by Noelle Marie
I only had to fight off the bear’s urge to go after Wisp once – find her, need her, mine – a barge of grief crashing into me when he’d brought down his first buck and wanted to drag the kill to her – to show off, share. (It was completely unlike him.)
It wasn’t until after dark that I managed to drag myself back to the cabin. Shifting back into my human skin, I didn’t bother to bathe or even get dressed. Covered in dirt and blood and caked in sweat, I merely fell into bed, so exhausted that the honey scent clinging to the sheets didn’t even register.
I slept like the dead.
When I woke up the next morning – it was a Friday, and day three without Wisp – I forced myself to go through the motions of my morning routine. I cleaned myself up and cooked breakfast before walking the perimeter of my land. I checked my traps, skinning the rabbit I’d caught as well as filleting the abundance of fish I’d discovered waiting for me in the river, freezing most of the haul for winter.
Under the afternoon sun, I tended to the neglected garden, and I spent the evening husking corn and making a half-dozen jars of raspberry jam. I even managed to get Thane to eat some roasted pork for supper.
My crude plan, which had essentially been to work myself to the bone in an effort to forget about Wisp, mostly worked. But that night, almost like my subconscious demanded I make up for it, I dreamt of nothing but her, and fantasies of brown eyes, pale skin, and pink lips ruled the night.
Waking up the next morning felt akin to losing her all over again.
Regardless, I got up, and spent day four without her much the same way as I had day three, the only time my bubble of forced apathy breaking when one of the hens pecked at my ankle hard enough to make me bleed. I was pretty sure it was that little fucker Geraldine, and threats to fry her up for supper were flying out of my mouth when a prim voice in the back of my mind spoke up – You can’t do that, it whispered. Wisp would be devastated. – and I froze.
I stood there, motionless in the pen with chicken seed clutched in my hand for longer than I would like to admit before I finally managed to lock the stray thought away where it belonged: in the deepest recesses of my mind.
Day five without Wisp was when everything went to hell.
I found her shirt – the tank top she’d been wearing that night, the one when I’d finally allowed myself to take her, to sink into her until we were no longer two people, but one – lying innocently under the bed.
Wisp’s scent, thick and pungent, covered it, and all I could think of was the shy way she’d glanced up at me after she’d pulled it off her head and bared herself to me.
I spent the entire day with the thin fabric wound tightly around one hand, pressed right up under my nose, the other hand wrapped around my dick.
Day six was worse. I could barely bring myself to get out of bed, and after tending to Thane’s basic needs, I sat in the dark living room, spiraling thoughts of Wisp and Abram and what Abram had said about Wisp filling my head until it was all I could think of.
He couldn’t be right. She couldn’t possibly be a bearer. But he’d seemed so certain, a traitorous voice piped up. And you’ve never smelled anyone like her. Sure, everyone has their own unique scent, but none so cloyingly sweet – none that make you want to lick every inch of its owner’s exposed flesh.
Day seven.
I had managed an entire week without Wisp. Instead of feeling celebratory over that fact, however, I was only tired, and weary at the daunting task before me of surviving another week without her. A month. Years.
I held out until evening. After finishing a tasteless supper, I whistled for Thane. “Come on, boy,” I muttered as I pulled on my boots. “We’re going out.”
Thane trailing faithfully behind me, I ventured out into the woods, hiking through knee-high grass and wading across the river – I carried a reluctant Thane over the current seeing as he was deathly afraid of water – until I’d reached it.
Buried in a thicket of shrubbery was Abram’s house.
It’d been close to two decades since I’d seen it in person, and the years had not been kind to the two-story cottage. The siding, which had once been pale blue, was washed out and barely clinging to the house. Shingles were falling off the roof, and the second story windows were all boarded up.
Steeling myself, I walked up the steps of the wrap-around porch, the scent of rotting wood repugnant in my nose, and raised my fist to the door.
