Something has found a seam and put its weight on it.
“Enough,” Gran says, no longer the woman who crochets and bakes bread; she is Eloise of Ruby Cottage, she’s the guardian, theshieldbetween me and what waits in the woods.
The gray wolf steps into view through the window, wearing night like a borrowed coat. He lifts his head andlooks at her through the glass.The wards vibrate, steady, then dip again as he leans his weight a fraction more into the seam he’s found.
Stay away, Scarlet.
The dream hears Grandma. It tightens around that thought until it is the only thing I can hold. Truth crystallizes cold and absolute: he’s gone to Ruby Cottage to draw me out.
He isn’t huntingher.
He’s baitingme.
He wants me to run straight into his teeth.
“No,” I breathe.
The dream flinches as the wards shatter. The gray wolf doesn’t hurry. He prowls around the cottage to the front door, which explodes seconds later to admit his mangled form.
Gran moves toward the pantry, toward the salt jar and the hawthorn pins. I see the angles of the room the wolf will use as he prowls toward her; the edge of the table that will bruise her, the corner that will catch her, the soft vulnerability of her throat...
The dream tightens… and snaps, sending me lurching back into my body.
“Grandma!”
Reid lifts his head as her name dies in my throat, his palm warm at my waist. “Scarlett? What is it?”
I swallow past my dry throat. “The gray wolf is at Ruby Cottage. He’s going to hurt Grandma to draw me out.”
His gaze sharpens. The wolf in him listens for a threat; the man in him goes still.
“We can’t leave her vulnerable.” My voice cracks on the last word. “We have to help her.”
He nods immediately. “We will.” Strategy clicks into place behind his eyes. “But we do it together. No splitting up.”
His words settle in my bones, knowing I’m not alone. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 11
Scarlett
When we break from the treeline, my stomach drops. The soft glow that usually smudges the roofline is gone; the protective lattice my grandmother wove looks shredded, the threads snapped, and the corners frayed.
Ruby Cottage shouldn’t sound like this; it shouldn’tbreathe. The wards that hummed like bees tucked into warm comb now hiss, a thin, angry sound that raises the hair on my arms. Ash and rosemary hang in the air, but the rosemary has turned bitter.
I hear it before I see anything. Wet breath. Claws dragging slowly across wood. Grandma’s magic flailing against something older and hungrier.
“She’s in there,” I whisper.
Reid’s hand closes around my arm, warm and steady. “Scarlett?—”
“She’s in there.” The words are raw in my throat.
“We do this smart.” His voice is low and leashed. “He’s baiting you. He’s been?—”
“—circling me for years,” I finish in an oddly calm voice. I lurch against Reid as everything is revealed to me in a blinding vision. “He couldn’t touch me while the wards protected me. He had to wait until I was beyond their protection. Until I left to get the wild ginger. Then you bit me, and our bond changed my magic. It cut the last thread of protection, leaving him free to mark me.”
The truth clangs in my skull. I thought I was strengthening the wards by leaving. I thought I was protecting us. Some part of me knew I was walking into the forest with a lit match, but I didn’t understand what would burn.
