What she saw wasn’t the first time he had gone to Ava and performed such acts with her. “How many years have you been going to her, Jasper, and what does she gain from such an assault?”
“She has used me since Julian died.” His voice was quiet when he spoke. His attention roamed over the dug beds, up the hedges and on to the ink black sky above. He scanned to a multitude of places but never rested on any spot. As though he sought to look anywhere but at her. “As to what she gains, how does a plant propagate itself?”
Dawn rolled her eyes. What a silly question to ask a gardener. “Seed, of course.”
His hands uncurled and his head dropped to his chest. His shoulders slumped and even his wings sagged. Defeat rolled off him in sad waves.
What did seed have to do with whatever Ava forced Jasper to do…? Then realisation slammed into Dawn and she blushed. No wonder he couldn’t face her. She could only imagine the depth of his shame, if his words were true.
His words were softly spoken but carried on the still night. “She takes my seed to spread her poison throughout the estate. The black vines are the hideous deformity she creates from our union. It is my offspring that suffocates this land.”
Dawn blew out a long breath, and a measure of her pain and heartache dissipated with it. Elijah was right, Ava had thrown the exact weapon that would have made Dawn bolt from the estate. Except she could never be angry at Jasper when he was forced against his will.
Each question answered raised a myriad more. “Why do you not refuse her? If you stood your ground and resisted her demands, what could she do?”
Nothing, surely, but pout and shake her leaves. There would be no point sending an invasion of greenfly to the rose garden when the roses had already ceded that battle.
He met her gaze and his jaw ground. “She can force me to go to her, but she cannot compel me to act against my will. However, I am not the only Warder living on this estate that she can command. If I resisted her for too long—” His words choked off and he didn’t complete the sentence.
Dawn gasped and a hand flew to her cover her mouth. Not the only Warder? Elijah. Dawn doubled over as her stomach rebelled at the idea. She gasped air into her lungs to fight back the revulsion that clawed up her gullet. She recalled her conversation with Elijah; Uncle Jasper has always placed himself between her and us. “No. She couldn’t. Not him.”
Jasper took one step toward Dawn. “She would. I refused her summons once, many years ago. Elijah was just a babe, and still she made him crawl through the maze to her until I’d begged her to let him go from her thrall.”
Dawn dropped to the grass and pulled her knees up to her chest. She leaned into the warm side of Mouse. She needed to think. A winter storm and a freezing blizzard of horrid ideas slammed against her mind. How could a mother use her child? What sort of twisted, evil monster would pervert the maternal bond in such a way?
Jasper took another step and then sat on the grass beside her, so she was between gargoyle and wolfhound. Jasper tucked his wings in close so as not to scrape or disturb her or Mouse. “Whatever you feel or don’t feel for me, I need your help. I cannot free us of Ava’s control on my own. If you will not have me as a mate, at least accept me as Lord Warder. We could rebuild Ravenswing – together.”
Dawn had only ever wanted a simple life tending a garden. She never wanted to face such choices where the lives and happiness of others depended on her. All day she had wrestled with what to do. Part of her wanted to run and lick her wounds. Then the cuts all over her body heated. A faint black spider web had already begun to spread.
She blinked back the tears. Life wasn’t fair. Ava had already struck her fatal blow. How long would it take for the vine to eat away at her from the inside? The people and land of Alysblud needed her. At least she could do something to help them before she succumbed to the poison in her body.
“I will try, but it may be a short-lived victory.” She laid a hand over her chest. “Due to a heart condition, the doctors always told my parents I was not long for this world, and I received a similar admonition from Dr Day.”
Then she held out her bare arms to show the dark smudges radiating out from the cuts. “And Ava’s vine already pollutes my veins. I can only hope to give you sufficient time to find a suitable replacement.”
She couldn’t look at him, not now she had acknowledged the helplessness of the situation. She would battle Ava, however that was done, and do all she could to restore balance to the estate. That would give Jasper a little longer to seek another Elemental who would live long enough to see the garden flourish once more.
“Oh, Dawn. Did you think I would stand by and watch you die and then replace you with another?” His words were quiet, like a gurgle of water over rocks but his tone heavy like boulders.
She faced him. That was exactly what she assumed would happen. Was there any point in them growing to love each other? She would die centuries before him and leave Jasper with a hole like that she bore where her parents used to reside. Better to save him that agony.
He reached for her hand and paused, uncertain. Instead he turned his arm and extended his hand, palm upward to her.
Dawn breathed in and decided to be brave. She placed her hand in his monstrous one. She expected his touch to be cold and hard, but she found warmth. Like a brick wall that soaked up the sun’s heat and then gave it back when you leaned upon it. His skin reminded her of an emery board, and she resisted the urge to smooth her broken nails against his rough surface.
“The Meidh have a human lifespan as the balance for being more powerful than the other Elementals. But a Warder shares his life force with his mate, and if you accept me, we will share my lifespan. That is why I have continued to resist Ava. She stole Julian’s years and left him a drained and vulnerable husk, but she will never have mine for they can only be freely given, not taken.”
She moved her hand over his as the Cor-vitis materialised. The tendril stirred, like a sleeper awakened, and then it inflated and revived.
“Not much of a bargain for you, I am afraid,” Dawn said as the plant wriggled back into life and tentatively crept over Jasper’s stone palm.
“Have you considered that the issue with your heart is not a human problem but an Elemental one?” He raised her hand to his lips and placed a kiss on her knuckles, avoiding the exploratory vine.
“Are other Elementals born with weak hearts?” Did they have doctors who perhaps wore togas and gold laurels on their heads while dispensing celestial cures?
“I don’t think you ever had a weak heart. You were just a plant given the wrong conditions, which is why you struggled to survive. You were a sunflower trying to grow in the shade. Here you have the ideal conditions to allow you to thrive.” The Cor-vitis circled his wrist like ivy tackling a brick wall.
His analogy made sense. A plant could be sickly and near death in one position but once moved to another, could burst into life and flourish. She had improved in Whetstone because it was the equivalent of moving the sunflower to mottled light, allowing it a chance to grow. Here, she stood in the full sun and could reach her potential.
“Length of time doesn’t matter, Dawn. Whether we have one day or a century, I would spend it with you. I hope sharing my life force with you will allow us the time to find a way to remove Ava’s vine from your body. If there is a cure, I promise you that Dr Day and I will find it.”
Peace spread through Dawn’s soul. The contentment that came with hearing a truth that was echoed inside of you. “I believe it infects Lettie also. She told me that she scratched her head on it not long after Julian died. No men who have been injured on the thorns have been infected, and I suspect it only affects women or Elementals.”