“What favor?”
“Would you two negotiate to let Rance plant his tree on the pack lands? As much as I’d like him with me. I can’t guarantee his safety as he gets older. I would like to share custody of him if you are agreeable. We can finish raising Rance together.”
Rance blushed from where he stood, wrapped in Kat’s arms. “I’m almost all grown up.”
“Hush, child, adults are speaking,” Kat teased.
Rance rolled his eyes.
“I think we can do that,” Xavier said after receiving a nod from Rance and agreement from his master.
Kat nodded. “I’ll talk to Silver about it, but I doubt he’d say no.” Kat helped Xavier to his feet. “Come on, let’s go home. I need a nap with my mate beside me.”
“Sounds good. If you want to spend the night with your mother, you can stay in my chambers.” Xavier pulled a key out of his pocket. “The second apartment from the left of the stairway.”
“I’ll show them, Xav,” a pretty girl who looked just like the one in the hall spoke up.
“Thanks, Zabria. Are you all right?”
Zabria nodded. “Everything came out for the best. You two can scamper off home. I’ll take care of things here.”
“Thanks.”
Kat wrapped an arm around Xavier’s waist. “Tomorrow, we can deal with contracts, Groves, and master papers. I need a bath and a nap. We also have to put our door back on.”
“Sounds like a date, " Xavier said, kissing his mate. Now that he had his mate back in his arms, everything was right again in his world.
CHAPTER15
The dryads stood in a circle in the middle of the clearing. Rance sat in the middle, playing a game on his phone while they waited.
“You could at least pay attention,” Dawn, a blond-haired dryad, sneered.
“On what?” Rance snapped. He wasn’t going to take their shit anymore. “I can’t do anything until the other Grove is done. I’m waiting for a text.”
“Leave him alone, Dawn,” his mother snarled. “You’re lucky he’s even willing to help.”
Dawn muttered something too quietly for Rance to hear, but it wasn’t pleasant if the hard nudge by the dryad to her left was any sign.
Before they could get into a fight, the ground beneath Rance began to shimmer.
His phone pinged. Xavier’s text popped onto the screen. “It’s starting.”
Rance stood. His mother had told him to follow his instincts, but they all screamed for him to run. He closed his eyes to focus on his magic and breathed deeply.
“Easy, child.”
Rance’s eyes snapped open. Instead of a peaceful meadow, a gray fog surrounded him. In front of him stood a beautiful woman dressed in gossamer green fronds and cobwebs. Her face kept changing from ancient to young in an ever-fluctuating rotation. Rance flicked his gaze away before he went mad.
“Sorry, you can look at me now.”
Rance looked at her and immediately bowed. “My Lady.”
“It is nice to see you again, my Green Man. You have grown well.”
“Thank you, my lady.” Heat infused his cheeks.
“You are too young to grow a grove alone, but I want you to pay attention. This is a task you will need to repeat year after year. The Groves have fallen to fire, to humans, to pollution. Out of the ten Green Men I have revived, you are the only one who didn’t fall for one reason or another. I’m counting on you.”
