Wild, Tethered, Bound Read Online Free PDF

“Like…?”
    “Like in ancient Greek lore!” she cried. He was hurting her—the way he gripped her fingers tightly—but truth was pain, and after five long years, she was tired of living a lie. “Have you never heard of a chimera?”
    “That hideous creature?” Nick snapped. “With the goat, and the lion, and the fire-breathing dragon?”
    It didn’t seem to soothe his temper when she nodded her head.
    “First dryads, now chimeras. That’s some funny shit. I’m too old for fables and fairy tales.”
    “Where do you think those fables and fairy tales came from?” Dessa asked. “At heart, chimeras are creatures with three parts and that’s what’s happened to you. You’ve split in three. You’re a war-forged chimera.”
    He shook his head with denial, and she could see that he didn’t believe her. How could she explain in a way a mortal would understand? “War has always made men into monsters.”
    “So you think I’m a monster, ” he said then let out a dry unpleasant laugh. “You would, wouldn’t you? You were in Afghanistan. I knew they were going to call in air strikes near that forest. I knew there was a chance you’d be hurt, a chance you’d be killed—”
    His voice broke then as some dark agony wrestled its way through his body. He was starting to fracture again—but Dessa used her strongest magic tendrils to bind him, to keep him together and to keep him with her. “Lieutenant, what happened in Afghanistan is a wound you need to heal. If you keep going on this way, you won’t be able to pull the other parts of you back inside. You’ll lose yourself, and become three separate, and lesser, men.”
    “I’ve heard enough,” he said, turning to walk away. But couldn’t. He couldn’t see the gossamer threads of magic, but seemed to know that Dessa was holding him there. “What are you doing to me?”
    “I’ve tethered you,” Dessa admitted.
    His eyes flashed with a shadowy, dangerous warning. “Tethered?”
    “It’s the power of the dryads,” she said, not wanting to reveal just how little magic she had left since her heart tree had been destroyed. “We bind nature together. We turn a stand of trees into a forest. We hold life—”
    “You’ve tethered me?” he asked through clenched teeth. “So I can’t walk away?”
    “Not yet, no…”
    But that didn’t stop him from trying. He turned, marching in the direction of the door until his footsteps suddenly stopped. As if he’d come to the end of a leash. Then he turned on her like a rabid animal. “Let me go.”
    “Casino security is still searching for you,” she warned.
    “I’m a gambler,” he said. “I’ll take my chances.”
    Dessa was less worried for him than she was for security. She knew what she’d seen; she knew about his monstrous powers. Nick had the strength of three savage men, and when he was separated into those parts without a single conscience, he might not have scruples about killing people who got in his way. But if she were honest with herself, she’d have to admit that what she was most afraid of was losing him so soon again. “I can’t let you go.”
    “Why not?” he asked, his temper calming slightly as if he thought she might have a good reason.
    “Because I need you.”
    “You need me?” he asked, his handsome features struggling to understand. “What do you need?”
    How could she explain that he was quite possibly the only man in the world who could give her a child? “When you were in Afghanistan, you ate walnuts from my forest, didn’t you?”
    He took a sharp intake of breath. “There was a destroyed tree—”
    “It was my heart tree,” Dessa explained, tears welling. “I feel its essence inside you and now it’s the only place I’ll ever find it again. There’ll never be any more fruit of my heart tree for another man.”
    Nick came toward her, and she didn’t need to draw him there. He still seemed angry, but also genuinely concerned. His warm hands closed on