A Ruin of Roses (Deliciously Dark Fairytales – B&tB Book 1)
A Ruin of Roses: Chapter 3

The cool of the library washed over me as I pushed through the door. Once inside and thankfully out of the public eye, I stood still for a moment and let the tension in my body unwind. Jedrek had really thrown me for a loop. He’d shoved me completely out of my game…in as much as I had one.

Books lined the shelf in the tiny room, not much more than a glorified closet. I didn’t care. This was a place of refuge for me. A place of information. After a tough day, or a boring day, or really any day, I could come here and escape into another world and live a different life.

I swept my gaze across the rows, allowing the smell of well-loved books to permeate my senses.

I’d read every single one of the books in here, some multiple times over. We couldn’t get new ones, so I had to relive adventures. Sometimes, though, that was just the ticket. Like today.

“Finley!” Kessa, the librarian, walked in from a side door. The next room over was nicely furnished, used as a sort of ladies’ social club. It was a place of manners and tradition, with murmured conversations, tea, and little sandwiches. I’d never once been invited to attend.

It was for the best. I liked this side of the wall better, anyway.

“Hey, Kessa.” I set my bag by the door and walked down the shelves on my right. I knew exactly what I was looking for, but I didn’t want to advertise my quest for dirty, hardcore hate-sex right now. There was a time and place, and this was not it.

“Got any new books in?” I asked as a joke, running my finger across the spines of all these glorious books.

“As a matter of fact, I do.” She stopped by a little desk in the corner and picked up a small stack of decently made paper. There were another three lying beside it. “Our favorite author wants to know what I think. Why he wastes his time and resources on this is anyone’s guess. He needs a different hobby.”

I laughed. At the next shelf I ran my finger down the spine of a history of our people. On impulse, I pulled it from the shelf and set it aside. I might delve into that one this week. I hadn’t read it for a while. “Think it’s any better than the last one?”

“No. Nor the one before it. I give the notes, he takes the notes, and he doesn’t incorporate the notes. It’s basically the same story, over and over, with the same issues.” She dropped the paper back onto the table. “It’s unreadable. I’m not kidding. Why bother asking for my opinion if you aren’t going to listen to it?”

“I think he’d rather you just compliment him and help him bind it.”

“Bah.” She swatted the air. “That’s what happens when you mate a woman who is too supportive. You make a fool of yourself.”

“At least he has a hobby.” I looked upward to the top of the stacks to see if anything there caught my eye.

“I meant to tell you. Thanks for your help last month. Ernie is making a full recovery!”

I froze for a moment. I’d helped her make the nulling elixir for her mate, who was ten years her senior and had started the slide into sickness. He had some time, and with my help, he’d have more of it, but the elixir wasn’t a cure.

I’d told her all this, but Ernie was her whole world. They’d never had kids, and she didn’t have any family left. He was it. If she lost him, she was alone.

I didn’t have the heart to set her straight.

“I’m glad it’s helping,” I said softly with a pang in my heart. I needed to find a real cure. I had to.

After selecting two more books of renewed interest and grabbing my hate-fuck smut, I went home the long way. I didn’t want to accidentally run into Jedrek or any of his groupie bros.

Letting my mind wander, I glanced at the brilliant sapphire sky above. Only two puffy white clouds puttered across the wide expanse.

Flashes of memory crowded my thoughts. Glittering golden scales against the blue. Buttery-yellow sunlight sparkling across golden wings. Fire belching out of a horned head.

Dragons.

We’d had a plethora of dragon shifters back in the day, all of noble blood. All tasked with protecting the kingdom. But only one of them had routinely stopped me in my tracks.

He had been magnificent, larger than the others even though he was much younger. His movements had been so graceful. So sleek and beautiful. His roar had sent a shock through my very core, soaking my blood in fire. Commanding me to heed his call. I still, to this day, had never felt anything quite like it.

