The First Dryad ARC

Blurb:

The Romance Story Of A Generation
Aia spent her life in hiding…until her secret was discovered and she was taken to the Palace in chains. Now, among the last crop of an ancient arboreal race, she will have to prove herself useful to the High Prince to survive. But alas, love is ruin. And the last of one race might become the first in another.

From The Episode Entitled, "What Nightmares Do You Mean?"
“You dropped your book,” the Second Prince said with a smirk. “Did you do that on purpose, Little Tree?” He folded his ink-stained hands together in front of him, his elbows on the desk.

I bent and snatched the book up, clutching it to my chest. “Why would I drop a book on purpose?”

He tilted his head. “To appear helpless.”

“Why would I put so much effort into feigning a state to which I have already fallen victim?”

His eyebrows raised, his stormy eyes lightening for a moment. “You are a victim to helplessness?”

“Well, I am here in this Palace against my will. And I cannot help myself except to accelerate my own demise if I so chose, which I do not. So yes, I would say I am quite helpless. And so, if I drop a book, it is not some strategy. I am merely nervous. And now you have made fun of me for it.”

“Hmm….” He picked up his quill after studying me for just a bit and made as if he would write again. But before he touched it to his paper, he looked back up at me, surprised that I still stood before him. “Will you not…go, then, since I have made you so nervous?”

I knew how ferociously I blushed, and how my heart squeezed almost to the point beyond beating in my chest, and how my hands gripped the book too tightly. But I could not, for any reason or after any amount of urging myself, convince my feet to move.

The Second Prince laughed, but not the happy sort, and stood up from his seat. He approached me, his white shirt unbuttoned at the top and his brown breeches nicely cut and perfectly hemmed. When he was very close to me, he reached out to take the book from my hands.

I let him do this, of course, because he was a Monarch of the Realm, and who was I to deny him? Except when I looked down at my arms, the book was still pressed against my bosom, and his hand had retreated, for I had dodged its advance with the slightest deflection.

He was very surprised then, as was I, and his dark-blue eyes glittered with amusement. “May I see your book please, Honorable Tree?”

I bit my lip as I handed it to him. And then, because I did not know what to do with my empty hands, I clenched the formerly smooth fabric along the sides of my sage green dress.

The Prince traced his fingers across the leather cover of the book, and I felt my chest burn. I gasped at this response, for it was not allowable for me to think about his fingers or the way they moved so lightly over the brown leather. I was not meant to wonder what those same hands would feel like wandering over my skin.

His eyes flicked up at me when I gasped, but then, when he saw I had nothing to say, he continued with his examination of the book.

The First Dryad
From The Mind Of Teshelle Combs