"Scarlet, get a look at him." Bee nudged me in the ribs.
I gritted my teeth, my hands juggling the jar of chamomile I'd just pulled off the shelf. "For the love of wolfsbane."
Honestly, Bee had the boniest elbow in all the seven realms of Haven. No matter how often I protested, she insisted on jabbing me right in the side every time she had something to say. Her idea of grabbing my attention wasn't tapping my shoulder but inflicting pain. I twisted around and my gaze flew through the arched windows of my store, Get Your Herb On.
A huge man marched out of the woods, arms swinging in an over-exaggerated motion. His chest stuck out, and with his chin high, I had him figured out in two seconds flat. I'd seen so many of his kind leaving the priestess's palace. Guards, full of cockiness and attitude, taking what they wanted without paying for goods.
Yet he wasn't wearing a uniform, but the strangest clothes. A gray tunic falling to mid-thigh; no pants or boots. Goddess, his legs were the size of tree trunks.
"Who wants to bet his muscles aren't real?" I said. I'd heard of people using magic to enhance their physique. It was the latest trend in other territories.
Bee glanced at me with disbelief pinching her expression. With her braided red hair and ivory skin, most called her beautiful and always referenced her green eyes. But the real Bee was also tough. I'd once seen her scare off a bear with a glare, and there was a reason most in town kept their distance from her. Sure, it might have a little something to do with Bee insisting most of the folk were uneducated swine breeders—her words, not mine—but hey, she was a best friend who often popped into my store, and I loved her company. Even if she didn't know when to keep her mouth shut.
"How can they not be real?" Her gaze turned from the man and back my way. "He's not wearing pants. What could he possibly be padding—" Then her eyes widened, and her lips curled upward into a wicked grin. "You filthy girl, Scarlet. Never knew you had it in you." She whacked me in the arm, her strength intimidating, considering she stood five-foot-two and reached my nose.
"What are you talking about?" I slouched, a hip pressed against the counter, and pushed several sample bowls of tea leaves up against the ceramic cups that I had painted with different stages of the moon cycle. I called them my night collection series and regular customers tended to buy a new one whenever they purchased their regular healing herbs. If I had more time, I'd paint all the time.
"You're referring to his dick, aren't you? And well..." Bee glanced outside. "With the wind blowing against his clothes, there's definitely a healthy package in his arsenal." Bee wiggled her eyebrows and broke out laughing.
Fire scorched my cheeks. You'd think I'd be used to Bee's dirty mouth; after all, this was normal for her. "I wasn't talking about his... his privates."
Bee gripped her hips, cinching in the long blue tunica dress she wore. The outfit had a V-neckline and tiny buttons ran down the front. I admired her flowing sleeves, and I needed to re-examine my wardrobe. My black pants and sea-green blouse beneath the leather vest with a belt made me look more like a thief. But when I chose my clothing, I prioritized comfort. Most days, I lifted boxes at work and a skirt would get in the way.
"Just say it, Scarlet," Bee continued. "Dick. Cock."
I rolled my eyes. I had no issues with such words... As long as I didn't say them. I blamed my grandma, who'd brought me up strictly, no cursing or vulgarities. Heavens bless her soul.
"Penis." Bee licked her lips. "Blowjob."
A squeaky male's voice came from behind Bee. "Eww." Santos walked out of the storage room carrying several boxes. "I can hear you out the back. That's called sexual harassment of men."
I sighed, loathing that Santos had heard our conversation, and Bee spun toward my eighteen-year-old apprentice. But he might as well be fourteen with his thin frame, shaved hair, and his maturity level. Then again, were Bee and myself any better?
"Hey, men talk crap about girls all the time," Bee said. "What's the difference?"
Santos set the three boxes of tobacco leaves on the end of the counter. "You two are too old to talk about such things, and it's gross."
"Old?" Bee's voice climbed. "We're only a year older than you." She turned to me with a cocked eyebrow, expecting me to say something. I shrugged my shoulders.
