Faerietale

by Stephanie Rabig

  "But you won't?" Red asked, looking so hopeful and worried and young, and Mother Miriam knew that her granddaughter was testing her again, but she remembered her so being so small, Rudolf holding her hands and helping her toddle around the palace, and oh Scheherazade, she wanted to believe her.

  "No, I won't," Mother Miriam finally said. "But if you prove my mercy wrong, you at least won't be here to harm anyone else. You seemed so interested in the Shadow Realm . . . you can go repair the damage you caused. Wendy's Door has already been Closed. After you're through, I'm breaking the palace mirror."

  "Isn't the Forest Witch still in there?" Red asked, and Miriam decided that she wasn't faking the tinge of nervousness in her voice. Little Red was an intelligent girl, after all. Where once she might've been the Forest Witch's way to freedom, now she would be just another prisoner.

  "That she is," Mother Miriam said. "So you're going to have to learn to play nice, Little Red."

  ***

  “Wolf!” she cried, gathering up her tattered skirts as she ran. Branches and brambles caught at her, but she pushed on heedless of the scratches. “Where are you?”

  She dodged around a huge oak tree, wishing she had any sort of woodcraft—never before had she needed to track through thick undergrowth so badly. It felt as though something had been unlocked inside her and a door she had never known existed had been thrown open. Everything was suddenly clear and she was almost drunk on it all. She would burst if she couldn’t vent the joy and energy burning sweet and hot beneath her skin.

  Skin, not fur. She was a woman again, and a better woman than she had been. How could she have ever been so useless and vain? The ability to build a fire or hunt a stag—those were talents that benefited others as much as the self. And he had taught her that; had shown her that she could be more than a pretty face or fine airs.

  “Wolf!” she called again. Where did he go? He couldn’t leave, not now. Not when she felt like this. She wanted to laugh or cry, or possibly both, and hug him so tightly he’d never want her to let go. She wanted to kiss him and tell him she—

  He stepped around the tree just as her ankle hit the exposed root. She saw the surprise register on his face just before she hurtled into him, the breath knocked from both of them with a comical “Oof!” His reflexes, forever better than hers, allowed him to catch her—albeit awkwardly—as they fell.

  “Oh, Wolf, I’m so sorry,” she gasped, flushing darkly with embarrassment. This had not been what she’d hoped for; she’d imagined herself slightly more elegant when she made her declaration. “…I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  “I doubt you could ever do that,” he said with a smile that made her cheeks darken further.

  “I’m so glad you’re alright,” she said. “I was terrified for you.” She shifted, put her palms against the leaf-strewn ground and started to push herself up to stand. But then he made a soft sound in the back of his throat and his arms tightened around her.

  “You’re safe,” he murmured. “By Scheherazade, when I realized she had you. . .”

  His face was so close she could almost count his eyelashes. And the way he was staring up at her . . . she felt a hot rush of desire. She had thought herself attracted to her betrothed, who was a handsome man. But that had only been the idea of attraction. This was something else entirely, and it demanded practice. She leaned forward, eyes on his lips, when she realized something that should have been immediately and abundantly obvious:

  “Your clothes?”

  A brief flash of embarrassment passed over his face. “I can’t find them.”

  “Oh.”

  “I can track better as a wolf,” he explained quickly. “And keeping hold of my clothes didn’t seem to be all that important.” He reached up to brush a wayward strand of hair behind her ear.

  “You almost died back there,” Beauty said. The back of her throat was burning. “Because of me.”

  “Red and I, that was inevitable. She would have come at me until one of us was dead, regardless.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Beauty said fiercely. “It came to it because of me. I almost watched her kill you.”

  “But she didn’t. Which was also because of you. I didn’t defeat her-- you did. And my mother, she’ll make sure she’s punished. Put away somewhere where she won’t be a threat any longer. I could see that in her eyes.”

  “You trust her with something that important?”

  “I do.”

  Beauty opened her mouth, all of her old anger at Miriam for the curse flooding back. The anger at her for cursing Wolf, as well; her own son. But then she paused. Closed her mouth. Because the truth of it was suddenly obvious: Miriam’s magic had not destroyed them. It had not been intended to. Wolf’s curse was more of a blessing, giving him an ability to survive in the woods and evade the Queen’s soldiers. And as for her . . . how else would her eyes have been opened? Without that blasted comb, she never would have met this impossible man.

  “Wolf, I. . .”

  “Yes?”

  How damnably frustrating! Just moments ago she would have sung it to the stars, screamed it to the clouds, told him everything in a rush of wild emotion. And now, her big chance before her, she found the words were sticking to her tongue.

  So she did the only thing she could do, words having failed her. She buried her hands in his shaggy hair and kissed him.

  For the briefest of seconds, she worried that she was being too forward. But the thought died as soon as it had been born, because he responded in a way that made his own feelings undeniably clear. The stubble of his beard scraped her cheeks, but she hardly noticed. Not when his tongue was sliding across hers and his hands were full of her, warm and rough against her arms, her back.

  She pressed closer to him, her hips brushing against his; he growled against her mouth. The sound thrilled her. Daring to be bold, she drew a hand down his chest, over the ridges of muscle and ribs, moving ever southward. She was relatively naïve when it came to these things, but that didn’t make her an idiot.