Every single person would stop and gawk as he passed over the village. They would stand transfixed, just like I used to, their mouths open, their gazes pinned to that incredible sight.

The dragon prince. Heir to the throne.

He’d do us all proud, they’d said. He had amazing potential. We’d have the finest kingdom in the magical world.

And then everything had come crashing down.

Rumor was he’d forsaken our kingdom before the king’s deal with the demons. The queen had died not long after, though I couldn’t remember the cause, if I’d ever known.

Next came the end of all things—the curse.

In through the door to the house, I deposited my books on the table and took the food to Hannon. He came out of Father’s room with a grim expression.

“How is he?” I asked.

He shrugged, taking the sack and heading to the kitchen. “Hanging in there.”

“He just needs to make it until spring. Come spring, I will try everything under the sun. I am bound to find something that works.”

He nodded, setting the groceries on the counter. “I know you will. It’s just hard, all of this.”

“Life is hard, but we’ll make do.” I patted his back. “Are the kids still at the schoolhouse?”

“They asked that we stop calling them kids, and yes, they are.”

“Fat chance,” I muttered with a smile. “Oh, guess what I heard today?”

“What’s that?”

“Jedrek is ready to marry!”

He stalled, glancing at me with raised eyebrows. “And his intended?”

I pointed two thumbs at myself. “He thinks we’re the most desirable of people and should therefore mate. I’ll get the honor of carrying all his kids.”

A smile tugged at his lips. “You two will be the handsomest couple in the village, with the surliest children.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “We would be, since there is no way I will agree to marry that assclown.”

He smiled. “What would you do if he turned out to be your true mate?”

“Reject him in a heartbeat. If my animal insisted, I’d sever all ties.”

He laughed softly. “Okay then, I guess we know where you stand.”

“What do you need right now? Can I help in any way?”

His gaze darted into the living room and then out the window to the backyard. “No, I think you deserve the afternoon off. You’ll be drying the leaves in the evening, right?”

“Yup. Magic hour.”

“I think magic hour is at three in the morning.”

“Oh really? Then what is twilight?”

“Twilight.”

Made sense.

I scooped up the books in the living room and headed to my favorite sycamore tree at the edge of the village, facing the Forbidden Wood. With the daylight burning bright, keeping all the demon’s creatures at bay, and that invisible barrier keeping the beast put, it was safe. I settled down on the ground against its trunk and spread out the books in front of me, deciding which I wanted to read right now.

The easy no was the book I’d grabbed about trees and their habitats. While I did want to study up on that damn birch, and the author had written these delightful asides about poisonous mushrooms and other poisons found in nature, I didn’t have the brain capacity right now. I was tired from lack of sleep and anxious about getting those leaves dried just right later on. I pushed it aside.

The romance was high on my list for obvious reasons. I desperately needed that kind of escape. But my gaze kept drifting to the book I’d grabbed about the history of my people, the shifters. Although there were only three kingdoms of shifters now—well, two, since the curse had essentially wiped us off the map—there’d once been five. Two kingdoms led by dragon shifters, two by the wolves, and a lone bear queen and her people. Only the wolf kings and queens now remained, tenacious bastards.

There were other kingdoms, of course, near and far. A few faerie kingdoms with their court politics and intrigues. Hideous goblins with their heaps of stolen treasure. The land of night, ruled by the vampires. And, of course, the cunning demon king who was slowly cutting down all of his competition. Within each kingdom, various villages and towns housed the hardworking people, usually all the same magical type—shifters lived in a shifter kingdom, faeries in a faerie kingdom—but occasionally a star-crossed lover would move in for a little magical diversity, sacrificing sameness for their love. That, or they’d escape beyond the veil to the human realm, disguising themselves within the mundane, often never to return.

The rumor was that the dragon prince had left our kingdom for that very reason. He’d fancied a noble faerie and moved away to her kingdom to be with her, shirking his duties as our prince and future king. Giving it all up for a chance at love.

