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He started to return her smile, then suddenly froze.
“We have company,” he said, his voice as stiff as his body as he rose. “You should get dressed.”
“Not… not Harold?” she whispered, her lips going numb.
His face softened for a fraction of a second.
“No, little bird. Our visitor isn’t human.”
He stalked out onto the porch before she could ask any more questions. She quickly threw on one of the dresses she’d made and followed him. He was staring at the far side of the clearing. The bushes suddenly parted, pulling back like curtains as a strange male entered the clearing.
Even from the porch she could tell she was tall, possibly as tall as Marsh, and just as muscular, but the similarities ended there. Curling ram-like horns topped a head of thick dark hair. His skin was a solid mahogany brown on his upper half, but his lower half was also covered with thick dark hair, and his knees bent at an awkward angle above powerful hooves.
“What - who - is he?” she whispered.
“He’s a satyr, the male equivalent of a dryad. He’s also my uncle. Stay here,” he ordered, and stalked down the stairs.
CHAPTER 10
Why the hell was Thorn here, Marsh wondered as he marched out to meet his uncle. The other male had shown little enough interest in him over the years. When Marsh had tried to turn to him after his mother died, his uncle had rejected him. So why was he here now?
Thorn stopped at a point precisely half way between the woods and the house and waited.
“I never expected to see you here,” Marsh said coldly as he reached him.
Thorn’s glance flicked to the house for a second.
“I had happy memories here once, before your mother was betrayed. It looks different now.”
Thorn’s tone was completely neutral, revealing neither approval not disapproval of those changes, but Marsh wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of asking. His uncle’s opinion meant nothing to him.
“Why are you here?”
“Because this cannot go on. Were your mother’s sorrows wasted on you? No good has ever come from mingling with humans.”
Thorn’s eyes, the same glowing green as his own, flicked to the house again, but Marsh was sure that this time he was looking at Aurora. He clenched his fists, doing his best to keep his own voice neutral.
“As you pointed out so many times, I am half human.”
“Is that your excuse for this… foolishness?”
“It is not foolishness. She needs me.”
Thorn scoffed. “Because you kidnapped her and stole her away?”
“He did no such thing,” Aurora said indignantly from behind him, and he bit back a sigh. “If you’re going to talk about me, I’d rather you did it to my face. And Marsh didn’t kidnap me - I asked him to help me.”
A frown creased Thorn’s heavy brow.
“You were not conscious when he brought you here.”
How the hell had his uncle known that? Aurora responded before he could ask.
“No, I was asleep because I was hurt and exhausted and I trusted Marsh to look after me.”
“Trust? What do humans know of trust?”
Despite Thorn’s mockery, his posture was no longer quite so rigid.