Knock. Knock.
I had no idea if he was home or I would have to wait hours (maybe days) for him to return from the woods. But half a minute later, I heard the sound of shuffling footsteps and the door creaked open.
Abram stood on the other side, looking just as straggly as when I’d last seen him. He looked neither surprised nor unsurprised to see me, his face so blank that I could almost talk myself into believing I’d imagined our last meeting. “Derek,” he muttered.
“Abram,” I returned, equally as unfeeling.
Then, squaring my shoulders and swallowing my pride, I forced out the hardest words I’d had to say in a while – almost as hard as telling Wisp I didn’t love her. “I need your help.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Help me,” I mouthed to Marianne, but the woman wasn’t even looking my way. She was digging through a mountain of measuring tape and probably would have only shook her head in exasperation if she had seen my desperate plea, anyway.
She was taking her job as the seamstress’s assistant entirely too seriously, in my opinion.
That’s right, seamstress.
I was perched atop a stool in the shiny entryway of my father’s mansion-like house, being fitted for a wedding dress that I had never even seen before.
Apparently, my husband-to-be had picked it out and the only thing the designer needed from me were my measurements.
Why the seamstress said designer had sent needed the dimensions of my neck and the length of my arms from elbow to wrist were a mystery to me, but sitting still as she attempted to strangle me with measuring tape wasn’t exactly my idea of a good time.
I had no idea why I needed a new gown in the first place. Surely whatever I had been going to wear for the wedding originally scheduled in July would have been fine.
But I guess it wasn’t proper to don a wedding dress intended for a summer ceremony to one taking place in late September.
A little less than two months away.
Apparently, the Vanderbilts weren’t quite as patient as my father had thought they would be with my “recovery”. My marriage to Graham would not be taking place in the winter as Cornelius had at first assumed, but in autumn.
Frankly, I tried not to think about it – the fact that I would be known as Sloane Vanderbilt in fifty-some days’ time. (I still referred to myself as Wisp in my own head, for God’s sake.)
It helped that my future husband seemed to have a firm handle on all the wedding preparations.
Things that I imagined normal brides stressed about – RSVP lists and flower arrangements – I didn’t have to think twice about. Not only had Graham picked out my gown, but he’d taken care of all that, too. Plus the venue and caterer. The only task he had assigned to his hapless bride-to-be (me) was choosing the colors for the décor.
Marianne had been holding swatches of fabric in front of me all week. She’d shown me sunshine yellows and mellow lilacs. Growing quickly overwhelmed at the abundance of choices, I’d ended up insisting that she pick. The last I had heard, she’d narrowed it down between peach and apricot. (Honestly, they looked the same to me.)
Just because I wasn’t consumed with wedding preparations didn’t mean the past week hadn’t been overwhelming in other ways, however.
Felix was everywhere, keeping me within his eyesight at all times. I was honestly surprised his slate-gray eyes hadn’t burned a hole through my clothes by now as he followed me around, critiquing me on the way I dressed – “Those shorts are a little revealing, don’t you think?” – or the way I ate my pancakes �
�� “Do you really think Mr. Vanderbilt will appreciate the sight of syrup dripping down your chin while he’s trying to eat?”
Honestly, I had no idea what Mr. Vanderbilt would think – I didn’t particularly care either – but Felix certainly thought he knew.
The man had also sat me down for what he called “etiquette lessons” every afternoon, the very first lesson taking place the day after I’d discovered my laptop had been wiped clean.
“Take a seat, Sloane.”
I glanced around Felix’s bedroom, not sure what I had expected the inside to look like. It’s not as if I had honestly anticipated dungeon paraphilia to be hanging from the walls, but it would have been a lie to say I thought it would look so… ordinary.
The queen-sized bed that served as the centerpiece of the room was covered in light blue sheets and a mahogany dresser was pressed against one of the walls. There was a matching nightstand near the bed, but that was it. There were no personal effects anywhere.
