by T. S. Joyce
One snake bite was all it took for her life to be over.
It was dangerous in the untamed wilds of Colorado and not a place for a woman like her. It wasn’t a place for a woman at all. Only men made of gristle and bone and too tough for this life to chew up and spit out.
We’d be the death of each other, and I had to save us both.
Nothing changed since I met her.
Nothing but my blinding love that would burn us both up like the sun.
****
Kristina
No way was I going to lie down while Luke talked himself out of marrying me. Not when we’d come this far and were this close. Rosy could run, he’d been right about that. Her speed was a breathless ride that bordered elating and terrifying all at once. She was sure footed and quick as lightning, and gave me more when I asked for it. My grip on the saddle horn was relentless as I steered her pounding hooves down the road that led home.
Home. My home and I’d be damned if Luke messed that up for us.
Jeremiah yelled from behind me but I couldn’t understand what he was saying, nor did I really care. I couldn’t tell the sound of my heart from the rhythmic force that was my Indian pony’s hooves. She reared with a scream when I pulled her to a sudden stop in front of the barn, but I was ready. I held on until all four of her hooves brushed the earth again.
He’d be putting his horse away and he’d be cornered in that old, rickety building. Luke wouldn’t be able to escape the tidal wave of pleading emotion that was about to barrel down on him. I’d beg for his love if I had to.
“Kristina, don’t!” Jeremiah yelled from the clearing but I ran for the door and threw it open.
“Luke!” I spun when I couldn’t find him. “Luke, where are you?”
His horse was loose and came running with a terrified sound for the door. I pushed out of the way and clutched onto the nearest stall. He had to be in here. He wouldn’t leave his horse out and saddled. Jeremiah was getting closer and he’d keep me from degrading myself—from begging his brother to keep me.
My panting breath was deafening as I searched each stall, every corner, every dark hiding place he could be. A soft noise came from the back of the barn and I ran, lifting my skirts as I rushed for him. In a back stall, one dilapidated with a lack of use and care, Luke’s crumpled body lay bent and broken.
I slid into the musty hay beside him and waved my hands over his skin helplessly.
“Get out,” he growled around a leather strip of hide he held clenched in his teeth.
“I can’t leave you like this. Did you fall from the horse?”
An inhuman bellow burst from his throat as his neck snapped backward with a deafening crack.
“What’s happening? What do I do?” I chanted, like the incantation would give me an answer somehow.
His face elongated with a crunching of bones and sharp teeth grew from his opened mouth. Hair sprouted through his smooth skin in a burst, and the blood in my veins turned to ice.
He wasn’t dying. He was changing into a monster.
In a fit of self-preservation, I backed as far as I could against the next stall. Unable to take my eyes from the horrific event unfolding just feet away from me, I watched as the Luke I loved melted into the beast that’d tried to kill me the first night.
The panicked sounds, I came to realize, were mine. As his transformation into the wolf of my nightmares was completed, the fear loosed its hold on me just enough to let me run. I tripped on my skirts in the afternoon sunlight and fell with a tremendous crash outside the barn. The wolf was on my heels and when I turned, the snarling beast was on me.
His teeth shone white, and his crystalline blue eyes were so light, they were almost the color of bleached bone left out in the sun too long. I screamed in terror as he lunged. With his paws on either side of my body, his lips lowered over his teeth in a look of uncertainty. His eyes grew serious and clear.
I’d never seen heartbreak in an animal before now.
And then he was gone. He was just the back of a wolf running for the woods, leaving me to lie in the dirt, gasping and crying.
I lay there a long time. It wasn’t an option to convince myself I’d imagined it. For the rest of my life I’d never get the vision of his breaking body out of my memories. I slammed the back of my head into the dirt and tried to get a handle on my breathing. Tiny stars dotted the edges of my vision and, blinking hard, I swore not to pass out in the yard. I stood and stumbled toward the house.
Jeremiah sat on the porch steps with his hands clasped under his chin. The saddest look I’ve ever seen danced in the depths of his dark eyes.
“Are you like him too? Do you turn into a wolf?” My voice sounded very small and had a tremor to it.
“Yes. And so does my other brother, and so does my father, and so has every man in our family tree since the beginning of humans.”
My knees would buckle beneath me if I didn’t sit, so I climbed past him and collapsed into the old wooden rocking chair. “What about your mother?”
“Human.”
“Have you brought me here to kill me?”
“No. I brought you here to marry me. To soothe my wolf after losing his mate. I haven’t lied about that part.”
Nodding slowly, I said, “Not that part, just everything else.” I touched my lips. “Luke kissed me. Will I catch it?”
“No, it isn’t catching. If he bit you as a wolf, you’d die a slow and painful death though.”
Jerking my head toward him I said, “Are you trying to frighten me?”
“No, Kristina. It wasn’t ever our intention to scare you.”
“Then why,” I yelled, “did Luke attack me that first night? If it wasn’t to scare me, then why’d he do it? Was he going to bite me and kill me? Was he that determined not to marry me?”
Jeremiah’s patient voice was strained and loud. “Luke was a damned fool that night. He thought if he scared you, you’d stay out of the yard after dark and inside where you’d be safe. In his own way, he was trying to protect you.”
