22 I'll Do My Bes

Ash sighed. "I'm sorry, I really can't—"

Ruby cut him off. "I don't know when I'm going to have my own place. You have time to practice. But no skipping out on me either. I fully expect you to stay in this castle while I'm out traveling so I can still come find you."

Practice? It had taken him centuries to be able to do even a partial barrier! What she wanted from him truly might not be possible in the next hundred years. He doubted she would be willing to wait that long.

Besides…there was a very good chance Ash would end up dying during his attempt at revenge. He didn't care about that as long as he managed to take all of the Cromwells down with him.

He might be dead before he got the chance to make that barrier for her. He didn't want to lie but this was his only chance. If he had every intention of fulfilling the deal in life she couldn't be mad at him for not following through once he was dead. Even if she was it wouldn't matter.

"I'll do my best," Ash said reluctantly. "If I devote all my time to practicing when you're asleep I should be able to do it by the time you buy your land."

Ruby smiled at him and took her dirty glove off, holding her hand out for a shake. He knew this custom adopted from the humans at least; it had been around forever. Feeling a bit guilty that he had deceived her, he shook her hand to adjust the terms of their deal.

With that, they returned to what they were doing before. She pruned while he acted as her errand boy because he knew nothing about gardening.

It soon became too dark to continue so Ruby instructed him to pick up all the fallen branches and leaves from beneath the bush and put them in a large trash can she had bought specifically to collect them in, planning to make mulch later.

She claimed she would have done it herself if she could see but Ash had a strange feeling she was taking advantage of him for free labor. For some reason he didn't even care.

Once he finished his task, he headed back inside and found her in the kitchen pouring some sort of syrup onto the food that came out of the contraption she called a toaster. She began cutting them with her fork and shoveling them into her mouth with reckless abandon.

Ash had to hold back his laughter. Did all fairies eat like this or was she simply hungry after working outside for so long today?

He watched her with a certain degree of amusement. Ruby was surprisingly decent company. She certainly kept him on his toes. He found that he didn't mind the thought of keeping her blood seal intact so she could come back to find him in the future.

===

Ash had been practicing raising the barrier for days and had gotten it to go about a foot higher than it had been before. Not terribly helpful. He knew this wouldn't work; he was worthless when it came to magic.

He was decent at wielding a sword, had catlike reflexes, was faster than any other race of fae but werewolves, and had some managerial skills but none of those would help him now. Ruby needed someone good at blood magic.

None of those things had helped him then either except his ability to run away. He hadn't wanted to run. He would have gladly died with his coven if not for the burning desire to destroy those who hurt them first.

Thirty-six vampires. Nineteen of them had been with him since the old country. Eight had been native to North America and joined up with them for some reason or other as they moved west. The remaining nine had been born since they settled here.

Fae children weren't born often. A couple could be together for centuries and only have one or two. The Mayhew coven had been lucky that so many new vampires were born in the space of three hundred years.

And he hadn't been able to save a single one of them. The youngest had only been seventeen years old. His sister's baby, whose fangs hadn't even grown in yet.

Ash had hoped at the very least that he would be able to save little Ezra but he was so small and slow that he had been one of the first to be killed in the massacre. His mother had rushed forward to grab him and she had died instantly. She had to know that trying to fruitlessly save her child would lead to her death but she dove in headfirst anyway.

Ariadne was his only sibling born 316 years after he was. When she was little, she hadn't known how to pronounce his name—it had been a bit of a mouthful—so she shortened it to Ash. Everyone else started calling him that too out of convenience so he couldn't even remember what his original name was anymore. He hadn't heard it in over four hundred years.

His first instinct was to rush out there and rip her killer's throat out with his teeth but someone stopped him. Lucian. His father's most trusted advisor before vampire hunters had killed him, resulting in the coven fleeing to the New World.

"She is already dead, Lord Ash. Going out there will not bring her back. You need to get away from here; you are the fastest so you have the best chance to live and fight another day."

He had been right but that didn't mean Ash had to like it. Hearing the horrified screams of his brethren had made him want to inflict as much damage as he could before being taken out himself.

The Cromwells had nearly double their numbers. They never stood a chance. Those who were trying to fight back bravely were dying faster than they would have otherwise. But no one from the proud Mayhew coven would even consider running when they needed to defend their castle.

Lucian had forced him to go by using harsh words about how revenge wouldn't be possible if everyone was dead. In the end he offered himself up as a distraction so Ash could get away.