I couldn’t say I blamed him. Everyone deserved a chance at happiness, even princes. I doubted he had known the cost.

Maybe he still didn’t know. Maybe the mad king had cut him off. We might have been erased from his mind.

It was impossible to know. Nobles weren’t known for hobnobbing with poor commoners, and we were the poorest in the kingdom. We had the least fertile lands and worst commodities. We were one of the farthest out from the castle. Whatever had happened, I doubted anyone in this village had known more than mere rumor. It was probably why no one continued to speculate. Why I hadn’t heard anything more about the curse once I was old enough to understand the larger picture.

The book from the library didn’t talk about the prince’s flight, of course. It was too old. Even still, it offered some sort of connection to our past, to the way things used to be, and I needed to believe they’d be that way again. So I pulled the book onto my lap and settled in.

After a while, a yawn took hold of me, and I bumped my head against the tree, feeling a wave of fatigue. Hopefully tonight I could catch up on some sleep. It was nearly time to go hunting again, and I’d need my stamina to face down those asshole boars. I was one of the only people in the village who routinely took on those beasts, but they had the best and most meat. It was worth the risk.

A moment later, I opened my eyes…and then blinked a few more times.

The light had dwindled around me. A cool breeze drifted across my face, signaling the coming evening. The book that had been in my lap had tipped halfway off, its edge propped against the ground.

I’d only intended to close my eyes for a moment, but I’d obviously fallen asleep.

I sat up, grimacing from the stiffness in my back and legs. If I’d wanted to nap, I should’ve done it in my bed. Not like I’d been planning it.

As I lifted my book and reached over to grab the others, prickles skittered up my back and crawled across my scalp. Eyes. Someone was watching me. A presence, likely dangerous. I didn’t need a connection with my animal to ascertain any of that. Hunting gave a person a certain sixth sense.

I stacked my books nice and neat, a little away from me, and uncrossed my legs. If I needed to move fast, I could.

Nonchalantly, as though I didn’t know anything was amiss, I stretched and did the ol’ look-over-the-shoulder trick. No one waited in sight, though that didn’t mean they weren’t behind me.

I pushed forward to my hands and knees, like I was going to get up, and then peered around the tree trunk. Nothing. Deserted.

I’d half expected Jedrek to be lingering around. I’d rebuffed him publicly today. He wouldn’t make the mistake of approaching me in front of an audience again, but a guy like him wouldn’t relent, either. His ego wouldn’t let him. I expected him to try to catch me alone and then scare me into acquiescing.

But he wasn’t a small man. If he were the lurking presence, I would’ve seen him. Still…the prickles persisted. A strange feeling of heaviness filled my chest, just like I’d felt last night before…

I froze.

Nothing sexual came with it this time. Only a trickle of fire that seeped into my limbs.

I swept my gaze across the darkening trees, the failing light leeching the color from the area. Nothing moved within the lengthening shadows. The light breeze didn’t stir the branches. All was still and quiet.

That did nothing to shake my certainty. Something lurked in the patches of darkness nestled between the branches in front of me. Something watched and waited.

Chills spread across my flesh.

Slowly I got up and grabbed my books. I didn’t intend to hang around and see what the night would bring. Besides, I had things to do. I needed to attend to those leaves.

Turning, I thought I heard the shimmy of leaves.

I jerked my head back toward the Forbidden Wood and squinted as I peered into the gloom. Whatever it was, it was well hidden.

My nerve snapped. I clutched the books to my chest as though they would protect me—classic bookworm reaction—and hurried home.

I slammed the front door behind me and sucked in a deep breath.

“What’s the matter?” Hannon asked, looking up from his own book in the front room.

“Nothing. Just…” I set my books on the little table by the door and plopped down on the couch next to him. “I got spooked, is all. The Forbidden Wood is messing with my mind.”

“Good. That’ll keep you out of there.”

