Hunted

by Meagan Spooner

  DEDICATION

  To the girl

  who reads by flashlight

  who sees dragons in the clouds

  who feels most alive in worlds that never were

  who knows magic is real

  who dreams

  This is for you.

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Beast

  One

  Beast

  Two

  Beast

  Three

  Beast

  Four

  Beast

  Five

  Beast

  Six

  Beast

  Seven

  Beast

  Eight

  Beast

  Nine

  Beast

  Ten

  Beast

  Eleven

  Beast

  Twelve

  Beast

  Thirteen

  Beast

  Fourteen

  Beast

  Fifteen

  Beast

  Sixteen

  Beast

  Seventeen

  Beast

  Eighteen

  Beast

  Nineteen

  Beast

  Twenty

  Beast

  Twenty-One

  Beast

  Twenty-Two

  Beast

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Beast

  Twenty-Seven

  Beast

  Twenty-Eight

  Eoven

  Epilogue

  A Note from the Author

  Back Ad

  About the Author

  Books by Meagan Spooner

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  BEAST

  We always know before the change comes. When a storm approaches, we feel it in the thickness of the air, the tension in the earth awaiting the blanket of snow. We feel the moment the wind changes direction. We sense a shift of power when it is coming.

  Tonight there is hunger in the air. The forest waits for something. We pace, our steps stirring the early snows. Our frustration vents in growls and grunts. Each of us could read the change to come, neither hindered by the other. We could track it, or we could run with it. But we are trapped, and we can do neither.

  We always know before the change comes—but we never know what the change will bring.

  ONE

  YEVA WATCHED THE SKY over the far-off forest, listening to the baronessa with one ear. The air was heavy and unfamiliar. A storm? she wondered, inhaling the strangeness. In the distance the treetops swayed as if in a gust of wind, but the rest of the forest was still.

  She leaned forward, abandoning the sewing on her lap so she could nudge the glass-paned window open a fraction. The air outside was frigid, especially for Yeva in her finely embroidered dress, but she didn’t mind—the glass distorted the distant woods, and she’d rather see clearly than be warm. How large must a creature be to cause movement like that? Larger than anything an arrow could bring down, unless the shot was beyond lucky. Here on the edge of the wood, there shouldn’t be anything larger than a bear skulking beneath the canopy. Her father used to tell stories of larger, stranger things that hid in the heart of the wood, but she’d outgrown stories long ago. If only that sign of movement would come again, perhaps she’d be able to—

  “Yeva, darling!” The baronessa’s voice cut in, the world snapping back to the present. “You’ll get your death in that draft. Close the window before we all catch a cough.”

  Yeva reached for the latch to pull it closed, trying to look less rattled than she felt. “Sorry, my lady. I thought I saw bad weather approaching.”

  “Not another storm,” moaned the baronessa, clutching her fur wrap more closely about her shoulders. “It’s too early for such snow, I don’t know what we’ll do this winter.”

  “Do you really think a storm is coming?” asked Galina, one of the baronessa’s other ladies.

  With her attention mostly on the far-off forest, Yeva noticed with a start that Galina had been speaking to her. “The air smells of it,” Yeva replied, eyes shifting from Galina’s face to the baronessa’s.

  Galina turned to whisper to the lady next to her, forgetting herself. The baronessa scarcely noticed, though, too busy wringing her hands. “Oh, what shall we do?” she murmured, not bothering to look outside herself, but staring around at the faces of her ladies.

  Yeva glanced back at the window. There was still no sign of bad weather on the horizon, but uneasiness lingered at the back of her mind. The parlor had erupted into whispers, and with creeping dread Yeva realized that she could be here all night.

  “My lady,” she said, adopting for once the gentle voice she was meant to be cultivating, “perhaps the other ladies and I should retire, if we are to get home to our families before the storm arrives.” A number of heads lifted among the circle of women.

  “And leave me alone?” cried the baronessa as though Yeva had proposed taking her out into the storm and blindfolding her.

  The baronessa was fairer skinned than most, claiming some Varangian blood in her ancestry. Other nobles would have hidden those roots, but she owned them with pride, attributing some romantic hot-bloodedness to them. Combined with her plump face and bow-shaped mouth, it gave her a youthful appearance, childlike and sweet. For all her silliness, Yeva could not help but feel a twinge of pity for the woman. She wasn’t that much older than Yeva herself, not even twenty yet, with her husband more than three times her age. The company of the wealthy ladies in the town was all she had in the dark months of the year.

  Yeva smiled at her, for once not having to search for the expression. “The baron will be home soon, and of course Machna and Lada will be here.” The two sisters were guests of the baron’s household, visiting from the city.

  The baronessa chewed at her lip, casting a glance for the first time at the tiny window. Yeva had secured the spot by being the most junior of the women in the baronessa’s circle, and thus taking the coldest seat—but she preferred it to any other, with its view of the forest beyond the edge of the baron’s property. Yeva felt impatience strum at her insides. She hated the indecisiveness of people in town, how they waited to make decisions, took weeks or months or years to settle, until the decisions were made for them by inaction.