“Sloane,” Felix snapped, his voice indefinitely sharper. “I said to sit.”
I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek in an effort to stop myself from pointing out that there was no place to do so. Well, if one didn’t count the bed or floor, anyway. Both were unsavory options, but with the sensation of Felix’s hot gaze on the back of my head, I hesitantly perched myself on the edge of his bed.
I had no idea why he had insisted on having the lesson in here in the first place, but I would definitely petition to have it elsewhere tomorrow.
“You must strive to pay better attention,” the man scolded as soon as I sat. “You get lost in that simple, little mind of yours far too often.”
My face burned, and I opened my mouth to protest, but when he raised his hand in the air, I quickly snapped it back shut.
“Now,” he said, “I know your scrambled brain is hardly your fault,” – I pressed my lips together. – “but if you want to thrive, or even survive, in the world you’re about to be introduced to, you need to be sharp.” He paused. “Now, considering your… memory issues, we’ll take things slowly. Today, I only want to refamiliarize you with the basics of what will be expected of you when you marry into the Vanderbilt family. It’s quite simple, really.”
He didn’t say “perfect for you” but the words remained in the air between us, unspoken, anyway.
“I understand you have your high school diploma, and Mr. Vanderbilt may allow you to attend college – online, of course – but if he does, it will be on his terms and strictly as a hobby.”
He may allow me to go to college? Since when did husbands decide for their wives how far they could pursue their education?
“But if I don’t go to college, how will I get a job?” I pointed out sensibly.
Felix released an amused snort. “Silly girl. Staying home and tending to your husband will be your job. The Vanderbilts have plenty of servants, so I doubt you’ll have much to do in the way of domestic chores; your only real duty will be to make yourself available to Mr. Vanderbilt whenever and in whatever way he desires.”
It was all so… ridiculous! By the way Felix described it, he made it seem like I was supposed to be some sort of Stepford wife/sex slave hybrid.
“And, of course, you’ll be expected to fall pregnant sometime during the first year of marriage.”
I choked on my own spit. “Wh-what?” I sputtered.
“I said-”
“I know what you said!” I snapped, quickly regaining my bearings. “But that… I mean… I’m only eighteen!”
Felix raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “That’s the perfect bearing age.”
I gaped.
“In exchange for such a privileged life,” he continued, ignoring my blatant disbelief, “Mr. Vanderbilt will expect the upmost of respect from you.”
“But-!”
I stiffened in shock when one of Felix’s cold, long-fingered hands suddenly curled itself around my mouth. “That means you won’t interrupt him when he’s speaking,” he explained slowly, his voice flat. “Nor will you ever question him in public. Instead, you will defer to him always.”
He carefully uncoiled his fingers.
“Will he expect me to lick his boots as well?” I bit out sarcastically as soon as my mouth was free.
Felix didn’t so much as flinch. “If he requires it, then yes.”
The worst part was I couldn’t tell if he was joking.
“I understand that it’s a lot to take in,” he added, the sympathy in his voice entirely false, “so I’ll give you the rest of the day to let everything sink in. Tomorrow, we’ll tackle your atrocious table manners.”
I huffed at the tacked-on insult. “Does that mean I’m dismissed?” I asked.
Felix pursed his lips at my petulant tone, but nodded. “You are.”
“Thank God,” I muttered under my breath, springing up from the bed and hurrying to the door as fast as my legs could carry me. Just as my hand wrapped around the cold metal of the brass knob, though, Felix’s voice rang out from behind me and stopped me in my tracks.
“Oh, and Sloane? One more thing.”
I hesitantly turned to face the man, only to tense when I discovered him standing right behind me. He always moved so quietly. I took a deep breath. “Yes?” I asked.
Felix crept even closer. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that there’s something… different about you.”
I fought the urge to squirm, paranoia that he had somehow figured out I remembered him rising in my chest. “Different?” I parroted dumbly.
