Page 30 of To Hunt a Ruby Remedy

It took hours to stabilize everybody. Grandmother had accepted a bed with one of the villagers, but I didn’t want to stay, trapped in my dragon form. I flew home.

I was ready to drop to the ground when I reached the clearing near the cottage. Because of the darkness, it took until I was just above the trees before I spotted Scarlette. She was attempting to pull a rope from a tree. She looked up and began waving me away.

Was that a crossbow in her hands?

I followed her gestures and hovered over the far side of the clearing, shifting as my feet hit the ground. “What happened?”

“The hunter,” she said with such venom that I wondered for a moment if I was even talking to Scarlette. She left the rope I could no longer make out in the darkness and crossed the clearing. That was definitely a crossbow in her hands. “He saw you transform and decided to set a trap for your return.”

I suddenly felt vulnerable standing out in the open, naked. I wasn’t sure if it was the hunter who worried me, or an armed and angry Scarlette. On second thought, Scarlette was scarier without question. I made my way to the tree hiding my clothes. “Where is he now?”

“Hopefully on his way to Wulfkin. I wasn’t sure what else to do except make him leave. Though I guess if he does leave, he could spread word about your shape-shifting, and that’s supposed to be a secret. This is all my fault.”

Scarlette no longer sounded angry. She sounded defeated. I finished pulling on my pants and made my way back to her, not bothering with my shirt. I pulled the crossbow out of her loose grip and tucked her close to my body. “It isn’t your fault. He isn’t the first to see something he shouldn’t over the years. If he spreads the word and people come sniffing around, I’ll be extra careful for a while and let the villagers explain the tales away as drunken ramblings.”

Her arms wrapped around me, and she pressed her cheek against my chest. “He’s not going to give up. He saw you transform and immediately hatched a plan to use me as bait to trap you. He still wants to kill the dragon, even knowing the truth.”

“He planned to use you as bait?” I pulled back enough to look her in the eyes. “What happened, Scarlette?”

“He knocked me out, tied me up, and strung up a bunch of nets.” She gestured at the side of the clearing she had been in when I landed. “I got free, paralyzed him with the enchantment you gave me, and took his crossbow. I stupidly didn’t take the sword before he recovered, and couldn’t bring myself to shoot him. So, I told him to start walking and followed him part of the way toward Wulfkin.”

Scarlette’s dry recital of events didn’t fool me. She wasn’t as calm as she was pretending. I could feel her shaking against me. I lifted my hand and laid it against her temple. An echo of her pain pulsed through my head as my innate magic took stock of her injury. Nothing serious. I sent a swell of node power through her anyway, wiping out the lingering ache from the blow.

She sighed and burrowed deeper into me.

“Come on,” I whispered. “We’ve both had a busy night. Let’s get to bed.”

“What if Gideon comes back? He probably noticed that I stopped following him. There’s no reason for him to go all the way to Wulfkin then.”

“He wants a dragon. I won’t give him one. Since he can’t shoot me in the back without losing his chance at getting a dragon, we are safe enough. On node lands, a hunter is no match for me.”

“He can’t shoot you now, anyway,” Scarlette said, pulling back with a hint of a smile. “I took his crossbow.”

I lifted the weapon. “So you did.”

We walked back to the cottage, our steps slow as exhaustion tugged at us both. I fought to keep my mind clear as I thought over everything Scarlette had told me. I hadn’t lied that Gideon wasn’t the first person to see a transformation. According to the family journals, it happened at least once every generation. A visitor in Wulfkin had seen me shift years ago—it stood to reason that I’d attract more attention than the rest of my family since I shifted into a dragon.

That visitor hadn’t been much of a problem. She had been gathering mushrooms in the forest, and the villagers had convinced her that she had eaten the wrong mushrooms and hallucinated the whole thing. Such a tactic wouldn’t work on Gideon. Scarlette was right to say he wouldn’t give up, but I didn’t think he’d spread the word. Not if he was still intent on killing a dragon himself.

I could handle myself around the hunter, but Scarlette didn’t have the same protections the node granted me. Gideon had already figured out that she was the perfect bait to trap me. The longer Scarlette stayed in the forest, the greater the risk to her.

I needed to finish the charm and get her home.

This time I woke when Scarlette did. She had gone up to the attic with me without comment, the distance that had come between us that morning no longer in evidence. We had fallen into bed with her still in her shift and me in my trousers, but our bodies entwined.

I tightened my arm around her waist when she tried to slip out of bed. “Good morning.”

She twisted to face me, her smile hesitant. “Good morning.”

I kissed her, needing one last taste. This time, I wasn’t going to sit back and watch someone I cared about walk away. This time I would send her away myself. For her own safety, I had to.

Cared about. As if those words truly encompassed what I felt for Scarlette. But I couldn’t think of it in any other terms, not if I wanted to get through this.

I held her close, not wanting the moment to end, but knowing it had to. “I’ll finish the charm for your mother today. Then I think it would be best if I flew you home. Or at least close. I don’t want to risk you running into Gideon on your way.”

She went stiff in my arms. “I’ll be careful. You shouldn’t fly away from the forest. It’s not safe.”

I let her get up, knowing that I had held her for the last time, but wishing I could have had a few more minutes at least.

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