  He nipped the edge of her lip as she touched him, curious fingers exploring the tender skin. “Careful,” he whispered, voice huskier than usual. “Much more and…”

  “Maybe I want more,” she said, breathless with her own audacity and the feel of him.

  “Well, then.”

  His hand was at her thigh; it slipped beneath her skirts, ghosting across the skin with maddening slowness. She felt his fingers curve, then slide. She shuddered at the touch, the pressure of a fingertip at just the right spot.

  She gasped, and he studied the pale curve of her throat as she tilted her head back. Her heartbeat was visible at the artery, and in that moment of vulnerability she was breathtaking. He pressed a kiss to the spot and she smiled.

  They rolled across the leaves, all hands and mouths. There was mud on her back and twigs in her hair and she’d never felt more wonderful. The forest had gone silent around them, making every moan and sigh that more audible.

  “I love,” she tried to say.

  “I know,” he replied. “And I—”

  “I know.”

  All those nights with him, with his voice the only comfort and support. For so long he had been only an outline in the darkness, a faceless confidante. Now she touched him as if she could memorize every line and hair.

  He had wanted her for so long, as a wolf wants a mate. Her determination, her fierce spirit, her refusal to quit, her kindness—he had loved her even before she had a lovely face to match. But a part of him had always thought that she would leave after the curse had been lifted; when she could walk among normal people again, why would she stay in these dangerous woods with a man who was more often a beast?

  As she laughed against him, a giddy sound of joy and relief, his throat clenched with the force of his happiness. She had seen through the animal, just as he had seen through the monster. She valued him, she loved him. She wanted him and had risked her life to save him. He had never dreamed such a miracle wo
uld happen, not after his past betrayals and loneliness. But that was all behind him, mere shadows in the night, because here was his new day.

  He trailed a line of kisses down her neck.

  Her hands tightened in his hair.

  “Wolf,” she said. He lifted his eyes to meet hers and smiled, and there was a promise in it that sent a shiver through her. She was still shivering as he pushed up her skirts, as his fingers went to work unlacing her bodice. Her skin goosebumped as it met the air, but then his hands were there, oh so warm and firm. She pressed her legs to his hips, moving on pure instinct.

  He kissed her hungrily, teeth scraping against her lips, as he thrust into her. She shuddered with a gasp, crushing her breasts to his chest as she bucked beneath him. Her arms were around his neck and she held on as tightly as she could, overwhelmed by the sensations. It was hardly all pleasure; it felt too tight, too sharp. But in the ebb and flow there was a fullness, a sense of unity.

  She may not have been speaking actual words, but the breathless sounds she made told him all he needed to know. He slowed his rhythm and moved gingerly in an attempt to ease the discomfort. Wolf knew there would be some pain—there was nothing he could do about that. But he would be damned if he made this an ordeal for her.

  Beauty felt the change immediately. “It’s alright,” she whispered, relaxing her grip to look into his face. “I’m not spun glass. Promise.”

  She kissed him again. Threaded her fingers into his sweat-damp hair, hand smooth and soft against his neck.

  He thrust with a twist of his hips, and caught her cry in his mouth, reveling in the feel of her aftershocks. Another thrust, then another, and he followed her lead, her name on his lips.

  Much later, their bodies cooled and dry, they lay looking up at the dappled sky through the swaying, leafy branches. Wolf had curled himself around her, head resting at her breast while she twisted a lock of his hair around her finger.

  “Twenty-one, twenty-two,” he said softly under his breath.

  “Hmmm?” she asked sleepily.

  “’M counting the freckles on your stomach. Twenty-three. . .”

  “What are we going to do now?”

  He shifted. Raised his head. His eyes became rather serious. “What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know,” she said softly, voice and face somewhat incredulous. “I’ve always known what I wanted. If I got something, I had another want lined right up. But right now? I have everything I want. That’s almost frightening.”

  “Well,” he said thoughtfully, lying back down. “Guess we’ll have to take it a day at a time. Right now? I just want to be here, with you, like this. For just a little bit longer. Then maybe some dinner.”

  “Shouldn’t we get clothes at some point?”

  “What for?” he asked with a suggestive smile she didn’t see but felt against her skin.

  She laughed and pinched his arm, but he only kissed her stomach and went back to counting where he’d left off.

  ***

  Though she spent most of a day thinking it over, Beauty finally decided that returning to her Village to get her dresses and other belongings was not unforgivably vain.

  Besides, if it was vain to want to have more than one change of clothing, and to actually look nice for the man she was (constantly) bedding, then all right, she was vain.

  And, truth be told, she did want to see her mother again.

  For a moment she stood at the edge of the trees, reminding herself that she didn't have to skulk around the outskirts anymore. She could walk through the center of the Village just as she always had once without fear of ridicule.

  It still felt odd to be so out in the open.

  "Beauty? Beauty, oh my goodness! It is you!" Serena raced up to her and threw her arms around her, and Beauty automatically stiffened. Serena had been the one who'd screamed the loudest when she'd seen her after the curse.