“I’ve dreamt about the wolf and the fear I felt almost every night. How could that be protecting me? What am I supposed to do with this, Jeremiah?”
“It seems to me you have a choice. You can accept him, all of him, or you can pack your bags and leave knowing if you ever say a word about what we are, we’ll be killed. Our futures are in your hands now. You have to decide your real feelings about Luke and if they’re enough to overlook the nights he has to change into an animal.”
****
That night, I cried until I had no more tears left to shed.
Somewhere, deep in the stillness of dark, a wolf howled. My wolf howled. The subtle shift in my way of thinking had me searching for him out my tiny window. The yard was still and shrouded in the midnight blue that accompanied an eyelash moon.
I fell asleep with my back against the wall, waiting for my wolf’s song to touch my ears again.
Chapter Eighteen
Kristina
I slept fitfully, and time after time, my dreams careened back to the look in Luke’s eyes when I screamed and cried in terror.
No wonder he hadn’t told me.
After I was washed and dressed, I found breakfast still warming on the stove. I ate it on the front porch, but neither Dawson brother was around. The homestead was eerily quiet without the sound of them working. Even the animals seemed melancholy.
Finished with breakfast and thoroughly full, I rinsed my dish and the others in the sink before I headed out to the barn. It seemed to echo with emptiness, though all of its inhabitants were still here. Jeremiah and Luke’s horses were missing, so they must’ve been out with the cattle. If I had any idea where the herd was, I’d head out after them. They’d been moved since last I’d seen them though, and I hadn’t a guess where.
An ache bloomed in my chest the longer I went without seeing Luke. A quiet desperation to make it right washed over me. But my wants went unanswered as the morning sun rose in
the sky to hang over a hot midafternoon.
I finished every chore I could think of and landed in the garden tugging ruthlessly on giant weeds that had sprouted after the rains. If I spent the time to make the boys a huge feast, Luke would have to let me say my piece. I’d make Trudy’s stew and the cornbread she’d showed me how to make.
I pulled oddly shaped carrots, snap peas, green beans, squash, and onions too. Tomatoes hung from their mother plants so numerous, the limbs were weighed down with the red orbs. When the garden looked immaculate and my basket was filled with the vegetables I’d need, I dragged my haul inside and washed my dirt riddled wares. Someone had put beef in the smoke house, so I cut enough for my stew. When the kettle sat boiling over the fire, I took the sewing basket out to the rocking chair on the front porch, and busied my mind while my eyes searched loyally for Luke.
He couldn’t avoid me forever.
It was Jeremiah who rode slowly through the edge of the woods. His hat shadowed his eyes, but the grim set of his mouth was telling enough. Whatever news he bore, it wasn’t good.
“Where is he?” I asked as he tied his horse to the post out front and dismounted.
Removing his hat, he leaned his foot against the bottom step. “Luke’s gone. The cattle are gone too, so I suppose he’s driving them to Denver.” His eyes never left the toe of his boot while he talked.
“By himself?”
“He’s capable enough.” His eyes found mine. “He’s a werewolf, after all. I tried to catch up but he must have left in the night.” His jaw clenched and unclenched with some hidden emotion.
“I don’t understand. When’s he coming back?”
Jeremiah shook his head and reached into his pocket before handing me a folded piece of parchment paper. “Found it on the table this morning.”
The edges of it were warm and soft in my grasp. Upon opening the letter, dark scrawled handwriting flowed across the page. It must’ve been his and I traced the first word with the tip of my finger before handing it back. “Can you read it for me?”
I followed Jeremiah inside and melted numbly into a dining chair. The lantern battled the evening light and flickered across the table, sending scurrying shadows dancing across the floor. I picked at the edge of my apron as Jeremiah’s deep voice resonated against the cabin walls.
Dear Kristina,
I’m leaving so you’ll have plenty of time to find your own way without me there. Jeremiah will give you money for the train and you can go anywhere. You’re young and will find another man. One more worthy of you. I don’t want a wife and never have, but if we lived in a different world, I’d want a woman like you.
Be happy.
Fall in love with a man capable of loving you back.
Live.
-Luke
I wanted to throw the letter into the fire before Jeremiah even uttered the last word. I wanted to shred it into a million pieces so it wouldn’t be true. I hated the letter more than I’ve ever hated anything in my entire life. How dare him cast me away before I’d even had a chance to talk about what I’d seen.
I didn’t want to leave. Where in the entire world could I feel this safe? This taken care of? He’d given me a taste of what it was to have love returned, then he’d ripped it away from me with that blasted letter.
I tore out of the house as the roiling anguish threatened to drown me. At the edge of the woods I dropped to my knees and screamed his name until my voice was battered. A selfish and dark piece of me wished he could hear the sobs in my voice and somehow feel the pain that ripped at my soul. This hurt so much more than anything physical ever could.
Exhausted and defeated, I stumbled into the house.
“I can take you to the stagecoach tomorrow if you’d like,” Jeremiah said.
With the back of my hand I wiped my tear stained cheeks, then straightened my spine. “You’ll do no such thing. Luke is mine and I’m not going anywhere. This is my home.”
