by Kayle Wolf
Best not to think of Eric. Best to keep his mind well away from all that for as long as possible. He was well aware he’d come very close to the edge of oblivion today, and his mind was worn out from holding him together. It would be good to rest, to sleep, to let his body and his mind start to heal from what had happened to them. But not yet. Not until he’d processed what had happened and put it away orderly in his mind. So he sat, breathing deeply, meditating on the flickering of the flames, and letting the events of the day settle deep into the membrane of his memory.
First had been the auction. That had been where his control had slipped. What had it been? A barbaric practice, true, and he’d felt the stirrings of anger deep in him as he realized what terrible thing these shifters were up to. But he’d experienced plenty of terrible things in his time. What had caused him to do that absurd thing he’d done? It had almost felt like shifting—almost. He’d been terrified that he was going to lose control completely, that all twelve foot of muscle and fur and deadly, deadly force was going to be unleashed on that little gathering. He’d held onto control by the absolute skin of his teeth, held on by his fingernails to his human form. But what had caused him to snap like that?
It was the woman. Something in her eyes, in her face. Something about her, that woman standing so defiant in that strange metal collar with her hands bound before her. The fierce intelligence in her eyes as she scanned the crowd. The seething anger in the lines of her body. Those hypnotic, glowing golden eyes that had seemed to reach deep into the darkest part of him when she’d looked … but it was the strangest thing, he hadn’t felt any fear. Something about her had made him feel, just for a moment, that he’d be happy to let her see every single part of him, body and soul.
He shook his head a little as the fire crackled. It had been a powerful feeling, and it still was. He rested in the present, in the awareness of his breath, his body and the dancing flames, and let that feeling sit undisturbed in his mind to be contemplated. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say it was love at first sight. But that was ridiculous. There was no such thing. Was there?
He thought about Eric, then. He couldn’t help it. Thought about Eric and Yasmin. The way she’d come crashing out of the forest, nine feet of pure muscle, with dark, intelligent eyes. The way he and Eric had stared her down, shocked by the recognition in those wild eyes. Shocked to find themselves recognizing one of their own. They’d been walking back from the creek when she’d loomed out of the bushes, barely out of their adolescence, laughing and goading one another as young men did.
“Get Noah,” Eric had ground out, not looking away from the bear. Art had scoffed.
“Like hell, I’m leaving you here with that thing.”
“It’s okay.”
And to his surprise, it had been. The bear had roared when she’d emerged from the woods to find them—but as Eric crept towards her, one hand raised, she lowered her body to the ground, suddenly peaceful. And Art, despite his misgivings, had turned and sprinted up to the house, yelling for Noah at the top of his lungs. By the time he and the old man had returned (he’d never seen Noah move so fast in his life) the bear was gone. In its place was a fiery-haired young woman in tattered clothes—half-asleep, leaning hard against Eric’s shoulder, and he had been looking down at her like she was the sun and every other star.
“Knew you were here,” she’d mumbled. “Came to find you. Had to.”
Later, when Yasmin had been carried home, Noah had clapped Eric on the shoulder. The boy still looked shell-shocked. He’d kept looking towards the stairs where Nell had taken Yasmin to bathe and dress.
“It happens like that,” was all Noah would say. Art hadn’t known what he’d meant, but Eric had nodded as though the secrets of the universe had just been imparted to him. And though Yasmin soon became as close as a sister to everyone in York, it was Eric who had her heart.
He shook himself. None of that meant anything. This woman was no bear. She was something—he didn’t get human from her no matter how hard he looked—but she wasn’t like him. Not with eyes like those, glowing gold, like sunlight through honey. Like caramel. Like—well, like metallic gold, thank you, he chastened his mind and returned his focus to his breathing. In, out. You are not your thoughts, you are not your feelings, you are not your response to the way a woman flicks her hair out of her eyes as she yells at you.