  "Yes, it's me," she said, edging away as quickly as possible. Other people had come at the woman's cry, and now it seemed half the Village was out here, surrounding her, smiling and congratulating her for being 'back to normal' and she thought of how many times she'd pictured this immediately after her self-imposed banishment.

  "Out of the way!" she heard, and she smiled at the familiar sound of her mother's voice. "Shoo! I would see my daughter!"

  But before her mother could quite make her way through the crowd, Michael was there, pulling her into his arms. "I thought I'd never see you again!"

  Her first instinct was to go for his eyes, and then she looked over his shoulder and saw Genevieve, staring at them, a surprised look on her face.

  Genevieve had known, certainly, that Michael had been seeing her. But apparently the fact that he still held feelings-- or at least as close to feelings as Michael was capable of-- was a shock.

  And if she did try to scratch at his eyes, Michael would surely wax poetic to Genevieve, saying how he'd just missed her as a friend and her time in the woods had obviously worsened her temperament.

  Well then.

  Beauty gave him what she knew was her most dazzling smile. "Darling! The thought of you was what kept me going these long, horrible months. I know that the original date for our wedding is past, but I do hope you still intend to set another?"

  "Of course, my love."

  He leaned down to kiss her, and Beauty ducked out of his arms, trying to hold back a shudder. Had she actually once wanted to kiss this man?

  Well, no, not really. She'd been engaged to him and it was just assumed that they would wed and have the required amount of children and then she would simply share a house with him and go about her own business.

  "Genevieve," she said loudly. "Were I you, I would find a better sort of man."

  Michael's mouth dropped open. "But I-- we--"

  "There is no 'we'; you ensured that. Please enjoy trying to repair the damage you just caused. And I dearly hope she won't let you."

  "You-- you are a beast!" he snapped, and then he stalked off, pushing his way through the crowd.

  Beauty grinned, would've laughed, but then she saw her mother's face.

  "I don't understand," she said quietly. "You are calling off your engagement?"

  Ohh dear. Had she not known? "I-- mother, I am sorry. But I came back to the Village once, and saw him and Genevieve--"

  "Well, of course," her mother said, waving a hand. "You don't expect a healthy young man to go that long without companionship, do you? He had no idea when you would be coming back, sweetheart. She doesn't mean anything. Her parents work at the selka farms, for pity's sake," she said, lowering her voice.

  "Let us talk elsewhere," Beauty said, her ears burning as she glanced around at the other villagers.

  "Certainly," her mother said, hurrying towards their house. "Oh, it's so wonderful to have you back. And you're sure that awful curse won't return?"

  "As sure as I can be," Beauty murmured, shutting the door behind them. "Mother, I-- I am not back to stay. I came merely to visit. To gather my things," she said, heading to her room and starting to pack her most treasured items.

  "What? But you're better now! You can come home!"

  "Would you not have welcomed me home before?"

  "Oh, of course I would have. It just wouldn't have been very comfortable for either of us, really. You know how people talk."

  "Yes. I do. And I need to explain-- even if Michael had not taken up with Genevieve, I would have broken our engagement today. I have met someone else."

  "Oh?" her mother asked, a bit of hope coming back to her eyes. "What is his name?"

  "Wolfram. He was a worker at the palace--"

  "The palace!"

  "-- but he was banished to the forest years ago," she continued, closing her traveling case. "He's waiting out there for us; would you like to come meet him?"

  "I suppose so, but I-- why can he not call on us in our own house like a civilized man?"

  "It's a curse," Beauty explained quietly. "He has to rem
ain in the forest." She moved toward the door, but when she opened it for her mother, she was sadly unsurprised to see that Faith hadn't moved. "Mother?"

  "I'm sorry, it's just-- it's a shock to me, really. You give up a marriage to the wealthiest, most sought-after man in town for a . . . a poor, cursed boy in the woods? Why?"

  "Because he saw me when I was cursed and he never ran away," she said, moving closer, willing her mother to understand. "He talked to me every night when I thought I would surely go mad from loneliness. Because he fought Little Red for my sake even knowing he'd lose. He's glad I'm back to how I was but I truly don't think it would've mattered much to him if that comb had stayed fastened in my hair, and I love him. Come and meet him?"

  "I-- I'm sorry, dear. I'm just not sure what's come over you. I'll try to apologize to Michael for you, and hopefully he'll agree to give you a week or two to come to your senses."

  Beauty nodded. "It was good to see you, Mother."

  "You too, Beauty. Please come back soon. Everything'll be perfect again, you'll see."

  She gave her mother the most reassuring smile she could muster, and then gently closed the door behind her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Once Upon a Time...

  They'd started drinking without her.

  Smee swayed in a quite comical way as he pointed out the nearby island, and Wendy laughed, leaning into James as he looped an arm around her waist.

  They'd left the Lagoon, were out on the open ocean. Save for the small island, there was only water in every direction she looked. It was like her view of the sky had been when she'd flown here with Peter and Tink and her brother, vast and amazing. Sparkling in the fading sunlight.

  All of them spilled out onto the shore, exploring what they'd found. She dug her toes into the soft sand, looking out over the ocean.