Copyright 2025 by Cassie Swindon
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be produced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This work is fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, cities, or events are entirely fictional.
Please keep in mind this short story by Cassie Swindon is not officially edited by a professional or formatted, but for recreational use only.
Read short stories in this order:
- Scarlett’s Pledge
- Ryker’s Promise
- Ruby’s Vow
- Crimson Oath (full standalone novel)
Ruby’s Vow
My lungs burn, but I’ll never stop running until I find our sister.
“Scarlett!” Ruby yells ahead, where she chases after the hunter’s tire tracks.
The hunter’s camper has long disappeared into the fog. But neither of us will give up. Heart pounding, veins pumping, I pant harder. My muscles need the refreshing raindrops dripping down from the branches that add to my already soaked hair.
Time ticks too fast. Despite my wishes, the sky shifts from cherry to rose as the sun gradually takes her throne atop Astoria’s highest summit. In the daylight, we’re too visible to any human hikers– anyone who may know our one and only weakness.
The panic of Ruby’s voice makes my heart rate spike. Usually, her voice is soft and low, singing one of her own songs in front of the piano, but now her voice scrapes against my spine with each frantic yell. Neither of us is thinking clearly anymore. Too much time has passed to be cautious.
“Scarlett!” My throat scratches from overuse.
My bare feet sink into the cold, squishy mud with each desperate step forward. Have we already checked this area? I circle around and scan the trees. For some reason, they all look the same. Each pine, maple, oak, and hickory laughs at my useless attempts.
Behind a row of trees, Ruby mumbles to herself, “… idea to go … forest hunt without me …” Sarcasm lines her mouth like lipstick. “… ridiculous fairy tale … treasure? Seriously? Crimson will never learn.”
Tura screeches above and snaps me out of my mental spiral. I squint into the bright sky in search of my falcon. She soars, then dives to the right.
“Ruby! Follow me!” I shout, “Which way?”
I follow my falcon’s calls. She lands and squawks again.
“Ruby!” I scream. “Over here!”
Between the trees, barely visible, is Scarlett. I almost didn’t recognize her at first, covered in dirt and wearing a man’s oversized black hoodie that hangs like a dress on her thin frame. She teeters, then leans against a tree trunk. Black eyeliner smears into her gold eyeshadow which forms abstract art created from nightmares.
“Are you okay?” I gasp and hold her up. “What did he do to you?”
She swallows and slowly eases down the trunk to sit in a pile of mud. Ugly scratches decorate her wrists and the skin around her mouth looks dry and red. Fury engulfs my entire being and every fuckin’ one of my muscles tense.
Ruby finally appears and drops to her knees too. Her hands hover over Scarlett’s injuries and her eyes bulge wide. Neither of us have ever had to take control in an emergency like this. Scarlett has always been in charge, even when we argued against her in our youth.
Ruby’s jaw sets firm as she says, “Okay, you’re okay. We’ve got you.”
Scarlett’s eyes close and she rests her head against the trunk gently. How long had she been running for?
Ruby exchanges a terrified glance with me. We gesture wildly in silence, asking unspoken questions of what to do next.
“Scarlett, babe, you can’t fall sleep here.” Ruby bites her lip. “Let’s get you home.”
She nods but doesn’t make any effort to move.
“Tura,” I stroke her feathers. “Can you keep an eye out above?”
Her fierce eyes blink once then she flies to a higher branch on patrol. Scarlett needs a few minutes to rest. At least Tura will give us a warning in case we need to run again. I pat my pockets for water or a snack for my sister.
“He was horrifying,” Scarlett mumbles.
Ruby strokes Scarlett’s wrist in mini circles and asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Completely appalling. He wants to know how to kill a Slynik.”
I hold back a gasp for her sake.
“Repulsive.” Scarlett clutches her stomach and shudders. “This one has two colored eyes.”
“Did he have a name?” I ask carefully.
Scarlett finally opens her eyes and black eyes that mirror mine look up. “I don’t know. But he said mine. He said my name. No mortal has ever done that.”
“But what was his name?” Ruby leans forward. “We can find him.”
Scarlett shakes her head. “I don’t know. But he’s about forty, maybe thirty-five and probably about six feet, tanned skin. Oh, and he has insane tattoos crawling up his back. I couldn’t read any. They are in a language I’ve never seen.” She traces a shape in the air with a finger. “Some are intricate symbols repeated again and again.”
I shake my head. “Scarlett, we need to get you home.”
Scarlett stands on unsteady legs. “Yeah, before he finds us.”
“What?” I freeze. “You let him live?”
