Page 14 of A Fae’s Guide to Tactical Botany

He gaped with confusion as the earth pushed him farther, forcing his feet back along his bridge. “What the hell?” He glanced behind him, clutching at the handles of his stepladder to keep from falling into the prickly pears. They were quivering along with Mara, their paddles hissing against each other.

“This hill is mine!” Mara gestured at the earth under the end of his bridge, encouraging it to swell higher and higher, tilting the plank up into the air. “You are not welcome. Go away!”

Ethan might be dressed as a fool, but he clearly could recognize danger when he saw it. He scrambled down his stepladder, watching with wide-open eyes and mouth as Mara gave a final heave of earth, sending the plank of wood flying backwards. It flipped upward, still secured to the stepladder, teetered for a moment at the top of its arc, then flopped down on Ethan’s side of her barrier. He barely avoided it, leaping out of the way to crash down on the sand, his bags flying. The stepladder wobbled, then fell over on its side.

Ethan stumbled to his feet, staring up at her. She lifted her chin and strode slowly forward, reveling in the drama, until her skirts were close enough to tangle in the thorns of her barrier. “Now go,” she said in her most forbidding voice. Or tried to. Her voice was breaking again, cracking with the grief his demands for explanation had dragged up, the pain of his stubborn refusal to leave. But it was almost forbidding. Almost strong.

“Holy shit,” he breathed, staring at her. “Holy shit. You just…” He lowered his chin, glared back at her. “I’m not leaving. I don’t care what wackadoo booby traps you’ve got set up here. I have a permit to do research, and I am going to do my fucking research. You can’t stop me.”

Mara was shaking with rage, with the effort expelling him had taken, but she was surrounded by her elements, by the earth and the plants, and she called on them now, drawing power, channeling her wishes back down into the earth. “But I can,” she said sweetly, and commanded the hillside to swallow his so-clever bridge. Ethan stumbled back as the sand rumbled, watching the shifting ridge of his submerged equipment as it traveled the rest of the way down the hill like a caricature of a mole’s tunnel.

She reached out far enough to determine where he’d parked his Jeep this time, sent the stepladder and plank down the soft silt of the wash until she could expel it right beside his new campsite. From where she stood, she could not see the result other than a puff of dust rising in the air, but she could feel it, and her chest warmed with satisfaction at the oath Ethan muttered at the sight. At the last minute, she’d called back her rage enough to keep the siege engine from smashing into the Jeep. Damaging his vehicle would be counterproductive; he would need it functional to drive away. Which of course he would, now that she’d given him a glimpse of what she could do. How thoroughly outmatched he was.

He turned back to her, and what was that expression on his face? It was the same as he’d worn when he’d said hello, somewhere between wonder and confusion and adoration, and it made her stomach clench. He had no right to look at her like that. None at all.

And then he was smiling again, brilliant and wide, as if she hadn’t just displayed powers he could never have imagined. He started to clap his gloved hands, slowly enough to be ironic, but not with that look on his face. It was pure admiration now, she realized. She’d impressed him.

“Well played,” he said in his sandpaper voice. “I don’t know how you did that, but it was amazing. You really put me in my place.”

She tossed her hair, accepting the praise as her due. “And now you will leave.”

“Oh, I think not.” He stopped clapping, planted his fists on his hips. “I’m not leaving. I don’t care if you have land mines and…whatever just did that. Armies of prairie dogs doing your bidding? Maybe with little radio-controller hats?” His eyes seemed to glow with determination. “I love a challenge.”

She felt her face crumple, smoothed it back to regal coldness. “You will lose this challenge.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged—or seemed to; the thick armor dulled his movements. “And maybe not. You may have fallen victim to one of the classic blunders.” He started to gather his scattered bags.

“Blunders?” Mara folded her arms again in defiance. “I have defeated you. I will not let you pass this way again.”

He shook his head in mock disappointment. “Maybe you haven’t heard this one, then.” He heaved his bags over his shoulders and flashed another grin at her. It was bright and fierce, like lightning, and it stabbed deep into Mara’s chest. “Never go up against a botanist when tenure is on the line.”

There was a laugh in his voice, but also determination, and Mara was struck speechless yet again, unable to do more than watch as he sauntered down the hill. He was still avoiding the biological crust as he walked. It was maddening.

But soon he was out of sight, and Mara relaxed. For all his defiant words, surely he would think better of his plans when he’d had a moment to consider. Surely he would realize that what she had done was not humanly possible. Surely he would…

She set her jaw. There was no surely about this man. She had to do more.

But what could she do? The effort of expelling him had exhausted her again. She could not continue to battle him with mere force. She would have to be as clever as him, as devious, as strategic as he had proven. Strike tactically and surgically, with a scalpel and not a bludgeon.

She took a moment to repair the sand she had disturbed during their battle, gently apologizing to the tiny desert creatures she had disturbed, then began to walk through her desert, scanning for easy points of passage. Ah, Ethan had been fortunate in his choice of path; he did indeed have a clear route to her garden here. Well, that was easily fixed. She teased the arms of a saguaro downward, coaxed bushes to spread, creating another barrier. It was difficult—the sand and the plants did support her, but she was loath to take too much of her element at a time, to strip the landscape of its own needed power.

She would if she had to to protect what was hers, of course, but in the meantime she should be judicious. Begging flowers forth was not the same as reshaping the desert to her fancy. She needed to use her wits.

What tools had she, besides the earth and the plants?

She did not want to admit it, but she knew the answer.

Myself.

She had taken the measure of Ethan the Invader. He was a man who took care where he stepped, constructed bridges rather than hacking through living obstacles. A man who had taken care not to touch her, stepped away and fallen to his knees and spoken to her when she’d stood in his way. Had offered her water from a safe distance. She had defied him, and yet he had not once even reached for her.

He could have shoved past her. He was larger, and he no doubt believed himself stronger. But he had not tried.

And there had been that light in his eyes. It hadn’t been neutral, that light. Not just admiration of a worthy foe. He’d seen her as a woman. Called her beautiful, gorgeous. And though his ridiculous red-and-black outfit concealed his body, she knew the way a man breathed when his desire grew. He wanted her.

And that could be another weapon.

It was a risk. She would have to play it delicately, in case she had misjudged him. But she also knew her own strength, the strength every fae had, the magic that gave force to her actions. She could, in an emergency, draw on the desert around her with deadly effect.