by A. W. Cross
“I don’t want to put your family out. I can go home.” I wanted to go home.
Jean merely gestured more earnestly. “You are family. The inn is your home. I mean, I always planned it to be more romantic than this, but there is no reason for you to be alone all night. We’ll have the wedding as soon as we find the priest, and you’ll never be alone again.”
Never? At once I saw myself living forever at the inn, stuck in the very center of town with everyone’s eyes always on me. And though I wanted to stay focused on the awful scene at my feet, the same wild panic I had felt earlier that day took over.
I couldn’t go to the inn tonight. Maybe not ever. Such a fate would sink me lower than death. It was the very reason my father agreed to the hunt in the first place.
“You didn’t talk to him?”
Jean shrugged. “I meant to, but it’ll be all right. You know he always liked me.”
Always liked him? My father never said a word to him. That should have been our first clue. Everyone in the village always said my father was too hard and quiet, but he wasn’t really. Not to the people he knew and loved.
Father knew and loved me in ways Jean never would.
I never should have put this off. I should have told Jean on my own to begin with. But I still couldn’t do it tonight with my father’s body on the ground and everyone staring.
“I just need to say goodbye.” I mounted Bullet before there could be any more discussion. “One night. I’ll come find you in the morning, I promise.”
One night to decide my whole future.
On the way home, I was bombarded with thoughts I didn’t want. Ones that didn’t properly grieve my father’s death. Just selfishly ask what on earth I was supposed to do without him. It was one thing to say I would be happy to wait out the next man or live my life as a spinster when he had been alive. But now that he was dead, did I have that option anymore?
Even with my father, we hired help for busy shearing or kidding days; I couldn’t run a whole sheep farm on my own.
And if I didn’t have my farm, if I didn’t have any way to support myself, what else could I do? I might have to take Jean’s offer. And would it really be so bad if I did? We were friends. The war might have changed things a little, but we could work it out—if I could just tell him that it bothered me. If I had told him off myself from the first, my father would never have gone on Jean’s stupid wolf hunt. Did it make it my fault?
As Bullet and I crossed into the borders of our farm, a twig snapped on top of the hill.
A wolf was raiding my snare.
5
Beauty
I knew in an instant that the small gray and black wolf wasn’t the russet wolfdog that Jean had described—the wolfdog who killed my father.
I also knew that I didn’t care. I found Father’s gun in the saddle and shot without taking a moment to think. Or to properly aim.
The wolf ran. Of course it did. That’s what all wolves did. They had no honor.
“Come on, Bullet.” I kicked the horse.
Bullet groaned in protest before slowly picking up speed, racing toward the hill. His hooves struck a puddle, muddy droplets dispersing over the glade. Wind rushed through my hair. A fire in my chest burned away every thought but one, one final mantra to light my way.
Whatever else happened, I would have the wolf pelt Jean promised me.
Clouds darkened the sky. Sliding on mud and leaves slick with fallen rain, Bullet galloped with the sloppy motions of a hare. He wasn’t used to so much running without a break.
We seemed to hit every twig as we passed the treeline, reaching the forest. Boughs of pine and oak blocked out the moonlight. I couldn’t see anything; I fired in the air and pointed Bullet toward the first sign of movement.
“There!” I called, cheered by a sudden glimpse of the wolf.
Mindless heat warmed my breast despite the chill. A focused, unwavering force. We rode and stumbled through the twisted foliage until the small wolf had his back pressed against a sharp ravine. He showed his fangs, howling to the wind.
I aimed the rifle. I knew I could hit him this time, but I hesitated. Something answered the desperate wolf’s cry. Howling, coming closer. My breath caught. Had it somehow called for reinforcements? Could one of its pack be the real mankiller?
Something charged. A large blur of black fur.
Bullet reared. I toppled over the saddle.
My left leg, still trapped in the stirrup, stopped me short. I hit my head instead of my back on the ground below.
Pain spiked through my body. My rifle fell from my hands. Bullet ran. Flashes of red and black flickered across my gaze as he dragged me forward.
I hit every rock, every root, every bush until . . . the stirrup snapped.
No, not snapped. Ripped apart by a flash of teeth. The creature’s maw had barely missed my leg. Instead, it freed me to fall the rest of the way to the ground.
The last thing I saw were dark gray eyes and the shadowed shape of a large wolf.
6
Beast
I knew I would have to hunt again and cover the death of the man on the road, but I didn’t expect the beast to rise to kill the crippled man. I didn’t mean for it to happen. But just as one lie often gives birth to another, the deaths seemed unavoidable now. I had to kill. I had to protect my secret.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t sorry when the girl cried, but once she was home with me, I would make it up to her. She might cry, for now, but I would be patient. I would be kind.
I would help her forget the past and everything would be back the way it was supposed to be. She would love me, and I might love her as well.
She was, after all, a beauty.