"That's okay, Santos," I said. "We'll curb our tongues if it makes you uncomfortable." He worked his butt off, and I didn't need him leaving. He'd been working for me for a year and had just learned the names of all the dried plants we sold.
"It's fine." He didn't glance our way and instead opened the first box and scooped handfuls of tobacco into tiny satchels.
I marched to the opposite end of the counter. Bee followed me, probably ready to offer one of her smartass comments about Santos, but I jumped in first to change the direction of the conversation. "How come you're not wearing your new boots? The ones I got you for Christmas?"
Bee huffed. "Can't get them dirty, as I plan to wear them to the town ball. Might attract myself a prince in disguise. Besides, you live in the woods with lots of mud and—"
The front doorbell chimed, stealing her words.
We all glanced up to find Mr. No Pants bursting into the shop with a flurry, his breaths labored and his cheeks red.
"I need help," he wheezed.
The newcomer's attention fell on the three sets of eyes on him... mine lowering to his legs, and even with his tunic covering, he had a huge package. But I focused on the red bleeding through his tunic at his hip. How had he gotten injured? Animal attack?
At once, Mr. No Pants straightened his posture and flicked his raven hair over a shoulder, his sights sliding from me to Bee, then locking on to her curvy chest.
Okay, he was a womanizer. Score another point for Bee against Santos in the women versus men chauvinist race. The newcomer could at least have had the decency to keep his eyes above neck level.
Bee pulled the elastic free from her braid and fluffed out her hair. Typical. I nudged her and raised my eyebrows.
"Geez, live a little, Scarlet," she whispered. "You've been too sheltered."
I tucked a lock behind an ear. "Brown as a deer," my grandma had once called my hair. Nothing sexy about that. Maybe the reason I never got a man's attention was I stayed too safe.
My sights fell on the newcomer's blood. Was it a human who had shot him with a bow and arrow? I rounded the counter. "Are you all right?"
He stood at least six feet, with a solid square jawline, studying me as if I might be an animal he'd crossed paths with in the woods.
"You're injured," I continued.
The man didn't say a word, but scanned the room, and then looked out through the windows behind him. "I'm wonderful." Yet he stood there, a trickle of blood rolling down the side of his leg from under his tunic.
"Don't think so," Bee blurted out. "Unless you're a mutant who bleeds instead of sweating, you're about to dirty up Scarlet's floor."
He stared at me, and a brush of desperation shifted behind his eyes. The kind I'd seen when I'd first met Santos over a year ago, when he'd been sleeping on the streets, thin and pasty. Sometimes asking for help was the hardest thing to do.
"Come," I said. "We have a room out back, and I'll bring you hot tea to calm your nerves." I surveyed the dirt road outside and the woods in the distance for anything suspicious. My shop was located in the forest on the fringe of civilization, so I often saw strange things. But it was all clear.
A few weeks ago, in the middle of the night, another buff man with no shirt had turned up on my doorstep asking for specific plants for healing someone gravely ill. Before that, another man had been at my door, his clothes torn and his butt exposed.
Someone in the town of Terra had scored Get Your Herb On with a one-star on the town review board. The priestess ruling over the Terra realm in Haven had introduced a new system. The Customer Approval Plank, she'd called it, insisting it would assist people in choosing the best shops for their needs.
So now, not only did the scoreboard sit in the main town square for everyone to view, but some troll kept marking my store with one star. Was that person spying on me and noticing naked men at my door? No wonder my business had slowed lately.
Mr. No Pants scoffed and folded his arms across his strong chest, then cringed and lowered them.
"So, you going to buy something or—"
I cut Bee a glare, cutting off her words, then turned to the stranger. And I recognized the desperate need for someone to reach out and make that connection, offer a lending hand. When my grandma had passed away of old age, I'd lost everything. She had been my rock, my family, and without Grandma's support, her tonic soups, her hugs, I hadn't been sure how to go on. She'd raised me after my parents had been torn apart by a pack of wolves. Bee had reached out to me, guiding me to find purpose in life again, so now I'd do the same with this man.
