On silent paws, I slink forward through the dark. I know this place well enough that I don’t even need my tiger vision. The remnants of the ladder are gone, but I make my way to the spot under it, where Harmon always slept.
The spot is empty. The dirt is cool to the touch, and no sign of his presence remains. No blanket, no books, no Harmon.
My tiger heart quavers.
I shift back to my human form and whisper his name, feeling along the wall in search of him. But he’s not here.
“Harmon?” I say, my voice just above a whisper. Maybe he’s gone. Maybe he did it. He’s transitioned and gone upstairs to join his pack. I know it’s what he wants, what he’s always wanted. He’s in his rightful place. But the cavity inside my chest squeezes at the thought of never seeing him again. I’m not ready for him to be gone.
All month long, while I thought of him, I knew he’d be here when I got back. Some part of me always knew I’d come back. But he’s nowhere to be found.
“Harmon?” I say again, rising to my feet and speaking into the tunnel.
I’m the one who was betrayed. I’m the one who left. What am I doing here, risking imprisonment again, when I just escaped a month ago? I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t care what happens to him. I shouldn’t even wonder.
“Harmon?” I duck into the tunnel and hurry through it, bent double to clear the ceiling. When I step into the sitting room, the moonlight streaming in the window grows brighter. It falls on the tiny glass vase in the center of the table, a bunch of withered white roses spilling from it. A soft white circle of petals surrounds the vase like a halo.
“Stella?” At the sound of his muffled voice, I begin to laugh. Hope, in all its terrible wonder, bursts open inside me like a blossom.
“You’re here,” I cry, rushing into the bedroom. He’s lying in the bed, with the blanket pulled up to his chin. His arctic eyes are glassy in the moonlight, but his chin is still missing, his cheeks still dotted with fur.
“I thought I was dreaming,” he says. “I heard you calling my name. I thought I was going crazy from the solitude. What are you doing here?”
“I brought you something,” I say, opening my hand. “It’s a charm, from my necklace.”
“I know what it is,” he says quietly.
“So maybe it can help you.”
“You hate me, Stella. I’m a liar and a hypocrite, remember?”
“I don’t hate you,” I say, suddenly very aware of my cold, exposed skin.
For a long, painful moment neither of us speaks. Then Harmon scoots to the far edge of the bed and opens the blanket. “Come here,” he says. “I want to talk to you.”
“Just talk?” I ask, cutting my eyes toward the open blanket.
“Your call,” he says, a smile twisting his beautiful boy lips.
“Just talk,” I agree, slipping under, relieved for the coverage. The bed is warm, heavy with the smell of him, his spicy apple scent layered with boy scent. “There’s a witch upstairs.”
“I know.”
“When they interrupted the coronation, she said she was a shifter, though,” I say slowly. “Didn’t she? So she was trying to trick you to marry a witch instead?”
“I don’t know what she was doing,” Harmon says. “But it didn’t work then, and it won’t work now. We don’t change our minds and get divorced when we get bored like shifters. We don’t have harems like witches. We Choose one mate.”
I pull the blanket tight around me. “What are you going to do about her? What if she comes down here?”
“She can’t,” he says. “As soon as she left the onion bin, we paid a witch to lay a protection spell on the basement. That’s why I wanted you down here with me.”
“But you let me leave.”
“I knew I couldn’t protect you once you left. But I couldn’t make you stay any longer. It was killing me to see you miserable.”
“I wasn’t miserable,” I say. And maybe it’s true. Now that I’ve left, this place doesn’t seem so bad.
“You could have fooled me,” Harmon says, a shudder wracking his body.
“She gave my father this tiger-eye charm,” I say, reminded of why I’m here. “It did its job. It kept me human for years. And it forced my father to stay human. If I put it on you tonight, it could force you into your human form. Which means, you will have transitioned. You won’t lose that. It can’t hurt.”
“A witch’s charm can always hurt.” He turns onto his side to face me, laying his cheek on his paw.
“You have to have it on you,” I say, holding it out. “Sorry, it might have a little saliva on it.” I stop talking, feeling silly, and watch another spasm work its way through him. Now that I’ve experienced those, I know exactly what it is.
“Sorry, what?” he asks when it’s passed.
“Do you think it will work?” I whisper. “Do you even need it? I mean, you’re a little more normal every time. Maybe you’ll change back anyway.”
