Page 25 of Twisting Twilight (Homesteader Hearth Witch #9)
“So are we sharing this cave?” Emmett asked, eyeing the hissing dragonet. “Didn’t I hear you say something about these little fellas having venom in their spurs?”
“Does it have spurs?” Kian asked, pressing against my back as he strained further over my shoulder.
The fae wasn’t about to give me up as a body shield.
“Ardgal wasn’t clear at what age a luachra grows its spurs—I think he got eaten before he could publish his findings and no one’s been able to find his lost journals. ”
Cody snorted. “They’re probably with Ardgal’s bones in a pile of dragon sh?—”
“If you wanna know if it has spurs, Book Boy, you go take a look at it,” Flora said.
“I’ll just erect a shield,” I told them. “The dragonet can stay on one side of the cave and we can stay on the other.”
“Won’t that kind of sustained magic give us away?” Shari asked.
Thistle thorns. Shannon’s warning: ‘ More than fae take notice of magic.’ What I would do for a parasite ring right now.
“I suppose we could take shifts,” I offered.
“To guard against two fronts?” Cody asked. “Better we only have one to deal with.”
“We’re not killing it,” Daphne said vehemently.
“I didn’t say that! I mean we grab it and throw it outside. Make it find a new hidey-hole.”
“So whatever injured it in the first place can finish the job?” She leaned her staff against the cavern wall and gave Cody an impatient wave to shoo him out of her way.
“The spurs, Mare!” Flora objected as Daphne approached the hissing dragonet.
“You can’t tame a draig,” Kian protested. “You can’t even reason with?—”
Barbed tail rattling, the baby dragonet stood up to its full height and gave Daphne its best growl.
“I’ll have none of that,” Daphne said sharply.
The dragonet actually balked.
In one quick and fluid motion, Daphne bent down and scooped the dragonet under its belly.
The creature squeaked in surprise, but before it could react, the woman had it snuggled against her stomach.
Daphne held it like she would a grumpy cat, forearm cradling its weight and its front legs pinched in a three-finger hold.
Her other hand was already scratching lightly against the beast’s throat.
The baby luachra didn’t know whether to squirm or lean into the scratching fingers.
“Now let’s see about those spurs.” The luachra only gave a grunt when she angled it to get a look at its rear feet. “Four toes. Not even a nubbin at the back where a spur should be.”
She hefted the baby one-handed to eye level. It didn’t struggle. “Now you’re going to be nice, aren’t you? We’re not going to have any trouble while we all hide out here together, isn’t that right?”
The baby didn’t get a chance to reply before it was snuggled once again against Daphne’s stomach. It got a pat on the head for its calmness. “That’s a good little critter.”
She turned back around to a sea of stunned faces.
“Druidess blood for the win again,” she said, a touch smug.
Careful not to jostle the wounded wing, she returned to where she left her walking staff.
Daphne sank to the ground, the baby luachra snuggling into her lap and the heat of her hands.
Its wounded wing draped over her knee, the membrane slowly knitting back together as we watched.
“I-I stand corrected.” Kian immediately whipped out his notebook. “Druidess, you say?”
“If you hold it steady, I could probably heal it and it could just be on its way,” I offered, crouching down.
The baby luachra immediately snarled, talons digging into Daphne’s dress.
“Maybe not, Misty.” She gave me a kind smile and stroked the length of the luachra’s neck. Its snarl calmed into a malcontent grumble. “Perhaps slow and steady is the name of the game here.”
“ And silence,” Flora added, casting a worried look towards the leafy sky. The reddish shafts of sunlight darkened and lightened as the shadows of the searching luachra passed overhead. She backed away into the cave.
We all took a seat in the cave, not exactly packed like sardines but definitely leaving no room for anyone’s personal bubble.
With the forest quieting and nothing else rousing from the cavern depths behind us, the adrenaline of the afternoon drained away like dirty dishwater.
The older folks succumbed to sleep first, sagging against the cave walls, floor, each other.
Flora grew a series of bean shoot-ish tripwires at the rear of our camp; Kian unbuttoned his coat to release Fiachna.
The opossum demanded a reassuring cuddle, and the two dozed off with the fat white creature curled around the fae male’s throat like a winter neck gaiter.
My fingers twitched with the desire to seek comfort with my own furry friend and found emptiness instead.
My limbs trembled as I fought to take one deep, steadying breath after another.
Sawyer was alive; I could sense that much through the bond.
Though the distance separating us prevented worded communication, the strongest emotions could still travel between us.
He was anxious, but unharmed, and certainly not dying of luachra venom.
I radiated as much comfort and determination and love as I could through the magic binding us, reassuring him he was not abandoned.
And clamped my hands into fists at my sides to keep me from burying Faebane into the junior scholar’s gut.
Some small, mean part of me blamed Kian for Sawyer’s kidnapping.
But if I was being honest with myself, I was the one who had failed my little cat.
I should have insisted he leave the dragonflies alone, as Kian had warned.
I should have commanded the earth to swallow him immediately, like I had with the faelight coyotes, and given him a subterranean tunnel with which to escape.
I should’ve called a storm to blow the luachra away or blind it with rain or stun it with lightning.
All this magic at my disposal and I’d reverted to what I was most familiar with—which hadn’t been enough.
Even if Kian hadn’t knocked me aside, my vines still would’ve fallen short.
And when Sawyer fell out of the sky, why hadn’t I summon a cyclone to catch him?
Or a wave of water to slide him harmlessly to the ground?
Thistle thorns, I could’ve made an illusion of him and layered it on a jackrabbit and led the dragonet on a merry chase before an irate éan sídhe came screeching after it.
So many options. So much new magic. And I had failed Violet’s instruction: growth .
Instead, I’d shriveled back into my seed, afraid to test my limits.
Was that why my oak tree was transforming more and more into that dark sword?
As a defensive measure? Like a fearful dog who only knew how to be aggressive?
Kian had only made the best of a terrible situation. His interference had allowed us to find refuge in the Fire Grove before the luachra’s reinforcements arrived to pick us off in the prairie. But he shouldn’t have had to.
Anger pricked me like a thicket of stinging nettle. With a violent squirm, I found a more comfortable position on the ground and held my index finger up to eye level.
“Water,” I ordered.