Scarlett groans weakly. “Luna Above, Crimson, I thought you didn’t want to drain mortals anymore, now you’ve changed your mind?”
“I meant innocent mortals! This hunter took you, Scarlett. That’s never happened before. What if he had tortured you? What if we never found you?” I pause, trying to ease my racing heart, then whisper, “What if he learned about Noire venom?”
“He definitely didn’t know about the spiders, since he kept asking me how to kill one of us.”
I wrap my arms around my body and drop my chin. I’ll kill him for what he did to Scarlett. Her captor will be the last soul I drain, and I’ll enjoy it.
Scarlett turns so we can’t see her face. “But something about this hunter is different.”
Ruby slides her hand into Scarlett’s and I stare at their interlaced fingers. “How?”
“The way the hunter looked at me and the way he said my name, it was almost like he believed me to be … human. It was weird.” She rubs the back of her neck and starts pacing. “I know it sounds crazy, but even though he abducted me, when he said my name, like there was something he knew. It wasn’t right. That man had a chance to capture me again, but he let me go. He told me to run.”
“Are you trying to defend him?” My hands shake and a tickling like spider legs creeping on my forearms makes me shiver. Tura flies down and massages her feathery face against mine, instantly calming me.
“No, I’m just —” Scarlett trips and almost falls, but Ruby steadies her.
“Come on.” Ruby pulls her softly. “Let’s go home. I vow to you, here and now, that we will kill that hunter for what he did to you.”
Scarlett sighs and I sandwich her on the other side. Three sister-hips line up in a row as we walk hand in hand. Autumn leaves flatten under my weight and my bare toes smush into the fresh mud as Tura scouts above for any signs of danger.
No breeze tickles my skin. It’s as if the forest is holding its breath. Every other minute, I glance over my shoulder, or check ahead, waiting for the hunter to jump out from behind a tree. Ruby’s soft humming hypnotizes me into a daydream.
To our right, storybook fairytales write cliffhangers on the flowers and to our left, mythical heroines cast spells on the vines winding around the trees. Each branch looks like the shape of a letter, forming words and endless possibilities right in front of us. If only we didn’t have to rush, the forest could open a whimsical door to another land and welcome me in. My next book could be about …
“Uh, Crimson, hello?” Someone’s fingers snap in front of my face. “We’re home.” Ruby nods ahead to the dark towering structure we’ve turned into our sanctuary.
We step as one unit out of the shade and into the sunlight. Warmth immediately blankets my cheeks, and the morning breeze tousles my hair now that we’re out of the forest. From a distance, our obsidian house blends into the cliffside rock of Astoria’s most dangerous overhang. We picked this location because no mortal is foolish enough to climb this terrain.
I inhale the fresh scent of saltwater. Even though my sisters become nauseous from the waves, I love dipping my toes in the water or diving into the depths for pearls—almost as much as visiting the illegal library. Secrets within books have always been my favorite type of treasure– remnants of fairy tales from before the Purge, maps with exotic lands written in foreign handwriting or love letter exchanges. The words that form each page are the source of my beating heart.
Our large metal door moans in protest as all three of us push with our shoulders. Tura flies in between the crack before we shut it again. She lands on her perch by the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook Jarrigan Sea. The open living space overflows with all our favorite belongings: Ruby’s guitar, Scarlett’s chess board, and my books with bent bindings and dog-eared pages.
“I’ll be right back.” Ruby glares at me, a look I’m not used to, then turns away. “Let’s get you into bed, Scarlett.”
Her expression completely catches me off guard. Ruby’s known as the chill sister who goes with the flow, but today it seems as though I’ve finally cracked her.
Tura squawks and shakes her head. My falcon is right; I did nothing wrong. Searching for the ancient maps in the forest wasn’t supposed to be a selfish act because I must find the Elixir. I never meant for Scarlett to be in danger.
Finding the Elixir is the only way to stop feeding on mortal souls. From now on, I’ll keep it as my secret mission to do alone. If my sisters can keep thoughts and feelings from me, then I can too.
The old ticking clock by the far wall shows the wrong time. It clicks in the same place, again and again, reminding me that time and aging is inconsequential to someone like me.
In our black, sleek kitchen I pour myself a glass of water and chug the whole thing like a crazed animal. Droplets leak out and dribble down my chin. Soft skuttle sounds make me turn around to catch Tura hopping after me.
Despite everything, I can’t help but smile. “Where do you think you’re going?”
She ruffles her feathers, then skips past me into my room.