And yell she had. He’d never felt so chastised in all his life. She’d fought him like a struggling fish the whole way out of town, and after an hour or so when his strength had finally given out, and he’d slowed to a shambling walk, she’d managed to wiggle out of his grip and crash hard to the forest floor. Furious, she’d spat out a demand for him to untie her hands, and he’d obeyed as quickly as a wolf obeyed its Alpha.
“What the hell did you think you were doing?”
“I—the king. He was going to—”
“Buy me. I know. And I was going to kill him the minute I got a chance, as well as everyone else in that blasted summer camp from hell, and free all those women, and—what the hell were you playing at, coming to my rescue? I don’t even know you. Who are you? What are you?”
He’d stiffened at that last one. She’d stared up at him, still so full of rage. She had no idea what she’d said, what it meant.
“You just grabbed me like I was a thing,” she hissed.
“My name,” he said with difficulty, fighting the roar of his anger, his shame, a lifetime of censure from other shifters, of sure and certain knowledge that to them he was nothing but a dumb, violent beast, “is Arthur York.” And what could he tell her about what he’d done when he didn’t understand it himself? All he’d known was that she couldn’t be allowed to go with the king—and he’d fought everyone there to ensure that that wouldn’t happen. Well, Nell had always told him he could achieve anything he put his mind to.
King Val. He’d caught sight of him in the crowd, just briefly—that spiky hair, that undeniable scar running down his face. That had given him some satisfaction. Noah had gotten him good. If anything was going to send him to the Wild state, surely it would have been catching sight of his family’s murderer for the first time. But somehow, that hadn’t been the case. Somehow, he’d just grabbed the golden-eyed woman and run. He did feel a little guilty, on reflection. She was tall, too, and clearly very strong—he could have simply freed her arms and let her run on her own two feet. But he hadn’t thought that far ahead. She had every right to be furious with him.
He took one last deep breath, then exhaled it, watching the flames dance in response. They were in the middle of the woods, and he was dismayed to realize he didn’t know where—up the mountains a little, that was all he knew. There were towns dotted around this part of the country, and it wouldn’t take long for them to walk back to civilization, but still, he felt guilty to have gotten them lost like this. At least he’d had his trusty Swiss Army knife—the sawblade attachment had allowed him to gather enough firewood to keep them warm overnight, and he’d fashioned a crude shelter—more of a windbreak, really—that the woman was now curled up in. She wasn’t asleep, but she was also not speaking to him. He didn’t even know her name yet. And fair enough, too. He hadn’t proven to her, yet, that he was better than the men who had captured her in the first place. Why should she give him anything?
“Are you a dragon?”
He turned, surprised to hear her voice. It had less fury in it than when she’d yelled at him earlier, but it was still cold, still distant. Those golden eyes were fixed on him, burning through him. He wasn’t sure what to say.
“No.”
Her eyes narrowed—but she didn’t follow up the question, and he didn’t especially feel like volunteering any more information to someone who clearly hated him. But to his surprise, he heard her moving. She came out of the shelter, shuffling towards him, and took place by the fireside. Held her hands up to warm them, the light on her skin making her seem like she was cast in bronze. She was breathtakingly beautiful.
; “Can you get this off me?”
He cleared his throat and shuffled to her side. She’d gestured at the gleaming silver collar that was fixed around her neck. He’d wondered about that—he’d seen her tugging at it that afternoon when they walked, in stony silence, up the hill towards where he reckoned the nearest town was. The other women in the line had been wearing them, too. A pang of guilt to add to his collection of emotions to work through. The woman had pointed out, and fairly too, that she’d been working on a plan to save them all. And he’d just yanked her and run. What fate had befallen the dozen or so women lined up behind the woman he’d saved? Had the auction continued after he’d left? Had he just delayed their fate by a few minutes?
He traced the metal collar with his rough hands, trying to find some catch or release mechanism that would free her from it. His fingertips burned where they brushed accidentally against the soft, warm skin of her neck, and he cleared his throat again, murmuring a husky apology each time he touched her. She didn’t respond, waiting stoically for him to be finished with his investigation. To his dismay, nothing he did could remove it.
