something at least as real as this world—possibly more real.
The Fair Dryad. Ursula. The firstborns. Witch River Bridge. All those powers combined into one catastrophic force. It would sweep everything before it. Holly didn’t have the strength or the resources to stand against it.
She would be stupid to stand against it because it came from Fate itself. It was inevitable. It was written. It was right. That was the worst part. It would happen because it had to happen.
She should be working to make it happen. She should be using her resources to help it come to fruition instead of trying to prevent it. That was what a good person would do.
How could she do that? How could she actively work toward turning her baby over to the Fair Dryad? She already lost four men to the Dryad to this unbending destiny, stalking them all. She couldn’t lose her baby, too.
She didn’t want to live her life alone. It came down to that. She didn’t want all six men to go under the water and take Ursula with them. Holly would rather die than let that happen.
Garret picked her up in his arms. He set her feet on the floor and took her hand. He led her upstairs and stopped outside her room. He nodded behind her. “You go to bed now. Tomorrow’s another day.”
She studied him with her head on one side. The dark made everything look different, including this situation and even Holly herself. She didn’t understand what she was seeing.
Would Garret disappear during the night? Would Holly wake up tomorrow morning to find him gone, too? If she did, that would be part of their shared destiny, too.
He bent over and unlatched her doorknob. He swung the door open and motioned her inside. He must understand it as well as she did. Everything happened on a pre-planned trajectory. No one could turn it aside now, and he didn’t try. He encouraged her to follow it the same way he did.
She walked in and shut the door behind her without looking at him again. She got into bed and pulled the sheets and blankets up to her chin. She spread her arms and legs in the warm softness.
The bed swallowed her in comfort the way it did before. She stared up at the ceiling, and the dream played before her eyes. If she fell asleep, she would have the same dream, but that didn’t stop her from falling asleep. She didn’t mind having the same dream because it had already been written. It already was whether she dreamed it or not.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN—WYATT
Wyatt wrinkled his nose at the bottle Elise held out to him. “You can’t be serious. You want me to do exactly what with…with this?”
“Rub it on your skin,” Holly told him. “It will protect you from the Fair Dryad.”
Wyatt waved the bottle away. “I am NOT rubbing that on my skin. No fucking way. It stinks.”
Holly cracked a wild grin. She threaded her arm around his waist and leaned in to nibble his neck. “What if I told you that the smell will make you impossibly sexy and irresistible to me? Would you do it then?”
“Hell fucking no.” He tore out of her grasp and crossed into the kitchen. “Nothing is worth smelling like rotten cabbage for the rest of eternity—or until you can figure out how to defeat the Fair Dryad some legitimate way—whichever comes first. Sorry. I don’t care if she does take me. I do have some dignity left, thank you very much.”
“I’m not using it, either,” Garret cut in. “How do we know Audrey didn’t make this shit up out of thin air? For all we know, it will make us even more vulnerable to the Fair Dryad. It might not protect us at all. Did you ever think of that?”
“Hey!” Audrey yelled from the couch. “I’m sitting right here! I can hear every word you’re saying.”
“I’m saying it so you can hear me,” Garret returned. “You showed up here with your manky-ass cousin trying to blow Holly to kingdom come. You’ll forgive me if I don’t just throw caution to the wind and start trusting you. You came here trying to kill Holly and the child. You found out you couldn’t do that by violence, so now you’re trying something else.”
“Don’t listen to him, Audrey,” Holly called over the counter. “He’s just really protective of me.”
“And himself,” Garret added. “Tincture of dandelion could be poisonous.”