Felix nodded. “Yes, I can’t quite put my finger on it.” I stiffened when the man reached out and actually trailed a finger down my cheek in a parody of tenderness. “Ah, I know,” he continued softly a moment later, gray eyes drilling into mine. “It’s that you look me in the eye.”
My belly clenched, the connotations of why I never had before slamming into me. It was because I had been afraid of him. I still was.
My fear must have been plain enough on my face because Felix laughed. “No need to look so petrified, Sloane,” he said, finally allowing his hand to drop. A grin stretched across his mouth. “I like it.”
“Sloane!”
I blinked hard, Marianne’s concerned voice breaking me out of my reverie. I noticed the unimpressed stance of the seamstress – Ms. Danielson, I think she had introduced herself as. Her hands were on her hips as she glared.
I shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, what?”
Marianne huffed – the sound good-natured enough. My newfound tendency to daydream amused her. “You need to lift your arms, Sloane, so Ms. Danielson can measure your bust.”
“Oh.” A flush creeping up my cheeks, I did as I was told.
I could feel Felix’s disapproving gaze burning a hole through the back of my head from where he lurked in the corner. (He wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t observe my every move, after all.)
The only respite I ever got from him was in the evenings when I retired to my room. If I tried hard enough, sometimes I could even forget that he was only one bedroom away.
The evenings were also the only time I allowed myself to think of Derek. I banished thoughts of him from creeping into my head during the day – I had to, or I wouldn’t stand a chance as Sloane Radcliff. (To be honest, it was easier than I’d thought it would be with Felix around, constantly breathing down my neck.)
But at night, I could still pretend to be Wisp. And after stripping off whatever stuffy outfit Felix had approved for the day, I would huddle up in Derek’s crumpled shirt and bury my nose into the collar where the faintest hint of his manly musk still lingered.
I slept in it every night.
It was pathetic, and I knew it. (Especially considering the way we had parted.)
“I don’t love you.”
But I couldn’t stop. What was more, I didn’t want to.
As it was, I could hardly believe an entire week had passed since I’d last woke up in the cabin, since I’d last snu
ck a scrap of bacon to Thane… since I’d lain with Derek.
He had probably forgotten all about me by now. Maybe, he’d even replaced me with Blair. I swallowed hard at the imagery that accompanied the thought.
Whether he had moved on or not, though, I knew that I could never just forget him. Certainly not after a week. Not after a month. Not even after I dutifully married Graham Vanderbilt.
“That should do it.”
I was pulled from my thoughts by Ms. Danielson’s declaration.
“We’re finished?” I asked, unable to suppress the hopeful lit in my voice.
The seamstress clicked her tongue. To be honest, she reminded me of a lumpier, grumpier version of Madam Malkin. “Yes, we are. Though it’s certainly no thanks to your wriggling.”
Ignoring the second part of her statement altogether, I allowed my shoulders to slump in relief at the assurance that we were, indeed, finished. “Thank you, Jesus,” I muttered, stepping down from the stool.
Felix chose that exact moment to insert himself into the conversation, slinking up next to Ms. Danielson in that soundless way he did. “What Sloane means to say,” he said, shooting me an irritated look, “is thank you for your time. It’s an honor to have a woman of your caliber working on her wedding dress.” He offered Ms. Danielson his elbow. “Would it be out of line to ask to walk you to your car?”
I watched, fascinated, as a violet-colored blush crept up her cheeks. “Certainly not. In fact, that would be lovely,” she agreed, lacing her arm with his.
I waited until the fancy double doors closed behind them before turning to Marianne. “Excuse me while I go puke.”
“Sloane,” Marianne admonished gently, but the smile pulling at her mouth spoke of her beguilement.
I had never outright asked the woman why she didn’t like Felix, but I suspected that her reasons were similar to mine. Namely, that he was the very definition of a chauvinistic pig.
