Free Of Water and Madness by Katie Jennings

momentarily stumped, and Liam had a feeling that she agreed with Blythe at least on that part. He shifted his gaze to Capri, who was sitting between the two other girls, glancing curiously from one to the other.
    “I think it could do him some good. He’s gotta break out of his shell at some point,” Liam added, absorbing the skeptical look Rhiannon sent his way.
    “I don’t know.” Rhiannon took a deep breath and let it out, working through all the angles of it in her head. “Maybe you should let me talk to him first. I think he’d be more willing to go along with this if I present the idea.”
    “Good point,” Blythe conceded as the waiter came by to refill her champagne glass. Lifting it up for a toast, she smiled to all of them. “To working together for the first time in fifteen years.”
    Rhiannon laughed, shaking her head as she held up her glass as well. “To working together, period.”
    Liam sipped his beer and watched his fellow Dryads talking, laughing, and enjoying themselves in each other’s company. Just how long had he waited for moments like this? Too long, he thought regretfully. But now, everything was so perfect that it appeared as though nothing could destroy the peace they had finally found.
    If only he had known then just how wrong he was.

     

 
     
     
     
     

As the days went by, everyone was more preoccupied with the upcoming wedding than with thoughts of Dante. Liam was certain it was because it had been over two weeks without any real update on his whereabouts and therefore many of them simply brushed Dante’s threat off as nothing more than empty words.
    He knew that Jax, Brogan and Rian had all been diligently working with the Enforcers to hunt him down, but little had been discovered. Clearly, he had dropped off the radar for the time being, either because he was plotting something or because he had decided to go into hiding.
    He sincerely hoped it was the latter.
    They’d eventually find him. That much he could believe in. But whether or not the shit would hit the fan before they did was what worried him most.
    Thea was working with the Muses on how to decorate the courtyard and the castle for the wedding, and was focusing nearly all of her attention on it. He worried about that, thinking her being distracted was foolish, but he figured that she had been around long enough to know best. And Sebastian was still keeping an eye on the Dante situation, so if anything came up it would likely be snuffed out before it could cause real damage. At least he hoped that would be the case.
    And so he started his day just like any other day, only to notice his father wasn’t present during breakfast. Curious, but not overly concerned, he made his way to Water Tower, an extra cup of coffee in his hand to stem off his restlessness from the night before. Worrying over Dante had him losing sleep, and this impending doom that had come over him the last few days was weighing on his mind. Why did he have this sickening feeling that something bad was going to happen…and soon?
    Attempting to shrug it off, he jogged up the steps to the tower and opened the door, relieved when he spotted his father inside, working with the globe.
    “Hey,” he greeted, sipping his coffee as he crossed the little wooden bridge.
    Lucian let out a huff of breath and looked extraordinarily stressed, his long white hair sticking up in places and his eyes hard as steel as he focused on the globe, his hands working to enhance the view of what looked like the Gulf.
    “Mini crisis this morning, boyo,” Lucian said, meeting his son’s eyes solemnly. “An oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico sprung a leak. We’ve got oil everywhere.”
    Liam cursed under his breath and set his coffee aside on the workbench, approaching the globe to see what his father was looking at. “How bad is it?”
    “Not too bad so far, as they appear to have capped it off already. But I have to go down there to evaluate the damage and repair what I