“I’m sorry. I can’t seem to—”
“It’s okay.” A neutral tone, almost. Much better than the hostility that had been all she’d given him for most of the day. She gave him a look that was almost a smile, then shuffled back to the shelter and curled herself up under his jacket, her golden eyes closing in sleep. At least she trusted him enough to fall asleep near him. That was something, wasn’t it? And she was still with him—hadn’t marched off by herself into the forest. She hated him, true, but not so much that she wasn’t willing to at least walk with him back to civilization. He felt hope flare in his chest, ridiculous, absurd. Hope for what, exactly? Hope that she’d like him? Even if there’d been a snowball’s chance in hell of that, why did he care if she liked him? He had one purpose left under this sun—to kill the people who’d killed his family. Saving this woman had been a positive little side effect. Perhaps he could even manage his attack on King Val in such a way that it would save the other women, too. But for now, all he had to do was keep this woman safe until he could get her back to civilization. Then they’d go their separate ways. Hers to whatever home and family she had… his to his death.
And to his family. To avenge them, then to be reunited with them. Where he belonged. Where he was meant to be.
Why did that thought seem to give him less comfort now?
Chapter 7
She woke slowly, the flicker of sunlight irritating her closed eyelids even before she was fully conscious. That in itself was strange. There was never any sunlight in her room in the mornings… her window faced west, not east… and then her memories of the last few days all came back to her in a rush, and she sat bolt upright with a gasp, almost knocking her head on the roof of the shelter that the man—Arthur—had built for them.
Not that he’d shared it with her, it seemed. Helena narrowed her eyes as she saw where he was sleeping—on the other side of the now burned-out campfire, as far away from her as he could possibly get, curled in a ball on the hard ground with a tree stump for a pillow. She was sore enough from sleeping on the ground where she was, and she’d had the benefit of Arthur’s jacket to keep her at least a little comfortable. He was going to be stiff as a board when he woke up.
Well, good. He deserved a bit of stiffness. What a damn fool move he’d made, seizing her like that and running off into the woods. Now how was her family going to find her? What if they came to the festival in search of her, and found nothing? What would they do? But what could she do now—just walk back into Mossley? No. She was gone—best to stay gone until she could find a way to get word to her brothers about what was happening. If only she’d given in to Lisa’s nagging and gotten herself one of those strange little rectangles her sister-in-law was so obsessed with! Distance communicators. Impressive little gadgets, she had to admit, though the idea of constantly having to have one in her pocket had been enough to dissuade her from the idea. Now she would have killed to hear Lisa’s voice, even at the end of a phone.
No, she needed to get home before she gave any more thought to freeing the other women kept prisoner at the festival. But she had no idea how to navigate from the ground. She needed to get her wings back—and to do that, she needed to get rid of the cursed collar. Arthur had tried his best to remove it, dashing her hopes that there was some kind of release mechanism visible only to people who weren’t wearing the thing. It seemed she’d need to resort to some other means. Her plan was to visit a blacksmith, though she was a little concerned about whether or not blacksmiths were still a feature of human society. She rarely saw them on the modern television programs Angela and Jessica watched in their rooms. Plenty of coffee shops and restaurants—humans were so obsessed with eating!—but not a lot of blacksmithing. Still, it was her best hope for getting the collar removed for now.
And getting to a local town meant putting up with Arthur for a little longer. She had no idea where she was nor how to navigate in the forest, and to her dismay, she’d managed to twist her ankle the day before while they were running and it had swollen up overnight. Helena sat up, gingerly swinging her legs around to inspect the damage. Yes, definitely sprained, or at the very least badly rolled—she wouldn’t be moving very fast today. She might even need to lean on Arthur if it hurt too badly. Strange, that that idea didn’t bother her too much. She was furious about the way he’d treated her like an object, true—but his apology had been sincere, and he’d been very respectful of her space and her autonomy since then. And she couldn’t help but feel a little curious about him. Who was this man? What had he been doing at a shifter festival, if he wasn’t a dragon or a wolf? All wolves had silver eyes—Angela and Jessica had confirmed that. So what did brown mean?