"Come with me," I said and headed to the back, his footsteps trailing behind me. "Santos, can you show him a seat? I'll bring him some tea." Something to ease any pain he felt along with his nerves. Might even encourage him to open up about how he'd gotten hurt.
Without a complaint, the two vanished into the storage room. Bee shook her head, giving me a glare.
"Don't say it," I said.
I rushed to the pot of boiling water Santos had set up for samples. I collected a jar of valerian and arrowroot from the cupboard lining the wall behind me. Teapots, candles, and more tea containers filled the shelves. Together with a pinch of chamomile, the aromatic scents had my shoulders lowering.
Bee was in my ear, and I tensed again. "What if he's a guard? Do you want to bring the priestess's attention to your business? You know she abhors magic. That's why I do my enchantment spells in the basement at home so no one ever catches me."
"This is just an ordinary tea store," I whispered, lowering my palm over the tea bag.
Bee snatched my wrist and lifted my hand, sparks of white energy dancing across my fingertips. "Right, so this is perfectly normal?"
I'd always had the ability to enhance plants, and my grandma had taught me how to harness the power she'd insisted I shared with nature.
"It's nothing." I lied, well aware that the priestess who ruled over the human district forbade anything non-human related. And punishment came in the form of imprisonment for life. Each of the seven territories in Haven were homes to various races, from wolf shifters in our neighboring land, to mermaids, and rumor spoke of a girl with magical hair. Yep, one day I'd explore Haven, but until then, I'd remain in Terra with other humans, pretending we were pure and everyone else was the weirdo... according to the ruling priestess. And leaving Terra or strangers entering was prohibited. Hence guards captured any shifters or intruders in Terra for interrogation, never to be seen again.
"Don't kid yourself, Scarlet. I've heard the priestess infiltrated places like the bakeries in town, convinced their breads were too good to be true. And that the baker engaged in sorcery."
Her words left me jittery because I wanted to believe what I did benefited those in need. I drew on my ability to amplify the strength of herbs, so when people used them, they got the full effect. If chamomile calmed someone, then it put them into such a relaxed state, their anxiety slipped away. What was wrong with that?
"We'll be cautious, then," I suggested.
Bee nodded. "Smart idea. I'll be the bad enforcer and you the good."
"What? Wait, no."
Bee had already steamrolled toward the rear. I left the tea behind and rushed after her.
Santos appeared from the room, his attention sailing to the box of dried tobacco leaves.
"We'll be in the back for a moment," I said.
He nodded. "I've got this." He didn't seem worried in the slightest. Then again, he had no reason to believe the man was anything but someone in danger, and he had zero idea about my powers.
Once I entered the storage room, I found Bee leaning over Mr. No Pants, who sat on a chair, her index finger pressed against his chest. "Where are your trousers? This isn't a peep-show kind of store."
"Bee. Give him space to breathe." Without waiting for a response, I collected my medicine box from the shelf and flipped the lid open. "Now, let's examine your wound."
"How did you get hurt, hmm?" Bee towered over him, her hands gripping her waist. Geez, the girl should train as a guard.
"I'm not here to harm you. You can relax." He lifted the tunic up and bunched it at his side.
My gaze dove to his midsection like a desperate hound dog. Except the man wore black underwear.
Bee sighed.
He peeled away fabric stuck to the mess underneath, wincing, and I cringed at how much it must have hurt.
Three claw marks tore across his side, blood everywhere.
"Holy shiitake mushrooms," I said. "What did this to you?"
He cut me a strange look with a raised eyebrow, as if he'd pull away from my touch if I tried to treat him.
"Crapping balls, Scarlet. This requires a fuck me, not mushrooms," Bee blurted out. "But really, dude." She turned to the stranger. "This is bad. Like you'll die, that kind of bad. If you want my friend to cure you, talk."
Bee was the queen of exaggeration. The man only had a few scratches and would survive. "Bring me a bowl of boiling water," I asked her because tact wasn't her forte. I grabbed an old towel from the cupboard and cleaned around his wounds. They didn't require stitching.
