed to half-mast. Her breaths came in short pants. Around her, the erupting earth died down as the forest itself seemed to listen to Parker’s crooned words. “I remember. I remember the night, the sound of the cicadas.”

“The strum of the guitar in the distance. You danced so beautifully.” Parker’s hand drifted down Terri’s mold- covered stomach to brush the dandelion growing beside her navel. “You were like a living flame. Remember? Remember how it was?”

Terri moaned, going lax in Parker’s arms. “I remember.”

“Do you remember the crackle of the wood as it burned in the bonfire? The sparks dancing from it, lighting the sky? The way the firelight danced across your skin, warming it, teasing it?” He swayed, taking Terri with him, dancing to a beat only the two of them could hear.

Amara was going to kick his ass when this was all over.

Parker wasn’t looking down at Terri anymore. He was looking beyond Amara, toward the wood. He nodded once and placed a soft kiss on the side of Terri’s neck. “Do you remember what it felt like to burn with passion?”

Terri shuddered. “Please, Parker.”

“Do you?”

“Yes! Please!” Terri’s head fell back against his shoulder. “Please love me.”

Parker’s eyes closed for a brief moment. When he opened them, they’d turned red. Hunting eyes. “No.”

His claws ripped through Terri’s stomach before he spun away, out of her reach. Terri bent over, gasping, stunned at the betrayal. “Parker!”

Mollie, fire sparkling along her skin, her hair a rippling sheet of flame, stepped next to Amara. She raised her hands, palms out, toward Terri. “Burn.”

The blast of heat knocked Amara back a step. It damn near scorched her. Terri shrieked, the flames engulfing her body, the weeds catching fire faster than Amara would have expected. Mollie kept the flame going, roasting the witch with her inner fire. She followed Terri around the Throne, careful to keep the fire from touching anything else within the grove other than the bits and pieces that had fallen off the witch in the rock blasts. What few sparks did land on the native greenery around the great Oak, Mollie swiftly reabsorbed, much to Amara’s shock. Fire was the