He pulled her to him and hugged her close, reveling in the feel of her whole and healthy. “You have one now.”
“Do I?”
“Didn’t you hear me in the forest? I love you, Ana. I probably have for a long time, but I couldn’t feel it. But I feel everything now, and most of that is love for you.”
She wriggled so that she could meet his eyes. “Really?”
“Of course.” He pressed a hard kiss to her lips. “I’ve been hiding from my fate. Hanging out alone in the jungle, ignoring life. You have such a passion for it that you made me realize I’d lost mine. Of course I love you.”
“Good. Because likewise. One of those trees in the forest was me. Or at least half of me. Part of my soul was trapped within. When it finally fell and I was whole again, I realized I loved you.”
His big hands cupped her face while he kissed her. He raised his head and asked, “You’re full Mythean now? Immortal?”
“I think so. I was only part Mythean because half my soul was trapped. Now that I have it back, I’m a Dryad. I can hear the jungle trees like they’re whispering. But it’s been so long since I’ve been a Dryad that I’m not sure what it all means. I haven’t spoken to another since my first incarnation. I don’t even know how many are left after what Druantia did to us.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
As she grinned, the last beam of sunlight of the day shined upon her face. Cam saw the potential of the future and all that lay before them, and for the first time in millennia, everything was perfect.
“We will,” she said. “I’m just glad I’m alive. On earth. And you’re alive. And the gods probably won’t want to kill you now that the spell is broken and all the old rules are clearly shit.”
“We’ll have to see.”
“It will be fine. I know it will. Aerten felt emotion back there in the infirmary. Give the gods a little while to adjust and then go back to visit. They’ll see sense. Now we just need to figure out what the hell I’m going to do with the rest of my life.”
“How do you feel about hunting cures here in the Amazon with me? We’re close to finding Rosa McManus.”
She grinned. “I do like plants. More than I’d ever realized. I could be good with that. And we’d live on the Clara G?”
“Yeah. You and me and the river.”
She looked around appraisingly. “All right. But the cabin will need a bigger bed.”
He pulled her to him and kissed her, the light of a thousand suns filling his chest with joy for the future. “Not a problem. Anything for the woman I love.”
EPILOGUE
Amazon Jungle, Three weeks later
“Hey, Cam! I think I found it!” Ana called from her position in the jungle.
Cam turned from the foliage he was inspecting and trotted toward Ana. Her pale arm and shoulder were visible behind a tree about twenty feet distant. When he reached her, he slowed to a stop and crouched next to her. She was inspecting a creeping rose bush that crawled over a fallen tree limb.
Pale orange and lushly petaled, the rose looked exactly like the sample.
“You found it.” A grin spread across his face.
“Not hard. I could almost hear it. It’s crazy the skills I have as a Dryad.”
He reached over and cupped the back of her head, pulling her toward him for a kiss. “Good work.”
“Really, not hard. I did the same thing as before, but this time, it worked. I focused on the type of plant and asked it where it was. A really strong feeling led me to it since we were already close.”
It made sense. This was the thirteenth spot they’d checked along the river this week. After Harp had given him the basic location, he’d set off with Ana to locate the rose. Every other time, they’d tied off to shore and searched the banks and the deeper jungle. This time, they’d actually tied off to the right spot.
“I’ll go get the supplies.”
“Good. I’ll go look for more. I think this is the first rose species ever found in the jungle. I don’t know how common it is.”