The towering shrubs around her home rustled and quivered in response to her emotions, branches shaking. At first the shuddering was no more than a slight shiver, but the motion increased in strength as she became more agitated. She paced away from Jonas and the other two GhostWalkers, stepping off the porch to walk back and forth on the small path between the plants. The branches dipped so the blossoms brushed her face and hair as if to reassure her—or calm her—but she paid no attention.
“Honey, calm down for a minute and just listen to me,” Jonas said.
She held up her hand without looking at him. “Not a good time to talk to me right now. I did listen to you. That was before I realized you were deliberately putting yourself in danger. A few troops, okay, I knew you could handle it, but this isn’t even reasonable, and you know it. All of you know it. Right now, if any of you speak to me, I’m going to zap you so hard with an electrical charge you will think you were sitting in the electric chair, so don’t talk to me until I calm down.”
The three men looked at each other. Jeff raised his eyebrow at Jonas. “Can she really do that, bro? Because if she can, you’d better think twice about marrying that woman. She’s got a nasty little temper, and you’re about as mean as they come. That combo is going to get you in more trouble than you can possibly handle.”
Kyle stepped closer and lowered his voice. “I really like her, Jonas. And I thought for sure she was your match. You’ve got to have someone who can handle you. I never thought there was a woman alive who could do it, but I have to agree with Jeff. Camellia not only can handle you, but I think she can seriously kick your ass. Do you even have any idea what she’s capable of?”
“She’s capable of hearing you, I know that much,” Jonas assured. “So if you don’t want to get zapped, stop acting crazy. I like my woman feisty. She has every right to be upset at me. I should have come clean with how many soldiers we might run into. Crawley gave that up and I didn’t tell her. I told her we’d be partners, that means keeping her in the loop.”
“You were protecting her. We have the right to protect our women,” Jeff decreed, raising his voice to the normal range and glaring at the back of Camellia’s head.
The moment the words were finished coming out of his mouth, she raised one hand over her head, fingers poised in the classic sign, flipping him off. At the same time, just briefly, fireflies danced in the night, sparking little lights all around Jeff’s body. They never seemed to actually land on him, but he winced and then jumped to one side and then the other.
“Cut it out, you little monster.”
Camellia turned around slowly, looking very innocent—too innocent. “Are you addressing me, Jeff? What are you accusing me of?”
“You know darn well what you did.”
“Other than wanting to kick Jonas, which I haven’t done,” she replied in a pious voice, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Kyle burst out laughing. “You aren’t going to win this one. None of us are.” He held up his hands in surrender. “I had no idea there was a battalion either until Crawley let it slip in questioning. We’re all guilty of wanting to protect you, Camellia. Maybe ‘want’ is not the right word. ‘Need’ might be better.”
She tilted her chin at him. “Because you need a healer for the teams.”
Kyle looked genuinely puzzled. “A healer for the teams?” he echoed, sounding as puzzled as he looked. “No, babe. Because it’s you.”
Jeff nodded. “Don’t want to lose you any more than Jonas does. He might think you’re the love of his life, but we know you are.”
“Even though I can kick his ass?”
Jonas loved the amusement in her voice. That was his Camellia, her moods mercurial. Passionate. One minute hot with temper, the next full-on laughter. That was coming, he could feel it.
“He often needs his ass kicked,” Jeff admitted.
Jonas’s protest was lost before he could voice it. Camellia burst out laughing, the sound contagious. Beautiful. Impossible to resist.
A wolf howled in the distance. An owl screeched as if it missed its prey. That was their warning system, and they all sobered in an instant. It was time for the fog to start rolling in across the mountain. They would have to leave the safety of the garden. Jonas really hated taking Camellia with him, but at the same time, he knew she was right. If he didn’t, his attention would be divided. He wouldn’t stop worrying that he’d made the wrong decision.
She wrapped her hand around the thickest branch of the largest Middlemist Red Camellia shrub and stood there for a long moment, head bowed. Jonas went to her, both hands fitting on either side of hers, caging her in, opening his mind to hers.
At once, he felt the expansion of Camellia’s reach across the forest. It wasn’t confined to the garden and the plants there. She had tapped into the trees and brush, the flowers and shrubs, fern, fungi and even moss. All of those plants were connected through the underground network and the ruler of them—Red.
Camellia was very accepting and accepted. Nothing in the forest network questioned her presence because she was no threat to them. Jonas buried his mind in hers. Once connected to her, their shared Middlemist Red properties allowed the neurons in their bodies to sync up so that he could see the way the nutrients moved from her to him and him to her—shared so all their nerve endings lit up as the process took place.
The liquid energy from Camellia was an interesting deep shade of pink, not red but a brilliant pink, while his was a dark purple. The two distinct streams of nutrients moved together, flowing in the proper direction because for once, he wasn’t raging. They moved together in harmony, stretching beyond the human body to find the veins of the mycelium beneath the ground.
I need warmth from the surface to cool rapidly and one hundred percent humidity to be achieved. The skies are clear tonight, and there is little to no wind. Red will have to have the plants help with that. I can’t do it. They have to.
Jonas remained silent. Camellia was confident she would receive help from the plants. They were her army. She had talked about weapons she’d developed. He should have asked more questions. He’d been thrown by the idea of floras as intelligent beings capable of protecting themselves. He hadn’t conceived that a plant might be just as capable of feeling emotions such as rage at betrayal or feeling loyalty, which Red clearly had in abundance for Camellia.
Camellia leaned her body into his, lifting her face toward him. He didn’t hesitate. Jonas took her mouth, his tongue tasting hers and then pushing deep, looking for the fire between them. It rose fast and hot, a scorching burn that refused to smolder but leapt into flames immediately. Both let go of the branch they held and wrapped their arms around each other. Jonas pulled her in tight against his body while he kissed her.