Page 10 of Cruel As A Tree (Chaos God Sugar and Spice Companion Shorts #4)

Chapter

Eight

LORTHION

S he spoke the words with a gut-deep cry that sounded like a mother calling for her lost cubs.

"Where?" I asked.

"Home," Lillian sobbed, burying her face in her hands as her words tumbled free from her in a burst dam of pain.

"I thought I would be able to go home. I thought I'd just go to the admissions interview and wait to see if I got in, and then I could make up my mind.

I didn't know that I wouldn't be able to go back!

I never would have agreed to come here if it meant I couldn't go back! "

She let out a deep, rough sob that echoed the sound of a heart that had been torn out by the world around her.

I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around her.

She melted into my chest like she belonged there, and I pulled her into me, dragging her entire body into my lap as she buried her face against my chest and let out another heavy sob.

I ran one of my hands down over her hair, petting her, and she dissolved, changing fully from the seductive presence of a woman seeking a mate to a person needing to let out the pain they had been holding in for too long.

I held her as long as she needed me to, the leaves around us rustling with my need to comfort her.

When she finally calmed and pulled back from me as she wiped away the tears that had carved rivers down her face, I let her go, making my arms loose but not removing them from around her, so she knew she could fully pull away and I wouldn't stop her.

"I'm sorry," she said as she turned her face away from me. "This can't be what you wanted. You're wanting a mate to help your forest grow, and I'm... I don't mean to be sad right now."

I didn't understand why she was apologizing to me for feeling and communicating suffering.

Pain was a sign that something was wrong; it was a trigger from the body to inform the brain that it had to find a solution to the problem.

When suffering was ignored and pushed aside, it only got worse.

Now that she had communicated the full depth of her ache, I could help her solve it.

I lifted my hand to gently grasp her chin, a suggestion of a touch she followed to turn her face back to me. "Growth can't happen while pain cuts you down and holds you back. The source of the suffering must be removed."

Her entire body went still and tense. "Removed?"

I put one hand under her knees and the other around the small of her back before rising to my feet in one smooth motion, lifting her up in my arms as I stood. "Yes, we will remove the problem that cuts you back and limits you. You will grow lush and full in the absence of what held you back."

I turned to face the tree I had been communing with.

It took more time and energy than I desired to spend to get the connection to the new branch of the forest anchored. It would cause a slowdown in my expansion here to grow into the mundane realm in this way, but the cost didn't matter. What mattered was that it was ready.

"I'm not held back," Lillian said, a note of panic in her voice, as her body language went from sorrow to fear for reasons I didn't understand.

I didn't need to understand. I only needed to react as I felt a wave of aggression roll through me, as my fingers lengthened into claws.

I grinned at her, showing her my fangs.

She let out a shriek as I leapt, carrying her straight into the trunk of the tree.

The trunk enveloped us as if it were made of water; the changes I had made to it while communing allowed me to carry the foreign body of the mundane human through the web of life that made up my forest. We slid through the connective tissue of my roots, across the narrow branch that crossed the great scar that had torn the mundane realm from the magic one, creating two from where there had once been one.

We emerged into sunlight, my feet sinking into deep green grass threaded with moss.

I could feel the infusion of my magic running through it, bleeding off from my trees as my forest expanded inwards towards the house.

The trees fully encircled it now, creating a protective ring that would hide the home from any hostile being that wished to harm those within.

Any being except for me.

I set Lillian down and let go of her.

"No," she gasped as she saw the back of the house.

"Let us end this," I snarled, feeling the words curling around with edges of my aggression. This problem was about to be solved. I strode towards the back of the house, ready to find those within.

"NO!" Lillian shrieked.

I felt her slam into my back as one of her arms went around my neck, her knees gripping at my ribcage.

She had jumped on me. I had just enough time to register her sudden shift from fear to aggression before I felt one of her hands on the back of my neck.

The arm around the front of my neck was pinned in the elbow of the one on the back of my neck, creating a lever that increased the pressure on the front of my throat to the point where I was unable to take in a breath.

She was attempting to cut off the blood supply to my brain.

Except she was pitifully weak.

"I won't let you hurt her!" she snarled in my ear.