“Custodian of Nightshade?” Orion, Ajax, and Ares questioned at the same time.
Pierce’s bemused chuckle accompanied a shrug.
Bloody hell. The crypt was now even more cryptic, but Orion was not deterred. He would find a way in, or he’d return to Nina and learn the truth she insisted on keeping from him.
“He came here again,” Cassian accused when he entered their cottage.
Nina wanted to deny the truth but would not lie to her brother. Instead, she said nothing.
“I saw him leave the grotto by rowboat. He barely made it out before the high tide completely covered the entry.”
He should not use the grotto to visit her. It was too dangerous.
She shouldn’t meet Orion at all.
“What did he want?”
“He has questions,” she answered. “He wants to know who I am, where I came from, where I live, and he saw the others.”
Cassian gasped. “What did you tell him?”
“Only my first name and nothing else.”
“If he returns send him from here.”
Nina stared at her brother with the concerns of the others weighing on her. “Is he so dangerous?”
The corners of Cassian’s eyes crinkled with humor. “Dangerous? Orion?” he nearly snorted as if the very idea was absurd.
“The dryads fear what happened in the past, back in Greece, to others like them.”
“Those were gods and men who only saw beautiful nymphs. They did not see that they were also women. Or perhaps, they were so cold and selfish that it didn’t matter.”
“That could not happen any longer?” she asked.
Cassian sank down into a chair. “I wish I could assure you that men no longer act in such a barbaric and dishonorable manner, but they exist to this day, though not in polite Society. Nor is it as prevalent as in the days of old where gods, minor gods and men lacking moral character seemed to inhabit Greece.”
Nina’s stomach tightened. She’d been so curious to know the world beyond the grove. Maybe it was safer here.
“I can promise you that anyone of the Drakos line would never harm a woman, especially one under their protection as those in the grove are.”
She had to trust Cassian in this. Thus, she could trust Orion. Except she had been forbidden from telling him anything.
Her world was so small and had been since she was a child. It was the very reason she read every single book Cassian brought to her. It was the only way to learn anything. Sometimes she read for knowledge. Other times she read fictional stories and pretended she was somewhere else.
Most of the time it did not bother her to be here and that her only friends were dryads and nereids. Other times, such as tonight, her heart ached with loneliness. She wasn’t like the others, content to remain among the trees or in the sea.
Did she want Orion to return because she was lonely?
She’d hope for the daughters to visit, but they had been cordial and polite when they came with their mothers, so Nina did not expect to see them again, which added to the heaviness of the isolation that seemed to weigh on her heart.
Oh, she should have sent Nephele away. She should have never spied on the wedding, and she should have never spoken to Orion because it made her long for things that she could never have—a life outside of the grove, or at least, friends besides those who lived here.
“Nina, what is wrong?”
“Nothing,” she lied.
“Nothing does not cause tears to form,” Cassian observed gently.
