A Ruin of Roses (Deliciously Dark Fairytales Book 1)

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That’s only because we’re down to the weak everlass leaves. As soon as the spring comes it’ll be better, Hannon, you’ll see. I’ll find a cure for him. He won’t join Nana and Mommy in the beyond. He won’t. I will find a cure. It must exist.” In this house, we received it as a thanks for helping with the everlass or elixir. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.

This plant was regal. Regal meaning incredibly fussy and hard to work with. If you were too rough or hasty in your ministrations, it would shrivel and reduce in potency. It demanded focused and careful attention, if not love. Bah.” She swatted the air. “That’s what happens when you mate a woman who is too supportive. You make a fool of yourself.” Nothing,” I murmured. It wasn’t ladylike to swear, or so the people of our antiquated village always reminded me. It was equally unladylike to flip them off after they scowled at me. Very uptight, this village, and without two coppers to rub together, the lot of us.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.”

She was just fourteen, the age I’d been when I narrowly survived the beast only to lose Nana anyway. I gave the shivering birch a wider berth, thankful when it stopped moving. The night fell quiet once again, the screaming imposter taking a break for a moment. The field lay before me, coated in moonlight. I turned and gave Sable a fierce hug, kissing her on the head. Dash was next, and then I had to peel him away. All the noise around me, I guess, I don’t know. The birch and then the owl. Or maybe the draught to deaden smell didn’t work? It’s not like I have ever properly tested it in the Forbidden Wood. I’ve only ever tested it in the forests to the south and east, on real animals in natural habitats, not on demon creatures in an evil ecosystem. The magic in the Forbidden Wood is twisted.” 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.Finley: "That’s what mothers do—they guide. They strengthen. They support, and they never stop loving their children. Never. I doubt a rosebush would begrudge her son his wild spirit.”

Confusion crossed his face. He tilted his head and then started laughing without humor. He lowered his arms.I let my breath out very slowly. The animal was southwest of me, in the same direction as the owl’s outburst, but closer. I didn’t mention that “little” Dalia Foster was nearly my age and didn’t have any fruit left to offer…from any of her orifices. She’d experienced physical intimacy early, I’d heard, and experimented heavily. Apparently, the birth-nulling tea had failed her. But at least she had a good excuse to tell her overbearing father.