Tropical Dragon's Destiny (Shifting Sands Resort 10)

Mal went to her, but when he tried to take her into his arms, there was nothing to her. The sensation of her power was notably missing. “Scarlet...?”

She sank to her knees, forehead pressed against the bark, and Mal couldn’t touch her to lift her up. “Scarlet!”

Red petals fell around them like rain.

“Grant Lyons, get your ass over here!” he shouted back through the portal. Half the staff had already come through, blinking around at the jungle glade in wonder and alarm.

Bastian followed him to Scarlet, threw his first aid kit down beside him and drew his fingers wonderingly through her. As they watched, she slowly vanished, writhing in pain.

“Scarlet’s... a tree?” Saina was at his heels.

“A dryad...” Laura breathed.

“What’s going on?”

“Oh, Scarlet...” Lydia murmured. “She’s beautiful...”

Graham was finally there, Amber at his heels. He was holding a bucket of tools and Tony had a shovel that he clearly wasn’t going to let his mate carry.

“What happened to her?” Mal demanded, just resisting the urge to take Graham by the throat. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Graham, it’s your missing shovel!” Travis called from the far side of the tree. “And an... empty bag of salt?”

Mal’s mood changed from panicked to enraged. “What did you do to her?” he hissed at the gardener.

“I didn’t do anything!” Graham snarled in return. “I should be asking what you’ve done. She was just fine until you got here.”

“The tree has been salted!” Amber exclaimed. “Someone has dug up the roots and salted them! Oh, Scarlet!”

“Can you save her?” Mal raged. He didn’t have a spell for this, and didn’t have the tools to face a life without the woman who’d gone from a thorn in his side to the air that he breathed. “You have to. You have to save her.”

“We can dig out the contaminated soil, but she’s already absorbed so much of it...” Amber fingered a wilted leaf and shook her head. “I... don’t know. This should have taken weeks to happen...”

“Out of my way,” Mal warned. That was one thing he could do. The soil around Scarlet’s tree boiled like water and rose up in a wave away from the trunk of the tree.

Not sure how far was far enough, Mal spun a second portal into existence and dumped the contaminated soil out into the ocean.

Amber stared at him in boggled astonishment. “Well, that’s one way to do it,” she squeaked.

“What now?” Mal snarled.

“Fresh dirt,” Graham growled. “If it’s not too late.”

Amber added, “Water. Lots of water. Flush the poison out of her.”

It was not too late. It could not be too late.

The other side of the clearing provided a clean source of earth, and everyone danced a moment as Mal moved the ground beneath their feet and tenderly filled in the holes he’d created.

Her red flowers continued to fall, carpeting the earth in crimson.

“It’s like it’s raining blood,” Lydia murmured.

Gizelle, who had crept through the portal with Conall at her heels, gave a whimper of fear, trembling and weeping.

Mal barely noticed them, too consumed with anger and fear. He needed water, fresh water, and he was deeply alarmed to find it within easy reach above. The storms that should have been a few days away were already touching the far side of the island and it was a simple matter to pull in a cloud of rain that drenched the new soil and soaked everyone to the skin.

“You can stop!” Graham finally shouted, when the dirt around Scarlet’s tree was churned to mud. “Stop!”