7
Beauty
Twisted images of wolves and men haunted my dreams. Painful dreams. Dark dreams. I moaned and thrashed until I forced myself to open my eyes and reason again. Long curtains moved in the breeze. The light from the open window cast shadows on the otherwise dimly lit room—a room with stone walls, wooden floors, and the musty, aged smell of dirt.
I wasn’t in my house at all.
I was in a strange bed after . . . It all came rushing back. The grief, the terror of the night before. Most especially the pain. My whole body ached as I raised my head from the worn sheets. I found a welt on my forehead and my arm. “Where am I?” I asked, the words dry and hoarse.
A low and eager voice from behind the curtains answered at once. “I brought you home. The horse spooked, and you hurt your leg, so I wrapped it up. I did it on a wolf cub once. It made him all better, so you’ll be all better soon.”
I barely digested the words, regathering myself. My boots and stockings were missing, but the dust was so thick on the wooden floor, I could trace the footprints and streak marks to where my things had been piled near the wall. I swung my bandaged knee around.
“No, not yet! You’re going to ruin it.”
I didn’t care if I ruined it. Or if my head reeled like a drunken man. I had to know where I was. Or at least who I was talking to. I stood on one foot, holding on to the bedside table and trying to keep track of the voice at once. “Where are you?”
“Um . . . hiding.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t want you to get up and run, but you’re already getting up so . . .”
His dark figure shuffled into the light, revealing his face and bare feet. A young man with shaggy hair hanging around his shoulders smiled at me. “Hi. Are you a girl?”
He had sprung out at me so fast, I stumbled back into the bed with a thump that must have passed as a nod.
“I thought so! You have . . . those!” He fanned his fingers and curved them in the air near his chest. “I like them.”
I tried to catch my breath. He was human. Of course he was human with the proper number of fingers and toes. But still he seemed wrong, and I had to stare and stare some more to mark every subtle difference. The way he crouched his back and the sharper angles of his
thinly bearded face. The way his red hair seemed tipped with black and how I could barely see the white in his gray eyes. And though he bounced his feet like a boy and wore an untucked shirt a size too large, I still suspected he had the solid frame of a man in his twenties.
“And you have . . . fangs.” Or at least his canines seemed more pronounced than they should be. That was simply the first thing that came out, but I instantly regretted saying it because then his smile dropped in a poor attempt to hide them better.
“You’re going to start yelling, aren’t you?”
“No . . . no, I like your fangs.” Or at least I couldn’t imagine telling someone who possessed them that I didn’t like them. As my eyes adjusted more to the dim light, I found another table and a door behind him. “I just need to go home. Thank you for helping me, but . . .”
“No.” The beast boy stood more firmly in front of the exit. “You can’t go home. Mother said I couldn’t help or talk to you unless I promised not to let you escape. If you did, all the hunters would come.” He shuddered. “I don’t like hunters.”
I felt down my coat and apron at the reminder—a frantic sort of reflex. I wasn’t surprised that my gun was missing, but I still tried to straighten my back. “I’m a hunter.”
He laughed and showed his fangs. “You’re not.”
Not this again. “Because I’m a girl?”
“Because you fell off your horse and didn’t hit anything. If you’re a hunter, you’re not a very good one.”
I couldn’t argue with him there. But he didn’t have to seem so happy about it.
“The other hunters will be looking for me anyway.” I thought of Jean’s rows of antlers and other trophies even though I never cared for them before. “If you don’t let me go—”
“You were alone. They don’t know where you went.”
“So, you’re just going to keep me here . . . forever?” Dread settled into me at the thought.
The beast boy didn’t answer. He reached behind him to something else in the shadows. “Are you hungry? I caught you dinner.” He dropped a dead pheasant on the table next to me.
Warm blood oozed from the large bite mark on its neck.
I had plucked and dressed enough birds from my snares that I might have been tempted if I saw anywhere to cook it. And if he hadn’t sprung it on me with the grace of a barn cat leaving a mouse on the porch. I scooted away.
He tilted his head back at me. “Don’t you know how to eat?”
“You eat it raw?”
“Raw?”
“I don’t eat meat unless it’s cooked.” Lightheaded and a bit numb, I felt my words become more detached. My thoughts too. There was still a chance all of this absurdity was a pain-induced fever dream, and I would wake up again in my real house or back where I collapsed in the woods or anywhere else that made a bit more sense.
My father would be alive again, sipping his tea in the kitchen, and we would—
“Cooking? Like fire?” the boy asked, halting all my desperate thoughts.
“Yes. Like Fire.”
He shuddered again. “Mother doesn’t like fire.”
“Who is your mother?” She certainly seemed to have a lot of opinions I had to contend with.
He glanced behind him. “She doesn’t want to meet you yet. But she’s happy you’re here. She said I shouldn’t have a wolf mate. It’s not proper. Mother likes things proper.”
There was nothing proper about this. And did he just say . . . ?
“Do you want to be my mate?”
So, he did say mate. At least this offer was easy enough to refuse, even if I was feeling a bit dizzy again. “No, thanks.”
