She is her treasure too, Ivy’s wyvern had muttered, albeit with a hint of grudging reluctance. We can share. We suppose.
Ash was busy talking to the police, while Chase and Griff kept hold of Gaze. The Phoenix had called some kind of secret emergency line, so the officers who’d arrived were all shifters who knew how to deal with this sort of special case. Ivy wondered what they would do with the basilisk.
We should have killed him, her wyvern snarled. Still could.
Ivy shivered, pushing her inner beast back down. Gaze wasn’t her problem now. And no matter what her wyvern thought, she was glad not to have blood on her hands. After all, Hope and Hugh were all right. That was all that mattered.
Hugh was going to be all right. She clung onto that thought, as tightly as she clung onto his hand, and tried not to think about the terrible sight of that grey, lightless horn.
“Hugh, be reasonable,” Dai said, his soft Welsh voice soothing. He took a step toward the swaying paramedic. “Come on, you have to—“
“Don’t touch me!”
Heads turned across the parking lot at Hugh’s shout. Ivy stumbled, jerked off-balance as Hugh recoiled from Dai. He flattened himself against the wall as if the dragon shifter had lunged at him with every claw bared.
Dai halted, holding up his hands in uncertain surrender. “I wasn’t going to touch you. I’m nowhere near you, Hugh.”
Hugh’s breath hissed between his teeth. “Don’t come any closer. None of you come any closer. Stay away!”
Dai and John both obediently backed off, though they were already well out of arms’-reach. Ivy started to pull away too, but Hugh’s fingers tightened on hers.
“Not you.” His voice was a bare whisper, pitched for her ears alone. “You don’t hurt me. Please, Ivy. Just take me home. Brighton, not my parents’ place. I have to go home. Please.”
There was no arguing with the raw desperation in his voice. “Okay,” Ivy said, letting go of his hand. “Wait here a sec. I’ll go talk to Ash.”
He slid down the wall into a huddled sitting position, fists clenched at his temples. “Hurry.”
Worry stabbed through her gut. She was suddenly as desperate as Hugh to get away from all the questions and concerns, the uniforms and sirens and flashing lights. Her wyvern instincts howled that she needed to carry her treasure away from all this.
She could feel her palms going clammy with deadly venom, her wyvern rousing in response to her distress. Despite her pounding heart, she forced herself to take a moment to check that her gloves were still safely in place before hurrying over to Ash and the other firefighters.
“I’m taking Hugh home,” she said, deliberately phrasing it as a statement rather than a request for permission. “It’ll be fastest for me to fly him back to Brighton. Griff, can you stay with Hope?”
“Of course, lass,” Griff said, though his blond eyebrows drew down, brow furrowing. “But shouldn’t Hugh go to the hospital too? There’ll be doctors there who know how to treat shifters.”
“He doesn’t want to,” Ivy said. “That’s good enough for me. Tell Hope I’ll come get her tomorrow, okay?”
“No need for that. I’ll bring her and her friend back myself.” Griff glanced over at Hugh, his golden eyes betraying his deep concern. “You just look after him, aye?”
Ash inclined his head slightly in agreement. “Do not worry about matters here, Ms. Viverna. I shall personally deal with everything that is required.”
Ivy shifted her weight awkwardly, forcing herself to meet the Phoenix’s eyes. It was hard to look into those dark, enigmatic depths for long. He was so disconcertingly still, with an unwavering focus that made her feel like a bug under a magnifying glass.
“Thanks,” she said, awkwardly. “For, you know. Everything.”
Her skin prickled as the penetrating power behind those dark eyes scrutinized her for a long, silent moment.
Then the Phoenix held out his hand to her.
“No,” he said. “Thank you.”
“We’re here, Hugh,” Ivy whispered, hurrying to support him the instant she shifted back into human form. “We’re home.”
Hugh didn’t respond. He’d seemed barely conscious during the flight to Brighton. Ivy had been terrified that he was about to slide off her neck at any moment. Now he stumbled like a drunk man up the road, his arm heavy across her shoulders. The fact that he was letting her take some of his weight scared her even more.
Ivy was pretty sure that Hugh wasn’t carrying his Brighton house keys in the pockets of his crumpled and stained formalwear, so she didn’t waste time patting him down. Instead, she spat on the door lock.
“Sorry,” she said, as her acid quickly ate away the mechanism. “Unhygienic, but it works.”