of the kindness of their hearts, and since they were under the thumbs of the vampires as much as I was, they would not be too overt in thumbing their noses at them.
"I have a question," I whispered, looking around the whole place, narrowing my eyes.
Both turned to look at me, stopping their excited planning.
"What do you need to know?" Cretu asked.
"Just the simple matter of how long it'll be until they come around to collect," I answered.
The two exchanged a look, with the small dryad flipping her hair. At least she had enough of a tell to show me when she was feeling anxious.
"That is a good question," Rog said, rubbing his temples. "I suppose they did not tell you when themselves?"
"No. And I didn't think to ask either. Not really the sort of thing you pick up on and... well, they said that it would be my choice whether I would take the deal or not."
"They always do," Cretu growled. "And they always come to collect regardless."
There was little for me to do after that. Cretu sat down cross-legged in the middle of the vineyard, closing her eyes and not allowing for any interruptions. When I tried to get working on churning the soil again, she just glared at me until I stopped.
With Rog heading off back in the house, all I could do was wander back out to the village.
"Of course I'll help," Bram answered after I laid the whole proposition out for him. "It wouldn't even take me too long in the day to concoct the fermentation herbs."
"I guess you would want something out of it, somehow?" I asked, taking a sip from the tea that he offered me.
"Just one of the casks that are left over. Not one with your blood in it, of course, but if I know that damned dryad, she'll have you producing more than what you'll need. That demon is a crafty one too. He's lived on that vineyard for long enough to know how to make the wine on his own if he wanted to. Chances are he made and improved the process used to make it."
"Right," I said, lowering my gaze into the mug. "Can I ask you a question about him?"
"Of course."
"Is it wrong that... well, there is an attraction there between us?"
Bram sat down again with Dracul coming along and sitting at his side.
"No. Witches and demons have always shared an intense attraction. I think it is because your powers stem from the same source, although that is beyond my actual knowledge of how magic comes into being. Even so, you would find yourself drawn to him, although in differing ways. Each witch is unique, and so is every demon. This is a physical attraction, I take it?"
I nodded, scowling, half blushing.
"Then yours is a physical connection," he stated matter-of-fact like.
"But I'm supposed to hate him. He tricked me into this. It's his fault that I'm still here."
"Hate and love are closely intertwined, as both bring about the most intense feelings from a person. I have felt hate and love for the same person myself at a time in my life. Many, many years ago."
That wasn't that foreign a concept, although I didn't really know much about it. "I never said I loved him."
"Well, you know what I mean. Physically attracted to him as you are, you can hate him as well, if you like."
On that we could agree. Maybe things didn't need to be complicated.
Or maybe I would figure out how I wanted things along the way.
Chapter 15
There was little to say other than that things were moving along.
Cretu was as good as her word, and after a few days of sitting out in the vineyard, it looked like the place had been freshly tilled by some of the finest machinery that money could buy. The idea of using the roots of trees to turn the earth around and fill it with needed nutrients was fairly inventive, although not something new for her, I imagined.
There was enough work to go around. Rog was taking care of the presser, but as Cretu started bringing the seedlings in to be planted, she needed my help in resetting the posts that the vines would grow around.
Still no word from the dryad on the price that she would charge for the plants, although I doubted that it would be cheap. Even for a creature as powerful as she, turning the whole place into a productive vineyard once more had to