He leaned in more earnestly. “Is it because I haven’t fought any other males for you yet? I could. And I’ll hunt for you. I’ll feed all our cubs too if you want some.”
“Human babies do not eat raw meat, and neither do I.”
He frowned at this, like it simply hadn’t occurred to him before. “Well then, what are you going to eat? I’ll get you anything you want.”
Good question. I was hungry. But I wanted him to leave more than I wanted food.
It didn’t seem like anything in the room would stop spinning until he was gone. “Do you have any . . . plants? Berries? Things like that?” Something he would have to go outside to get?
“Yes!” He sprang up to his toes like nothing could make him more excited. “I’ll go get you some. Stay here, and I’ll be right back.” He ran out the door, closing it so roughly that it bounced open again behind him.
“Take your time,” I said sweetly and started to stand.
8
Beauty
The beast boy came back to the doorway carrying a sack over one shoulder and looking confused. “Girl? Where did you go?”
I thought about not answering. But it wasn’t that big of a room—he was sure to find me on his own in a minute, and my leg hurt.
“Here,” I said, breathing out the word through clenched teeth and guarding my knee.
He walked around the table to where I had promptly collapsed after trying to strike out past the furniture and putting my full weight on my left leg. I had just made it far enough to catch a glimpse out the window and see the tops of the pine trees.
I was several stories up. Completely trapped in a tower of white stone.
“How did you get over there? Did you hurt yourself again?”
He put down his sack and picked me up. Just scooped me into his arms like I weighed no more than cloth. There was no more need to wonder how I had been transported out of the woods and into this room in the first place.
“You were trying to escape, weren’t you?”
“No?” It just didn’t seem like something I should admit to, though there was no other way to explain my current predicament.
“You don’t have to lie. Mother said you might try to escape until you got used to being here.” He didn’t seem mad at all. He just put me back on the bed and started pulling stems of winter berries from his sack, arranging them around the dead pheasant. “Are these better?”
He stared at me until I gave in, popping one into my mouth. They tasted a little sour with the season, but not bad. I could eat them. I grabbed three more, and he seemed so happy about it that it had to be another trap. “You know, even if I eat this, I won’t want to be your mate. That’s not how it works.”
“Human boys don’t give girls gifts when they want to mate?”
I thought about it. “Well, I guess they do. They give things like flowers sometimes.”
“You want a flower?” He really seemed confused by that one but still as eager to dash out the door again if needed.
“No! Actually, food is a better gift than a flower, but there’s more to it than that.”
He became defensive. “I said I’d fight the other males.”
“Please don’t,” I said, but his shoulders slumped so far down that I did feel bad. Where had this half-feral beast boy come from? Had he never been around other humans before? “You really don’t know how this works?”
His sulking silence was my answer.
“Well, we’d have to get to know each other first. Meet each other’s families . . .” I stopped. I didn’t have a family for any potential suitor to meet. But that shouldn’t matter. I wasn’t considering him, just explaining the process so he didn’t go around snatching stray girls and trying to feed them raw pheasants anymore. But maybe I should try to get to know him. Then I might learn something that would help me escape. Or even just learn how to reason with him better. “I don’t even know your name.”
“My name?”
“Yes. You know, what people call when they want you?”
He paused for a beat longer than should have been necessary. Then he brightened when he found the answer. “It’s Howl.”
“Hal? Short for Henri or Harold?”
“Yes! I definitely think it was one of those. But everyone calls me Howl now. Or at least that’s what they say w
hen they want me.” He whipped his head back and howled. I mean, actually howled. Long and eerie and easily the best impression of a wolf’s cry I had ever heard. “What about you?”
“Isabelle.” I thought about lying, but I really didn’t see the harm. This was just the strangest conversation I had ever been a part of.
“Isabelle? I love it! It suits you. It means beauty, right?”
“Well, I guess Belle does, but no one calls me that.”
“They should. You’re beautiful. I’m going to call you Belle, okay?”
“Just don’t call me Izzy.” I took another handful of berries, a surreal part of me feeling like I was viewing a supremely odd puppet show, just watching as he started to laugh and rolled on the floor. Literally. My goodness, this boy was expressive.
“Izzy is a silly name.”
I agreed. So, so much.
“You’re right.” He straightened so he was sitting cross-legged but still bounced his shoulders. “Getting to know each other is fun. You’re not a hunter, but you’re smart. I like that. I like knowing you. What else should I tell you?”
There was only one thing I wanted to know. “You aren’t really going to keep me here forever, are you?”
He looked back at his sack as if searching for more berries, and I worried he would try to change the subject again before he answered. “Mother said you would want to escape, and I should put you downstairs until you get used to things, but I hate all those cages, and I don’t think you would like them, either. But even if you won’t be my mate, I just can’t let you go and bring the hunters here. They would set fire to the place again and kill all the pups.”
“You have pups? Like dogs?”
“Not dogs.” He showed his fangs, and some of the scattered images from the previous night came together in a rush.
“Wolves. You live with wolves.” And had a bunch of cages in his basement.