Offensive #3
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.
She did not wish to. But she could. And he would not expect it.
She would do what she had to.
In the meantime, the day was not even half over.
She could not expect him to wait until the morrow to strike again.
She continued her walk around the hill, blocking a hole here, shifting sand beneath a boulder there.
Beginning with minor obstacles, but also analyzing where she could do more.
There was a promising ring of saguaro and cholla; she could perhaps transplant more to fill in the gaps…
A familiar whirring sound began, the one she had heard earlier from her bower, and she started, scanning the skies.
There was a black shape in the air, almost like a dragonfly but large and black, perhaps the size of a golden eagle.
The sunlight glinted off it in places, and she realized it was mechanical.
A drone. That explained much. Ethan had not been lucky in his path—he had chosen it through clever reconnaissance. As it drew closer, she could see the camera mounted beneath. It had to be sending images back to its controller, to Ethan. Showing him her fortifications from a distance.
Was he seeking another path? Or seeking her?
Regardless, it was a problem. She had learned much from invisibly spying on him. She could not afford for him to learn so much about her. But the drone was high in the air, out of her purview, unreachable by either earth or wood. Unless…
She swiftly turned away, pretending she had not seen it, though she listened closely to the whir as it grew louder. What could she do to lure it even closer, to where she could lash out at it?
Beautiful. Gorgeous. Pretty green eyes.
Mara smiled.
She would win this skirmish.