Page 106 of When Roses Burn

He brightened a little. “We are.”

“Do you work on the rosebushes outside the castle grounds too?”

“Yes. Some of them respond better to us than others, even in the castle.”

I’d seen the differences in some of the roses. The one I’d discovered in the woods was barely hanging on, but some of the ones in the castle looked as bad.

I didn’t know what caused the differences in some; it could be that the essence of the shifter remained and was hanging on better than others, or it could simply be their location. I’d love to discover the answer, but I didn’t know how.

“What about the roses in the woods?” I asked. “Do you tend to them too?”

“We don’t go far into the woods anymore,” he replied. “It’s too dangerous. We go outside the castle walls and into the town, and we’ll travel through the forest closest to the walls sometimes, but no further than that. I’m sure you could tell that by the trees you passed on your way here. They’re doing far worse than those in the castle and surrounding it.”

“I could.”

I set to work gathering what I’d need to make the potion. Using the spigot over a white basin, I poured some water into a cauldron, built a fire in the stone fireplace, and set the cauldron over the flames.

While I waited for the water to boil, I gathered the hairs from my pail and removed some lavender oil from a shelf. I could create the potion without lavender, but it helped bring out the oil inside the hairs faster.

I swirled some of the lavender oil into the cauldron and stirred it with a large wooden spoon. When the water started boiling, I carefully placed the hairs into the pot and stirred until they emitted a sweet, earthy scent.

After another hour, I wiped the sweat from my forehead, removed the cauldron, and set to work establishing strainers to remove the hairs from the liquid before storing the potion. It took a while for the mixture to cool enough to pour it into the glass containers, but once it did, I made quick work of filling and stoppering them.

Once I finished, I lifted one of the glass containers and gave it a little shake. The mixture was cloudy, as it should be, but no debris littered it.

“I’m ready,” I told Zephyr.

I didn’t realize how sweaty and sore I was until my back protested when I straightened up. My clothes cleaved to me, hair stuck annoyingly to my face, and my muscles ached from being bent over the glass jars, but it was good work, and I’d enjoyed doing it as a child.

“Then let’s go,” Zephyr said.

He led the way out of the room and on toward my bleeding heart. For the first time, doubt filled me; it had been years since I’d made a potion.

What if I messed up? What if I kill the poor plant?

I gulped at the possibility, but I had to try. If I succeeded, then I’d have a purpose again, but if I failed…

If I failed, I’d probably end up locked away again, possibly forever.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

Knox

Three days passed before we returned to the castle. Those three days were some of the most irritating of my life as Briar haunted my sleep. Her scent had somehow ingrained itself on me, and the beast was not happy with my decision to leave the castle and her behind.

All I’d wanted was to get away from the woman who loved a man that didn’t exist. And all the beast wanted was to fuck her until she forgot about that man.

Thankfully, on the second day, we encountered some ogres who were stupid enough to believe they could survive entering Wildwood. I unleashed some of my frustration on them by beating them to death.

That beating had also allowed the beast to play, something it had been clamoring to do since I’d denied it Briar in the library. It wasn’t the only one who got to play as I’d gladly hacked and battered three of the ogres to death without the beast’s help.

The oversized, vicious creatures had believed Wildwood was weak enough for them to enter; they paid for their stupidity. I had a feeling the rest of their kind would stay away for a while, which was why we patrolled the kingdom at least once a month. If we didn’t, creatures who believed it was easy pickings would overrun Wildwood.

The dragon also helped keep invaders at bay. While some were still foolish enough to think they could get past the dragon and us, many others learned their lesson the hard way. They’d also discovered it was impossible to kill something that consisted entirely of darkness, like the dragon was.

On the third day, we found a group of strigoi who had wandered in from their kingdom of Bloodborne. It wasn’t the first time we’d encountered them, and it wouldn’t be the last while Wildwood remained cursed.

While the strigoi lived well enough in Bloodborne, they couldn’t venture out into the sun. Since learning they could survive the day under the clouded sky of Wildwood, they’d tried repeatedly to venture into the kingdom.