Page 33 of Demon's Obsession
Okay, Dakata could live with that.How will I know how much I’ll need? Today—is it still today?
More laughter.Yes. You were gone but more than an hour.
An hour.Dakata’s alarm came right back.And I felt that bad just after a meager hour?
As I explained, something else aided in depleting your energy, forcing us to act to save you.
The very idea made Dakata scowl—that’s if he could in his current state.Can they do this again?
I can protect against it. I had one of your summoning stones, and Silas used it to bring you to us. All I will need is a store of your stones to live within our tree. This will also give you the energy source you need. A simple touch of your summoning stones, after we replenish them, will give you what you need to spend time away from us.
For the first time since Christa took him, Dakata breathed a sigh of relief.Thank you. Is there a gift I can give to you?
Why yes, I believe there is…
A branch stroked down his body and Dakata didn’t need to guess what the mighty oak would consider a just reward, and he choked on his laughter.As long as Silas doesn’t mind.
Fingers ran up his arm, touching as gently as the branches.
I’m taking this as approval.
He chuckled when lips touched his cheek, and Silas whispered in his ear, “You are ours to share…” He laid his head over Dakata’s heart that beat steadily. “Always,but only after you have healed.”
Dakata’s lips curled at the edges.I can live with that.
Chapter Twenty-One
Silas
It took three days before Dakata was considered totally healed, although his dick seemed to think it could still function from the moment his eyes opened. The wise oak explained, multiple times when Dakata got impatient, that the bonding process wasn’t instant, and time was needed to strengthen the links between them. For his part, Silas remembered that from when he first bonded with his tree. His fear of losing that bond had kept him within the branches, which was what enhanced the strength of the bond they’d shared ever since.
The eye opener, the lightbulb moment, so Silas had heard it called, came for Dakata on day three. He’d woken up grumbling, still wrapped in the tree’s branches. “I need to get my feet on the ground. There’s a whole stack of life going on beyond this forest I have to deal with.”
Silas, who’d already done his check along the river, was happily resting on Dakata’s chest. All the healing he’d done for the oak and for Dakata wasn’t something he could just bounce back from in five minutes, either. “There’s a whole stack of life going on in this forest, too. Sometimes you just have to stop and take the time to see it.”
“The forest is beautiful, you are beautiful, our tree is beautiful, but I can’t make money from any of these things. I have a family, clients, staff, and more who all depend on me.”
Rolling off Dakata’s chest, Silas waved at his demon. “You’re not a prisoner here. You can go anytime you want.”
Dakata glanced down. They were twenty feet in the air, not that the height ever bothered Silas. “So you… er… you just climb down?”
“You could translocate, but…” Silas held up his finger, his smile widening as the leaves rustled behind him.
“What, but, what? Is there something weird translocating from the tree?” Dakata had sat up, but he didn’t look too confident about his position. “Is it a rule, or something? Because of our bond? Is that being disrespectful to the tree? I’m not even sure if… What the fuck?!”
Silas’s laughter bounced off the trees at Dakata’s shocked expression. The man was big in every sense. It was unlikely anyone had physically picked him up before the way the oak branches did. The kicker, the thing that made it doubly funny in Silas’s eyes, was the way the branches set Dakata’s feet on the ground and then patted his head as they moved back into position again.
“Maybe the oak was worried you’d fall.” Silas scampered down the tree, his feet finding the spots he’d used for years. “But there you are. Feet on the ground.” Silas tilted his head. Dakata’s shocked face had morphed into something sad. “What’s wrong?”
“The scorch marks in the bark.” Dakata laid his palm on the tree trunk. “I did that, didn’t I?”
Ah. He’s finally clicked on how important this was.
“Only partially, technically.” Silas hurried to Dakata’s side, wrapping his arm around the man’s waist. “I wasn’t here when it happened, and we both know this wasn’t caused just because you’d spent a bit of time in another realm. This was something else entirely.”
He patted the scorched wood softly. “I’ve healed what I can. The marks were a lot darker originally. These scorches came about not from a direct flame, although I smelled the smoke, and yes, if you think that’s weird, you’d be right. But when I was healing the edges as best I could…” Silas sighed, and a shiver ran down his spine.
“There was a lot of nasty magic in the attack. It got caught in the divots and groves of the bark. Someone was aiming for the heart of this tree. It took a long time to clean out the debris. Whoever did this knows a lot about dryads and the bonds they have with their forest.” He glanced up and saw Dakata’s face had darkened.