6

“Nice show you put on,” Teah scolded me the minute we walked into her place. “Are you crazy? Thank God she intervened in your behalf. Else the whole village would’ve jumped on you!”

“The princess,” I murmured. “Her eyes.”

“Oh, yes, and her hair. I know. Nothing as blatant as you, but anyway striking for a wolf.” Teah shrugged. “Every now and then one like her is born.”

I rubbed my face, still trying to think straight again.

“I need to go home. I need to pack.”

“Pack what? You hardly own the clothes on your back. Forget it. They will give you anything you may need. And you better stay indoors. All the girls who weren’t chosen would give anything to find you alone. You’ll stay right here until it’s time to go to the clearing. And I’ll walk you there myself.”

I couldn’t sleep that night. I lay on my straw mattress by the fire, under the blankets and the bearskin. By the time Teah woke up the next morning, I had already gone to the well and cooked breakfast.

At noon, my father came knocking on Teah’s door while I was working in the backroom. He didn’t even ask to see me. He gave Teah something wrapped in a rough cloth, saying Lily sent it for me.

When we unwrapped it, we found a fine linen dress, bright white, just like the one all the chosen girls used to wear to leave for the castle.

“Give me that dress,” Teah grunted, snatching it from my hands.

“Wait! What are you doing?” I cried when she spread it open almost over the fire.

“If your stepsister sends it, there must be a catch.”

“Please, Teah! What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know. I smell rat,” she mumbled, sniffing and touching it until it was all smudged.

“Teah! You’re ruining it!”

“Do you really want to wear it? I thought you were smarter.”

“Of course I want to wear it! It’s the best dress I’ve ever had! Well, until you smudged it.”

Teah threw it to my face.

“Wash it with three drops of passionflower. Just in case she tried to hex it.”

*  *  *

I stumbled among the rocks, tripping and slipping, my tears mixing with the rain. Even there, deep into the woods, the trees didn’t cover me from the sleet. My heavy woolen dress hindered my movements, sticking cold and wet to my body.

I thought of the beautiful white dress Lily had sent me for what was supposed to be the best day of my life. After washing it, it wasn’t fully dried by the time I had to go to the clearing, so I’d ended up wearing my one winter dress. At least Aurora and Selene hadn’t ruined it like they’d ruined my life.

As soon as I was left alone with them, waiting for the wolves under a light rain, they dragged me into the woods, stripped me off of my cloak and pushed me into a deep ravine. That time of the year it was full of mud, on which I fell, crouching and shielding myself the best I could from the stones they rained on me from the tall bank, four feet above my head.

“If we see you again, we’ll kill you,” Selene promised.

I saw them disappear with my heart as hurt as my body. I even heard them laugh as they hurried back to the clearing.

I was trying in vain to climb out of the ravine when I heard the hooves approaching from the south, along with the voices of the wolves and those two bastards.

“She never came, my lord,” Aurora told them.

I covered my mouth with my hands coated in mud, not daring to cry for help, and they left with the wolves to the south.

Seeing I wouldn’t be able to get out of the ravine there, I had no choice but follow it down. I didn’t know how many turns it had before ending near the waterfall, but it couldn’t be too far away.

The freezing rain poured on me before turning to sleet, and soon I struggled to take a single step without falling, pain and cold making my whole body shake.

Soon the falling rain mixed with the mud that flowed down the stream and made me trip and stumble even more. I was forced to crawl, shaking, crying, moaning in the closing night.

It was then that several big rocks rolled down the stream. I tried to dodge them, but the ravine was just too narrow. They knocked me down and I must’ve hit my head, because that’s the last I remember.

*   *   *

His fur was thick and soft against my face, under my fingers. It smelled of forest and dew. I knew that smell. The wolf king. He’d saved me before I was even born. He’d thought I deserved to live. I forced my hurting hands to caress him like I’d done when I was a child, and I curled up against him, not even trying to open my eyes. My pain didn’t matter. It’d go away, like the cold and the weakness. My wounds would heal. Because my wolf king had saved me.

The heat of fire just a few steps away from my face woke me up, but when I tried to look around, I found myself blindfolded with a strip of wool that smelled of me. Was it from my dress? I tried to touch it and realized both my hands were wrapped in fabric. Just like my torso, so tightly it was hard to breathe.

I was lying naked on a mattress that smelled of hay, tucked in a thick blanket and something else, something large that smelled of bear. Was there a wolf around? How had I gotten back to Teah’s house? But this place didn’t smell like Teah’s. It smelled of stone with a wet touch, like a cave in the woods.

Not daring to move any further, I sank my hands back under the blanket and curled up.

I was startled by a warm hand touching my forehead.

“Easy. You’re safe.”

A male’s voice. His whispering deprived it of any intonation, so it was impossible for me to recognize it. Well, like I knew the voices of a lot of wolves. The only one I’d ever heard so close before was the Alpha’s. And this whisper had nothing to do with his menacing grunts back then.

His hand slid carefully under my head, lifting it but a little. The edge of a wooden cup touched my lips. I smelled the clean water you can only gather in the forest rivers, and I gulped it up, so eagerly I choked.

“Hush, easy,” the wolf repeated with another warm whisper, leaving my head back on the mattress.

“Thank you, my lord,” I mumbled with a shaky voice.

His hand rested on my hair for a moment, a gentle, firm touch I found unexpectedly soothing.

“Go back to sleep.”

I nodded and his hand moved away. Exhausted and sore, I soon did as he’d told.

I don’t know how long I slept. My eyes were still covered when I woke up again, and the fabric was too thick and dark to let me notice any changes in the light.

The fire still burned near me, and I felt a different warmth along my back, pressing the bearskin to my body. Hardly awake, I turned to this other warmth. The wolf shivered when I brought my face close to his side.

“Thanks for saving me, wolf king,” I mumbled, like I’d once said to the mighty, gentle wolf, whose arms had been the first to cradled me.

I sunk my nose in his thick, soft fur that smelled of forest and dew. And something more. A wild flower I was unable to identify.