“I want nothing more than to be kept out of there.”

“The day is dying,” he said, going back to his book.

“In other words, get out of your hair and do something useful?”

“Yes. This is a good part.”

“Where are the kids?”

“With their friends.”

They’d be home soon. The setting sun was curfew for children, no exceptions. Even if a creature didn’t wander out of the Forbidden Wood, there were still the demons that lurked in the village after dark. Since the curse, the night was too dangerous for children.

I peeled myself off the couch and headed outside to tend to the everlass.

Time passed in a series of familiar movements. At some point, Dash brought out a bowl of stew and then hung around, listening as I described what I was doing. Working with plants—this one especially—calmed me in a way I couldn’t describe. I enjoyed the careful finesse it required. The way its properties changed with its environment.

In a few hours, I finally finished my tasks and shoved Dash inside so he could go to bed. This harvest would last for a while, thanks to the strong, healthy plants the leaves had come from. By the time I needed more, my plants would hopefully be thriving in the spring sun.

Glowing golden eyes stared at me from the trees. Terror pounded a steady beat in my body. A roar sliced through my bones while also yanking on my middle.

I jerked awake, snapping my eyes open.

Damn that beast’s glowing eyes. I was sure I dreamed of other things, but the only thing I ever remembered upon waking was those accursed glowing eyes, and now the roar, apparently.

A low, menacing growl curled through the air. Cold flowed through my veins.

Please say I’m still dreaming. Please say I’m still dreaming.

I was afraid to move, to turn my head to the side and look for the source of the noise.

The growl sounded again, deep and low, from the same place.

Right outside my bedroom window.

Dread pierced me, and I sat up slowly, fighting the fear freezing my joints.

This couldn’t be what I thought it was. It couldn’t be. The beast couldn’t pass the boundary of the Forbidden Wood. Or at least that was what people said.

The deep growl sounded for the third time, rolling through the dense night air.

“Finley!” Sable lay on her side facing me. Through the hazy moonlight I could just see her wide eyes. She’d heard it too. It was no dream. This impossible situation was happening in real time.

The moonlight through the window flickered…and then went dark, something enormous blocking the light.

“Goddess help us,” Sable said with a quivering voice. “The beast has come for us.”

“It’s fine. It’s going to be fine.”

How was this possible?

I threw myself down and rolled onto the floor. It might be able to see in the dark, but it shouldn’t be able to see much detail through our shades, even as worn and flimsy as they were.

“Don’t move,” I whispered.

On elbows and knees, I crawled to the rickety dresser in the corner. The light resumed streaming in through the window. The beast had moved on.

I pushed up to standing and grabbed my dagger off the top. A moment later, I hurried to the door and ripped it open.

A scream tore through my throat, cut off quickly by a hand clamped to my mouth. Hannon put a single finger to his lips.

I swiped his hand away and pushed past him. I wouldn’t have needed the warning if he hadn’t surprised the shit out of me.

Father coughed behind his closed door, his chest rattling.

Let’s not worry about that now, folks. Let’s work on keeping the whole family alive first.

In the front room, I reached the front door and made sure the heavy wooden beam had been lowered. Its end rested in the metal cradle that secured it in place. Moonlight flickered against the white wood. Then the light dimmed…before it mostly went out.

I closed my eyes as my heart stuttered. Every nerve ending was pinging with electricity. Adrenaline had flooded my system.

Beside the window overlooking the porch, we had three windows in the front room. The two that faced the backyard were close together, and a third looked out onto the side yard between our house and another. Judging by the difference in lighting, both back windows had just been obstructed.

We didn’t have shades on those windows.

Time slowed down as I turned. I knew what I would find.

My nightmares had come to life.

A large, glowing golden eye took up residence in one of the windows.

It was hard to breathe. That strange feeling in my chest rolled outward, fire leaking out from my center and into my limbs. But even as my body burned, my blood had turned to ice. I couldn’t move from fear.