"Don't listen to her," I said to Mr. No Pants. "What's your name?"
"Better you don't know." He didn't hold my stare, but instead studied the room, as if attempting to appear busy. Yep, right there was the warning Bee had mentioned.
"Look," I said. "I'm happy to help you, but are we in danger if we do? Do you work for the priestess?"
He scrunched his nose. "Gods forbid."
Bee returned with a bowl of water she set on the table, and I drenched the stained fabric before continuing to cleanse the injury.
"Where are you from?" I asked. "The mountains? The wolf Den? Oh, maybe you're one of those desert dwellers." The thought had crossed my mind. The human world was comprised of a massive town with several hundred thousand people. Farms dotted the outskirts, but this man wasn't a local. There was an air about him every girl in Terra would have sniffed out by now, especially if he was single. And I would have heard about it at the monthly town gatherings. The ones where the priestess reminded us of our blessing to be pure, along with the latest attempts by other factions to infiltrate our territory. In particular, Terra's number one nemesis, the wolves to our east. "Barbarians who attack anything that moves," she called them.
"I'm not from Terra." He held his head high, as if having nothing to hide, and his admittance didn't surprise me because it wasn't the first time someone had snuck into Terra for help. And humans did the same all the time, leaving behind our land and entering others for various reasons like falling in love with a lion shifter, or, at least, that had happened to a bookshop owner back in town.
"Are the guards after you?" I asked.
Bee gave me the told you look. But if you followed the rules, Terra was a safe place most of the time.
"No. There was a wolf. In fact, a pack chased me."
"In Terra?" I asked, squeezing the towel with my fist and returning to wiping his wound. I dabbed a mixture of my pre-made antiseptic onto his injuries, and he didn't grimace once.
"Nope. On wolf territory, in the Den. I was passing through and took a shortcut across their land and yours." He paused and wiped his mouth. "But a vicious pack found me and hunted me. I barely escaped with my life before they ripped my pants off."
Bee burst out laughing, her hand pressed over her stomach. "You sure it wasn't a pack of shewolves?"
He straightened himself. "Girls throw themselves at me all the time, so I'm guessing the wolves who attacked me instead of ravishing me were males."
Holding back the giggle in my throat, I placed a bandage on his wounds and wrapped it around his waist, then tucked the loose ends in on each other. "There—"
A piercing hoot sounded somewhere outside, and my feet cemented to the ground.
"Fuck," Bee said. "That's the guards." She shoved a hand into Mr. No Pants' shoulder. "You said they weren't after you."
His face blanched, and he leaped to his feet, towering over us, his top falling over his hips "They aren't. But I have to go."
"Wait, you're still injured, and—"
He placed a hand to my mouth. "Hush."
I pushed his arm away. "Excuse me, who do you think you are?"
"Is there a rear exit?" he asked, his voice low and carrying an air of panic.
Bee stood in the doorway. "Tell us what's going on and we'll let you leave."
The man laughed deep and raw, almost terrifying. "Little girls, you cannot stand in my way. But I will leave you with a warning because you aided me. The wolves are at war amongst themselves. And one fight always spills over in other lands. I was attacked right on the Terra border."
"But we've got wolfsbane dividing our land. That'll keep the packs at bay," I called out as he stormed away from me and lifted Bee out of the doorway as if she were a doll. He then sprinted faster than anyone his size should have been able to.
Santos entered the storeroom. "Where'd he go in such a rush?"
Bee and I exchanged glances as dread threaded through my chest. I glanced out through the front windows and spotted two guards in uniform darting left. I sure hoped Mr. No Pants had escaped. It wasn't the first time I'd seen them chase trespassers in Terra, and, if I kept my head low, the guards left me and my store alone. "Well, he wasn't from Terra," I said. "No wonder the guards are after him."
"He's a looney." Bee wove her arm around mine and guided me back into the main area. "You should consider a lock on the door and only let people in after you study them through the window."