****
Luke
It’d been five days and I already missed everything about her.
The long hours of slowly driving cattle weren’t any help for the ache in my chest that grew bigger the farther away from her I rode. The drizzle that fell in waves from the dark storm clouds above did nothing but dampen my mood. I pulled my hat further down over my face as the steady drip, drip, drip of water fell in front of me. I couldn’t name a more miserable time in my life.
I’d have to sell the spotted horse if she didn’t take it with her. I couldn’t see the animal in the barn and invite that kind of loneliness every day. Maybe I’d give her to Elias and Trudy. If Kristina was kind, she’d take everything that would remind me of her. My life had to be cleansed if I was to move on.
My wolf revolted and the animal slithered and snarled inside of me in desperation to get out and run back to her. I couldn’t change until I knew she was gone into the world where I’d never find her again. Where my wolf would never find her.
The look of terror on her face when she saw the real me was something we’d never get over, even if I wasn’t already leaving. Too much was stacked against us and if she was to have a life, one without fear, it was going to have to be one without me. It was best we cut our ties now before we got any more attached.
She’d find a normal man who’d give her all the babies she wanted. She’d never have to hold her withering daughters or cry over their graves. She’d never have to wish for boy children so they’d survive. She could be pregnant and not be afraid.
The thought of her blooming with another man’s child buckled me into myself. I shook my head violently and kicked my horse until he was running after a few cattle who’d wandered into the brush.
We hadn’t a huge herd, but driving them one-manned still wasn’t ideal. It seemed a fit punishment for me though. Every difficulty I’d found along the way, and they’d been numerous, felt right and justified. Maybe they would balance the wicked things I’d done.
Through the thinning trees, the edge of Denver was visible. The sight of it should’ve brought me excitement that the drive was almost done, but it was only the first leg of my journey.
I wouldn’t see home again for a very long time.
People in Denver knew enough to move out of the way when cattle were driven down the rustic roads that led to the pens beside the train. My herd, weary from the journey, were easy enough to coax as I rode from side to side, keeping them in line and in the right direction. Once they were loaded into the pens, looked at, and given a head count twice over, I was paid.
In years past, Jeremiah and I would cut loose at a saloon up here in the city, but this year, our money wouldn’t be squandered. I paid an advance to the Denver Bank that would get our homestead through the winter, and made arrangements to get Jeremiah his share of the leftover funds. With part of mine, I bought a train ticket.
“Where you headed?” the ticket master asked.
“Chicago bound, sir,” I said over the pounding rain.
If I was leaving Kristina to make her way in the world, I was leaving her safe.
Evelynn French didn’t know what kind of hell was coming for her.
Chapter Nineteen
September
October
November
Chapter Twenty
Kristina
Winter was relentless in the hilly forests of Colorado Springs. Snow was a daily burden, and predators, desperately hungry in the weather, grew bolder in coming close to the house at nights. The biggest chore was keeping warm, especially when my heart felt so very, very cold.
Jeremiah had agreed to take up where Luke left off and teach me to survive in the wilds of the place I was so determined to make my home. Trudy picked up the slack when Jeremiah was too busy trying to keep the ranch running.
Trudy had bloomed, and the first signs of a growing life inside her could be seen through even her loosest of dresses. Elias was ever the doting father and waited on Trudy like she was a queen. At first it had hurt so bad
ly to see them together that I’d withdrawn. It was Trudy who’d got me living again with a firm lecture on independence and creating one’s own happiness.
She was right. I had a warm bed and a strong roof over my head. I contributed to a ranch and had become a decent cook. I had companionship in Jeremiah, and even though it wasn’t romantic, I still had someone to talk to. And someday, I’d see Luke again. Until then, I just needed to keep moving, and living, and breathing.
For all the hate I’d felt for his letter the first time Jeremiah read it, something had changed over the lonely months. Now I looked over the letter before I went to bed every night and slept with it tucked into my pillow case. It was my only connection to the man I loved and mourned for. From time to time, on the snowiest days, Jeremiah would offer to read it to me, and I could almost imagine Luke’s voice through the sound of his brother’s.
Through the months, I’d grown used to what the Dawson boys were. Jeremiah had set a rule that he’d tell me when he was changing and I was never to venture outside, no matter what. His wolf was shattered and he didn’t have any logic when he turned. He assured me he’d bite me with little regret until he turned human again, and I believed him.
Sometimes, after he changed, the wolf would claw at the wall of my room to get in, and the snarling tearing sounds that would drift through my window said he was crazy. At first I’d been terrified, but now I’d press my hand against the wall he was trying to rip through and my heart ached with sadness for him. The loss of his Anna had fractured him, and a big part of me understood the loss. Maybe the biggest part of me now.
The cabin smelled of cherry preserves, golden flakey pie crust, and sugar. I wrapped the pan of desert tightly in a clean cloth as Jeremiah pulled the buggy around front. Trudy had developed a craving for pastries and the weather had cleared enough for us to ride into town. Buffalo hide blankets covered our laps as we raced the whipping wind over the miles that separated us from civilization.