That eye wasn’t more than fifteen feet away, much closer than the last time I’d seen it. Much closer. Through my fear-induced paralysis, I couldn’t help but take in every detail. A thin, vertical oval took up the center, the pupil similar to a cat’s but rounder. A deep, brawny gold outlined the black before exploding outward in a sunburst of color, lined through with streaks of lighter gold, orange, red, and yellow. Along the edges, darker patches shone through, making the sunburst that much more dramatic.

It was beautiful.

It blinked, and I saw that there were two sets of eyelids. The first looked like more of a sheen that slid over from the side. Then the human equivalent, top coming down and meeting the lower lid. The blink happened quickly, but the movement made me jerk.

“Finley?”

Dash’s voice rang down the hall. The golden eye flicked in that direction, as if the beast had heard.

A different sort of fear ate through the first, and I was all action again, launching forward to intercept Dash running into the living room.

“Stay back,” I barked, stopping in the center of the room to block his progress. I held out a hand. “Stay back! Stay out of sight.”

That gorgeous but awful golden eye slid back to me, taking me in, pushing past my barriers and taking my measure. I could feel it, as if he’d ripped out my soul and placed it on a scale.

The eye disappeared, and the body followed, dark scales moving beyond the window. In a moment, the moonlight came back, flaring through the darkness.

The sound of shattering glass made me flinch and lift my arm in front of my face. Something thunked against the wooden floor and skittered to my feet. My pocketknife.

I stared at it as though from a different body. A different world.

It had retrieved my pocketknife. Then it had tracked me here. It knew who I was and what I’d done. It must.

And now it had come to collect.

This might go very badly, everybody. Hang tight for the finale, I thought desperately, my whole body shaking.

I needed action. I needed to break out of these fear-induced shackles and use the energy for something useful. But what? What the hell was I going to do against a creature this size? Hiding seemed to be the only thing available to me right now. Hiding…or a distraction.

Tears welled up in my eyes, but I didn’t give in to them. To save my family, I’d do anything, including running blindly toward the Forbidden Wood so it would chase me. So that my family could get out.

“What do I do?” Hannon asked quietly from the hall.

“Keep them safe,” I said in a hollow voice as I steeled my courage. I bent slowly and picked up the closed pocketknife with my free hand, avoiding the shards of glass on the floor. The light guttered out again, and there was that golden eye, taking my measure. Waiting, it seemed like. Offering me a choice. Give myself up or risk my family.

Choose.

With the window broken, I could now hear the beast. Its puffs of breath in the quiet night. The simmering growl deep in its chest.

It wasn’t a choice. Not for me. It was an eventuality.

“Gather the kids near the large window in your room,” I whispered to Hannon, a tear dripping from my eye. I slipped the pocketknife into the pocket of my pajama bottoms. “If it comes to it, you climb out with them and get them to safety. Otherwise, hunker down and stay put. I’ll distract the beast.”

“No, Finley.” Hannon stepped forward as if to grab me and haul me away to safety.

I threw out my hand. “Stay put, damn it! You have the everlass. Chartreuse in the village square knows how to make the nulling elixir better than anyone else besides me. Ask her for help. Keep Father alive. I’ll…” What would I do? What could I possibly do against a beast? “I will get through this somehow, and I will come back for you, okay? Keep them alive. All of them.”

The tears leaked down my cheeks. My words dripped with sorrow. We both knew I wouldn’t be coming back.

It was okay, though. He’d look after them better than I could. He was the family rock in the ongoing storm.

“I love you all,” I said, turning and stalking quickly for the door.

“What’s she doing?” Dash whined.

“No, Finley,” Sable said, all of them huddled at the entrance to the dark hall.

I removed the wood blocking the door. I paused but didn’t look back. I wanted to go out a hero. I didn’t want the last image they had of me to be of a scared girl headed out to meet her fate.