I nodded. She had a point, yet in the back of my mind, I couldn't ignore Mr. No Pants' warning. It wasn't the first time the wolves had attempted to claim territory. They had entered our land before my time, and hundreds of innocent lives had been lost on both sides.
"Do you think the priestess knows about the wolf war?" I asked.
"For sure. Otherwise, what else would her job entail? Oh, right." She cocked a brow. "Controlling all of us. Anyway, I should return home before the sun goes down. Do you have any wolfsbane?"
For those few seconds, Bee's words didn't register as I remained caught up in the whole wolves warring thing and the half-naked stranger in my store, who hadn't even given us his name. Perhaps a lock on the door to protect us from crazy customers wasn't such a bad suggestion.
Bee poked a finger into my arm. "Hello, Scarlet, are you with us?"
Shaking, I hurried to the counter and pushed aside the fabric underneath concealing the dangerous ingredients. Wolfsbane was poisonous, and I kept it out of view. I plonked the jar on the table, but it was empty and there were a few specks of dust inside. "Well, that's a problem."
Bee gripped her waist. "I thought only I bought the stuff?"
I scratched my head, then remembered where it had gone, but Santos stole my words as he headed into the storage room, calling out his response. "Last week, you added it to the concoction to clean the bird poo off the windows."
"Poo?" Bee paced to the door and back to my side. "But I need it this week. I'm hiking into the mountains to see a client. I assumed you had some." She leaned closer and whispered. "My client claims to have had a curse put on him, and I need wolfsbane to create a counter-spell."
Bee practiced magic in secret and was known for her abilities outside of Terra. Here, the priestess would arrest her if she found out, so Bee often sought jobs in other territories for her services.
"Sorry, I'd been meaning to top up the supplies. I'm running out of a few other things, too. When did you say you need it by?"
Santos reappeared with the bowl of hot water and bloody towel, heading to the front door to dump the contents outside.
"Tomorrow." Bee twirled a red lock over her shoulder.
"Sweet bolts, that's soon." I hurried to open the front door to hold it for Santos.
"Real sorry, Scarlet. It's just that I received the job this morning."
Santos interrupted. "I can collect some." His eyes were pleading, as he'd wanted to go out on a field excursion forever.
As much as I loved that he offered, I couldn't let him go. "No, it's all right. The plant's dangerous, and I don't want you getting harmed." Plus, I found if I applied my magical touch on plants while still fresh, their intensity worked a treat in spells.
"If it's too hard, I can ask my client if it's all right if we delay the appointment," Bee said, twisting hair around her finger, something she did whenever she was nervous. She and her father struggled financially, and her jobs kept them above the water. I didn't want to cause them any more strain.
"You know I'd do anything for you," I said.
She ran over and drew me into a tight hug, her citrus and vanilla perfume bathing me. "Thanks. And I've always got your back, too."
"Sure do!" I giggled, and Bee broke away.
"Okay, I've got to go. Dad's finishing one of his new inventions, and I promised to be his assistant. See you tomorrow? I'll come in the morning?" Bee asked.
"Nah, I'll pop over to your place," I suggested. "You're always saying I spend too much time in the woods instead of society." For the past week, I'd been preparing a paste for her dad, who suffered from joint aches, and planned to finish it tonight to surprise him tomorrow.
Bee hugged me once more and kissed my cheek. She whispered in my ear. "Penis." With a giggle, she picked up her satchel from the counter and strolled outside with a wave at Santos before vanishing down the dirt track through the woods.
Santos returned inside. "Yes, I'll watch the place while you're gone. And I promise I won't make any tea pouches and only take orders if anyone needs one."
"You know me too well." I took my coat and bag from the back. Looked like I was making a last-minute trip into the woods. Yet trepidation sat on my shoulders, reminding me of Mr. No Pants' words about the wolves at war. So I grabbed a new bottle of citrus bane mixed with water. The spray would deter any predator coming near me, and, when sprayed in anyone's eyes, it made them temporarily blind, giving me time to escape.