It was a rather nice shade of brown, she thought to herself. It was a thought that took her somewhat by surprise, but before she could interrogate it further, she saw him stirring. Sure enough, he moved gingerly, clearly stiff after his night of sleeping on the hard rocky ground. God, he was enormous. Not just tall—she was used to tall, she was tall—but built like a brick wall, too. Bulky. He stretched his arms above his head, and she averted her gaze, but not before she saw his plaid shirt ride up above the waistband of his jeans and reveal a strip of skin, paler than his deeply tanned arms. This was a man who hauled heavy things around and chopped wood every day. Her mind flickered back to the moment he’d swung her over his shoulder like she weighed next to nothing, and she felt heat creep into her cheeks.
To cover her discomfort, she stretched as well, then got to her feet, stepping gingerly on her left ankle. His dark eyes were on her at once, concerned. Her breath hissed between her teeth.
“Still sore?”
“I heal slower in this form,” she said irritably, having forgotten that particular detail. Having injuries was an odd situation for shifters. Wounds sustained by one form were always transferred to the other—but just as the scale of their bodies shifted, so did the scale of their wounds. So if a dragon were injured in a life-threatening way in their draconic bodies—a deep wound in the chest, say, impacting several major arteries—it made sense to shift to a human form, where the wound would be translated to a less serious injury. It had never made sense to Helena—why did the injury shrink with their bodies?—but her father theorized that it was some kind of ancient defense mechanism. A justification and explanation for their human bodies that went beyond simple camouflage or communication. After all, dragons were born in their winged, four-legged shapes—transforming to a human form was a trick they learned later. It made sense for it to have medical benefits.
But the reverse was true, too. Her human limbs healed much more slowly than her dragon ones. Any minor injury to a human body would be larger after a shift—a dragon leg was much larger than a human one, after all—but it would heal much faster in dragon form. Unfortunately, shifting wasn’t an option for her. At least she wasn’t a human, she consoled herse
lf. Poor Lisa had twisted her ankle on the rocks once, and it had taken her an entire month to recover! A month! The shock and consternation of the dragons hadn’t helped her recover much either, Helena reflected with a smile. She’d been so cross that she’d eventually banned anyone from asking about her ankle at all.
“We’ll go slow.”
“Not a good idea,” she said, glancing back along the trail they’d followed. “If they’re following us, they’ll be following fast. And they’ll know these woods better than us. I can walk. It’s just pain.”
He nodded. There was something gratifying about that. Her brothers would have argued with her, told her not to risk injuring herself further, questioned her judgment—but Arthur seemed to take her at her word. To trust that she knew her body well enough to make her own decisions. She looked at him for a moment.
“My name is Helena.”
He looked up, surprise and gratitude on his face. A smile almost broke out across that face—but it was like seeing the outline of the moon through thick cloud. It had been there, just for a moment, but something was holding it back. Her curiosity was only getting stronger as her anger with him faded. Who was this man?
“It’s good to know you, Helena,” he said softly. His voice was strange, the more she heard it—rough, like he wasn’t used to using it. His accent was different from Lisa’s, even different from Angela and Jessica’s. She wanted to ask him about it, press him for information about himself—and then she caught herself, irritated by how quickly she’d moved on, how willing she was to trust him. No. Trusting strange men had gotten her captured and nearly sold to the highest bidder. She’d keep her guard up for now. If he wanted her trust, he could earn it.
They set off in silence, Helena limping a little on her bad ankle. Despite the dire situation, and the uneasy company she was keeping, it felt unbelievably good to be back out in nature. The forest was beautiful, full of birdsong and fresh air, and the trail they were following was easy enough walking, even with her bad ankle. Arthur brought up the rear, keeping a respectful distance between them, giving her her privacy. Good, she thought, still suspicious. She knew better than to give him too much credit for basic decency.