Once I click my door shut, she flies high, her wings accidentally rippling the hundreds of letters I have hung as wallpaper. Tura lands on the twelfth level of my massive bookshelf and curls into her nest of blankets. I ignore my romance novels and stare at the texts holding Astoria’s history, some legendary, some not. There must be information in there about the hunter’s tattoos that I didn’t notice before. Maybe the secrets of the Elixir are in another language, like the ones inked on his flesh.
My door opens. Dark shadows linger below Ruby’s eyes and she shakes her head.
“Is Scarlett doing okay?” I wring my hands together.
“Yeah, I called Eve. She’s on her way, but Crims … listen, Eve is pissed as fuck at you.”
Ever since my sisters’ relationships have turned more serious, I’ve become the fifth wheel. For a few months, it hasn’t been us three against the world, but Scarlett tucked away in her bedroom with Eve, and Ruby writing songs all night with Dionne. I don’t have any interest in trying to date again– just one more detail about me that doesn’t fit with my sisters.
“What were you thinking, Crimson?” Ruby studies me intently and says my middle name with emphasis. “It’s dangerous out there. We’ve always stayed together. The three of us are stronger. Together.”
I slouch down into an old armchair, probably designed for princesses once upon a time. “Why are you blaming me? Scarlett was out there too.”
“Scarlett was abducted, of course I’m not going to yell at her.”
“Right,” I whisper, “if I had been the one taken, there’s no chance you’d be reprimanding Scarlett right now. She’d be lecturing me before I even had the chance to recover and you’d stand in her shadow without sticking up for me.”
Ruby paces the room, between my collection of typewriters and mounds of bookmarks. “Come on, Crims, when can we rely on you to start using your brain?”
“So, now I’m stupid?”
“I love you, Crims.” She slides onto my four-poster bed, knocking over a stack of my notebooks. “You’re creative and curious but it’s time to see reality. It’s not safe to go into the forest without all three of us together.”
“But Scarlett agreed to—”
“Of course she agreed to hunt with you. She’d do anything to keep you happy. Don’t you see that? No, you’re lost in your wonderworld half the time. I bet she said no the first time you asked her to join you out there.”
I bolt up. “That’s not fair. A book once–”
Ruby stands too and closes the distance between us. “Stop it with your stupid books, Crims! They’re all fiction! Myths! There’s no treasure, no magic, no secrets. If you want to stay alive, stay away from the hunters’ territory, stay with us.”
“But—”
“Stop!” Ruby takes both my hands. “You need to stop.”
“Why?” I yank my hands free. “Who is it hurting for me to learn more about our world?”
“Well, we almost lost Scarlett, so there’s that, unless you already conveniently forgot.”
“Stop chastising me.”
“Then act like an adult.” Ruby’s eyes flit to the door. “What you’re doing is foolish.” Her black eyes flash in warning. “Someone needs to knock sense into you.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Tura must sense my distress because she flies down and lands on my shoulder.
“You’re being careless,” Ruby continues.
My heart races. My breaths come faster and faster. She has never been so harsh like this in the past.
“You’re exposing us. Don’t you understand? And what about that hunter? He has information on us now. He might lead a whole army to our door. Then what?”
Ruby’s porcelain skin shimmers when the sun streams through the window. She tucks a strand of her black hair behind her ear. All I’ve ever wanted was to be inseparable from my sisters, but I’ve let them both down.
My only strength is words, so I need to use them to find the answers. Which is why I continually visit the library.
“I’m going to Codex” Without meeting Ruby’s eye, I march across the room and out my bedroom door.
Ruby stomps after. “No, it’s dangerous, Crims. Please don’t.”
“I can’t be here right now.”
“Then you haven’t listened to a word I’ve said. You don’t care about us.” She jumps in front of me. “You’re being foolish!”
Tears pool behind my eyes but I hold them back. “Maybe you’ve never understood me at all.”
Ruby crosses her arms. “Maybe you’re right.”
Without telling Ruby my plans, I decide to investigate further until I find the answers we need. I won’t give up. I don’t stop when Ruby continues to holler after me as I charge out the door, towards certain danger.
**This concludes all three prequels to Crimson Oath**
Be sure to read the other short stories, in this order:
Scarlett’s Pledge
Ryker’s Promise
Ruby’s Vow
Crimson Oath, a full standalone novel
To read other short story prequels by Cassie Swindon, check her website at www.cassieswindon.com for the following:
Olivia’s Date
Lou’s Tulips
Rynn’s Crush
Piper’s Challenge
Mora’s Thorn
Eribelle’s Dream
Isaac’s Curse
Jadox’s Spell
Kyra’s Ruin
Raelyn’s Last Shot
Kody’s Secret
Phoenix’s Spies
Cali’s Escape
William’s Lies