Chapter 3
Edith did not run, running attracted attention and made people look at you like you had grown an extra tail.
So she absolutely did not run. There was no need, unless it involved cake, then she would have ran like the wind.
Instead, she just exited the pub at a speed that could generously be described as urgent but dignified, slipping through the door of Ferret’s Mott the second no one was looking her way, and launched herself into the night air like a very small, very determined purple missile.
“Not running,” she muttered as her wings beat furiously. “Strategically relocating.”
Her wings burned almost immediately, of course they did, she hadn't done this much cardio in well, forever. Practical, she corrected herself pointedly. These wings were practical. Subtle. Inconspicuous, and also currently on fire.
“Fantastic,” she wheezed, flapping harder.
The hollow wasn’t far, and she thanked every mildly benevolent force in existence, but it felt like crossing an entire continent with every aching beat of her wings.
She pushed harder anyway. Because behind her… in that pub… were two very specific problems.
Twin problems. Hooded, silent, terrifyingly competent problems. Edith didn’t look back, admitting the very clear, very immediate understanding that if you stayed in the same room as them for too long. You would be found.
Her wings faltered slightly, a piercing sting running through them. “Keep going,” she hissed to herself. “Nearly there.”
The Hollow came into view at last, tucked safely into the curve of the land, hidden enough that you had to know it was there to find it.
Home, her chest tightened at the thought.
Edith angled downward, landing a little less gracefully than she would have liked, more a controlled tumble than elegant descent, but she didn’t care.
She scrambled inside, claws skittering against stone before she finally came to a stop. Edith stayed still for a moment, breathing hard, her wings twitching as they protested the abuse she’d just put them through.
“Ow,” she muttered faintly, before she scrambled to her corner in the living room.
“Well,” she added, flopping unceremoniously onto her side, “that could have gone better.”
Her gaze drifted to the small pile of odds and ends she’d collected over time; trinkets, shiny bits, the occasional questionable snack wrapper she refused to throw away for entirely sentimental reasons, and there, organised neatly…
her winnings. Or rather, what should have been her winnings. Edith’s eyes narrowed.
“Denzel,” she said darkly. She’d had an excellent hand… a beautiful hand, in fact A hand that practically screamed victory and what had she done?
Folded. Abandoned it and fled the scene like a dramatic heroine in a badly written play.
Denzel was probably still up there, smug as anything, scooping up her coins and acting like he’d earned them. “Robbery,” Edith muttered. “Absolute robbery.”
She huffed, a small puff of lavender smoke escaping her nostrils.
Honestly, the audacity, but even as she grumbled, the truth settled back in. Heavy and unavoidable. Her claws curled slightly against the ground. Her thoughts returning to the two hunters in the bar.
“They’ve never met me,” she said quickly, lifting her head. “They don’t know what I look like. They don’t know I’m here.” Her tail flicked. “They won’t meet me,” she added, more firmly.
Because she wasn’t going to let that happen, not now and not ever.
“I am not going back,” she said, the words firm and certain.
Not back to the clan nor back to the cage they dressed up as marriage. Her stomach twisted at the thought of what they had planned. Gods. The thought alone made her scales itch.
“Absolutely not,” she said, louder this time, and if they thought they could just drag her back, drug her and tie her up, deliver her like a parcel… Edith growled. “They can bloody well try.”
Her claws curled again. “But they won’t succeed.” Because she would… her mind jumped, unhelpfully, to the ghost in the pub. “Make like Blackbeard at dawn and vamoose,” she finished.
She snorted. A small, slightly hysterical sound. “Well, that’s staying in the vocabulary.”
Edith rolled onto her back briefly, staring up at the ceiling. She had picked up the local lingo fast. Binky and the lads had made sure of that. Whether she wanted to or not.
“Can’t say ‘vamoose’ in a life-or-death situation without sounding ridiculous,” she mused. “Actually, no, that might improve things.”
Another huff of laughter escaped her before it faded. Because, beneath it, the fear was still there, it was just quieter now. Edith turned onto her side again, curling slightly, her wings pulling in close.
“They’ll be looking,” she said softly, of course they would, that was what they did. And they were good at it.
Very good.
That was why they’d been called in. They were the last resort.
“They won’t find me,” she whispered again, but the words didn’t sit as solidly as she wanted them to. Because she had thought she was hidden before, had thought she was safe. Thought she had outrun all of it and now, they were here. In her town, near her people and near her family.
Edith’s throat tightened, Jessica, Maeve and her cousins, the lads, Denzel… even Denzel, the coin-hoarding menace.
Would they still look at her the same way if they knew? If they knew she wasn’t just some stray little dragon but something else? Someone with a past and enemies that she may have led straight to their door?
“I can’t let that happen,” she said, barely audible. Because that was the part that mattered most.
Not her, but them. If the hunters found her, they wouldn’t care who got caught in the middle. Edith couldn’t, no, she wouldn’t risk that.
Her gaze flicked toward the entrance of the Hollow and towards the town beyond, out towards everything she had built here.
Slowly and not so gracefully she pushed herself upright, her wings ached and her body felt heavy. But her mind was sharp. “They’re good,” she said quietly. “But so am I.”
She had survived worse and escaped it, so she could do this. What she had to do was simple; she had to leave. The thought landed, solid and terrible.
Edith stilled. “No,” she said immediately. That was too fast, and far too defensive. “I just got here,” she whispered. “I just…”
Her voice faltered, because that was the problem, wasn’t it? She hadn’t just got here, she had built something, grown roots, made connections and created a life in this little town. So the idea of walking away from it hurt. Like hell.
Edith swallowed hard, her eyes stinging. “I hate this,” she muttered.
Silence answered her and, after a moment, she let out a slow breath.
“Alright,” she said, steadier now. “We don’t panic. We don’t spiral. We come up with a plan.” She tapped her claw against the tile. “Step one: avoid mysterious twins at all costs.”
Another tap.
“Step two: possibly reclaim winnings from Denzel before leaving because that still feels important.”
She nodded to herself.
“Step three: vamoose.”
The word helped.
A little.
Edith huffed softly, squaring her tiny shoulders. “They don’t get to decide what happens to me,” she said firmly. Not her father, nor her clan, nor the bloody hunters that cost her more than just calories from unwanted cardio. No, not anyone.
With one last glance toward the outside world, Edith curled her tail around herself, settling in but not relaxing. Because sleep wouldn’t come easy tonight, it wasn’t every day your past caught up with you and tried to bite you on the arse.