  “Oh, very well,” the baronessa said finally, waving her hand in a sad, dismissive gesture. “If the snow has not marooned us all by morning, will you ladies return tomorrow afternoon? If it snows my husband will not be hunting, but he will be so cross that I would rather have company when facing him.”

  Yeva felt a sluggish stirring of dislike in her stomach. Only a nobleman, whose idea of hunting involved sitting high on a spotlessly decorated stallion while half-starved hounds did all the work, would be turned away by snow. The snow is a canvas, her father would say, upon which the beast paints his past, his home, his intentions, his future. Learn to see the picture and you will know him as you know yourself.

  “Of course we will come back tomorrow,” Galina replied, saving Yeva from having to formulate an answer. “Thank you, my lady.”

  The girls all stood, tucking their sewing away, preparing to leave until the next afternoon. Yeva hurried to follow suit, shoving her embroidery into its basket. She’d learned in her first few days that the baronessa often snared the last of the girls to leave, drawing them into conversations that could last for hours. It wasn’t so much that Yeva disliked speaking with the baronessa, but rather that she’d prefer to reach home by nightfall.

  And before the storm, if one was coming.

  They left the baronessa mournfully describing her husband
’s hunting exploits to the hapless sisters from the city, and rushed to bundle up in their winter gear.

  “Thank you,” whispered Galina as she caught up to Yeva, jogging her elbow a little and casting her a smile.

  Yeva shook her head, the corners of her mouth twitching. “I was only thinking of our safety, traveling in the weather.”

  One of the baronessa’s ladies, overhearing Yeva, laughed. “We knew exactly what you were thinking of, Yeva. What time is Solmir meeting you?”

  Yeva’s smile vanished. “Solmir?” she echoed.

  “Don’t think we haven’t seen how much attention he pays you at the baronessa’s dinners.” The lady raised an eyebrow. She was one of the older members of the baronessa’s inner circle, soon to be engaged to a man in the baron’s hunting party. “Don’t give me that look. That is the point of this all, no? For us to see, and be seen.”

  Yeva looked over at Galina, who was watching quietly as she laced the ties on her cloak. Finding no answer there, Yeva could only shrug in response.

  Galina fell into step beside Yeva, and they walked in silence through the high doors of the house and onto the street. Galina was the second-newest addition to the baronessa’s collection, and somewhat more understanding of Yeva’s peculiarities. She had never once blanched at the accidental mention of weaponry.

  “Was it true?” Yeva broke the quiet as they passed the church.

  “Was what true?” Galina looked up, brown eyes blank.

  “What they said about Solmir.” Yeva glanced behind them, checking that no one was near enough to hear. She felt her cheeks warming despite the cold. “About his attention to me.”

  Galina smiled. The expression was always sudden and unexpected on her small, solemn face. She was a relatively plain girl, but her smile was beautiful. “Yeva, you silly thing. You can’t say you haven’t noticed. They tease you only because they feel certain there is an understanding between you.”

  Yeva stopped short, abruptly enough that slush sprayed up onto the hem of her skirts. “An understanding?” She had tied her cloak too tightly—her breathing felt labored, uncertain.

  “I am sorry to be the one to tell you,” said Galina, dimming her smile with clear effort. Her expression was still brimming with amusement. “See you tomorrow,” she added, before turning at the corner to make her way toward her own father’s house, in the opposite direction. Yeva stood stirring the slush with the toe of her boot.

  Solmir? He was nothing, barely more than a name in her mind. No, that was unfair; he was more than that. One of the baron’s hunting party, he was without land or title, but his family was wealthy nonetheless. His father had been a respected cooper and manager of the baron’s wine cellar until his death, at which point Solmir had become the baron’s ward. Rumor had it that the baron, childless after two previous marriages, might confer his lands and titles to Solmir if the new baronessa failed to produce him an heir.

  Yeva tried to picture Solmir in her mind, conjuring up hazy memories of dinners past. They’d always been a trial for her. The afternoons with the baronessa were one thing; they kept Yeva—for the most part—from longing for the forest trails. The dinners, however, were another. She’d always counted the moments until she could be back home again with her father, feeling like one of those ragged birds at the market beating halfheartedly against their wicker cages. The only image of Solmir her memory provided was of friendly hazel eyes and a soft voice that made her cheeks flush all the more. She recalled him broaching the strangest subjects, though she preferred his bizarre company to the dull conversation of the other gentlemen.

  How long had the other ladies been talking about them, with Yeva completely unaware?

  She tried to ignore how warm she was under her furs. It was not quite cold enough for full winter gear but she wore it anyway—a blizzard could rise swiftly and without warning, even this early in the winter. Sweat started to form between her shoulder blades and trickle down her spine; she set off down the road toward her father’s house.

  They lived toward the edge of town not because Yeva’s father couldn’t afford to live at its center, but because he, like Yeva, felt more comfortable with a house that bordered on nature. He’d given up life as a hunter to marry Yeva’s mother, using his wealth to start a career as a merchant, but he couldn’t wholly give up the need for the woods and the snow and the wild tang of the beasts.

  Yeva felt a tension draining that she hadn’t realized she was carrying. She liked the baronessa, and she appreciated having been taken into her circle, but some part of her still longed for the freedom she’d had even a year ago. Her father used to take her with him, training her, teaching her what he knew of hunting. It was all in fun, because what harm was there in teaching these things to a child? Echoes from a past life; things his own father taught him. Sharing them was the only way of keeping them real. Being a merchant held no passion for him, but it was safe, and it had made his wife happy until she died when the girls were young. It was only recently that her father had noticed Yeva’s age, and thought that she ought to be a lady now, and no longer his wild little Beauty.

  It was time to join her older sisters in society—such as it was.

  The houses became smaller and more spread out as she trudged along, the laneways connecting them covered with snow once more instead of the slush churned up by many feet and carriage wheels. Yeva could see her father’s house on the ridge and hurried her steps.

  The sky was growing darker, though the hour was too early for the sun to set. The clouds were thickening. Perhaps there would be a storm after all. Yeva felt no shame at the fiction—there had been something in the air—but she would feel better able to face the baronessa tomorrow if some kind of weather came in the night.

  The hill was steep enough to make Yeva’s breath puff white in the cold air, and she sputtered an oath. Such terrible shape for a hunter to be in. She used to be able to run for hours, uphill or down, blood coursing through her and urging her onward. But then, she was not a hunter anymore. The roundness of face and limb she saw in the washbasin each morning, the sleek deep red of her hair, the full lips, the lazy gaze—every day she was more a lady. Every day less herself.

  Yeva hurried through the door, trying to still her panting breath so no one would see her winded. One of the servants met her at the door, his lanky arms outstretched to receive her furs.

  “Thank you, Albe,” she told him with a smile that made him blush and duck his head. Albe had been with them since he was a boy, but lately he’d been inching around Yeva and her sisters as if they were made of glass.

  All the merchants’ daughters were spoken of as beauties. Yeva would have preferred to be admired for her skill, but she’d suffered the great misfortune of having been born a girl. And so no one would ever know. When she was younger, she used to dream of a husband who would love her all the more if she could hunt with him, side by side. But age, and time spent with the baronessa, had worn away that imagined future.

  She could remain unmarried, but to do so would make her a financial burden to her father. To marry would be to leave the wood forever, surrendering what little freedom she still had.

  But Solmir is a hunter, whispered a sinuous thought. And a good one. If anyone were to admire your skill in the forest, it would be him. . . .

  “Your sisters are in the kitchen, mistress,” said Albe, head still bowed. Yeva could see a flush on the back of his neck and the tips of his ears.

  “Thank you,” she repeated, and left the poor boy to recover.

  As she headed down the hall, a thumping, clattering, wild noise exploded from the back corner of the house. Laughing, Yeva crouched down so that when a pair of dogs came barreling around the edge of the hall, they hit her square. Less painful than letting them catch an arm or a leg. Doe-Eyes whined eagerly, burying her face in the fold of Yeva’s hip, while Pelei sniffed her all over, circling and circling and snuffling his aggravation at her collection of the day’s scents.

  Pelei
was the scent hound, thick and shaggy and red-brown, named for the clay he so resembled. Doe-Eyes was the runner, slimmer and lighter built, less armored against the biting cold in winter. They were her father’s hunting dogs, but any time the subject arose, he delighted in moaning about how his youngest daughter had stolen them from him, how they betrayed him every day they ran to her. But he loved to see them love her, and always spoke with a twinkle in his eye.

  Yeva ordered the dogs back to their corner of the house, sending them reluctantly away, and went to the kitchen. She found Asenka and Lena kneading bread together, moving as one, each leaning down into the stroke as the other folded. They were closer in age to each other than Asenka was to Yeva, and so alike as to be nearly twins. Asenka’s hair was two shades darker than Lena’s chestnut brown, and her cheeks fuller and pinker, but from a distance the two were indistinguishable.

  “Yeva,” said Asenka warmly, looking up but not halting at her work. “You’re home early.”

  “The ladies thought there might be a storm coming,” Yeva replied, “and the baronessa dismissed us early.”

  “The ladies?” echoed Asenka, a smile lurking behind her black eyes.

  Yeva grinned and lifted one shoulder delicately. “My seat is closest to the window—why shouldn’t I notice incoming weather first?” She reached for the laces on her dress and tugged them loose, drawing in a long breath. Her blood was still pumping from her uphill walk.

  “Oh, Yeva.” Lena’s voice was heavy with weary scolding. “What are you doing? Father will be home soon—what if he should see you?”

  “Father has seen me head to toe in men’s clothing,” Yeva reminded her, “and half covered in boar’s blood. I don’t think he will die from the scandal.”

  “But you were a child then,” said Lena delicately. “Now you are grown. And anyway, what if Albe were to come in?”

  “Then he shall probably explode on the spot.”

  Asenka let out a strangled laugh before turning her head aside to hide her mouth against her shoulder. Lena glared at her, the expression quickly dissipating in favor of a rueful smile. “Service to the baronessa was supposed to tame you, Beauty, not teach you new ways to torment us all.”