“Maybe,” he says without conviction. “She put a spell on me. That’s why I can’t transition. I’ve recovered enough to do it, but I insulted her and her daughter, so she’s keeping me this monster until I agree to her demands.”
“But she put a spell on this stone first,” I tell him. “My father says an earlier spell always takes precedence over one cast later. It can work. Let me get something to hold it on you. I’ll make a necklace. And tomorrow, you’ll be human again.” I sit up and drop my legs off the bed, ready to go and find a rope.
“Wait.” Harmon’s warm fingertips brush my bare skin, and goosebumps sweep across my body. “Wait,” he whispers again, his fingers sliding slowly down my back.
When I swallow, it echoes through the tiny room. I turn and quickly pull the blanket back over myself. Harmon sits up and fishes a t-shirt off the floor beside the bed. He clamps his teeth on the edge and tears it with both hands, pulling off a thin, curling strip of fabric. I hold out the charm again, but he holds out the makeshift string at the same time, and our hands bump and fumble awkwardly.
“Can you?” he says, dropping the strip and sliding back under the blanket. He stares out the window, the muscle in his jaw working.
“Don’t be mad,” I say, feeding the fabric through the loop of wire holding the stone with some difficulty. It’s too big for the tiny loop, and there’s no way Harmon could have done this with a wolf paw. “You’ll be back to normal in no time.”
“If this works…”
“Then you’ll be able to lead your pack.”
“I’ll make it right for you,” he says, turning fierce eyes my way. “If this works, if you fix this and give them back their Alpha, we will owe you forever. The pack won’t like it, but wolf people don’t take these things lightly. They’ll repay you. Your…people.”
I hold out the necklace, then hesitate. “Let me do it.”
When he sits, I reach for his neck. I’m about to ask him to turn his back, but I don’t want to embarrass him in case the scars and thick fur there remind him of his monstrosities. Strangely, after not seeing him for a while, his odd face and body don’t bother me at all. His familiar distortions are comforting rather than shocking after a month’s absence.
I slide my arms around his neck and tie the cloth ribbon, unsure where to look, since I can’t look at my hands as I do it. His face is so close, his breath on my cheeks. I fix my eyes on his neck. His Adam’s apple bobs and then sinks again. The necklace rests in the hollow of his throat.
“Thank you,” he murmurs. His big hands come to rest on my shoulder blades, their warmth prickling my skin at the slight touch. I trace the line of the necklace around his neck to his throat, my fingertips exploring his collarbones, my palms brushing across his chest. His skin is warm, his heart beating hard under my palm.
“Are you wearing anything?” I whisper through my tight throat.
He slides back down under the blanket with a soft chuckle. “I was hoping to transition. And I was alone. So no. I’m not wearing anyt
hing.”
I swallow so hard my ears click. Following his lead, I lie back down on the far side of the bed, which seems so close now. It’s only a full-sized bed, not a king, and I can feel the heat of his body just an arm’s reach away. Another shudder goes through him. When it ends, he takes a deep breath and reaches out, taking one of my hands and squeezing. “This is it for me, Stella. If this doesn’t work, I’m finished.”
“You make it sound like you’ll be dead.”
“I might as well be. What is life worth if it’s spent alone in a basement?”
I try to imagine it, to find some way to convince him, but I know I’m the hypocrite for even trying. I wouldn’t want to live that life, either. But it’s way too soon to be making those decisions. “I was alone in an attic,” I point out, my voice more bitter than the brightness I had intended.
“You had hope,” he says quietly. “If this doesn’t work, what do I have to hope for?”
“So maybe the pack wouldn’t let you lead. That sucks. But you could still get married and have kids someday.”
“Be realistic, Stella. You can’t even look at me. Who’s going to love a monster?”
“I am.” The words slip out before I can think them through, before I can stop them. I wait for Harmon’s scornful scoff, but he’s silent, which is a thousand times worse. I open my mouth to make excuses, to tell him I meant it hypothetically, that I meant that I could love someone who wasn’t perfect, who couldn’t shift, who doesn’t look the way he used to look. And if I could, someone else could. But I’m afraid to make it worse, to take away something that might give him enough hope to get him through this night, if not the rest of them. Because this is only the beginning, the first night he’ll despair over what he lost.
“You can’t,” he says at last. “You don’t mean that.”
Somehow, despite everything and against every logic, I do. I close my other hand over his, sandwiching his human hand between mine. I don’t care if he has a paw or a tail or crooked legs. I’m part animal, too. And there’s a strange beauty in his half-animal features, something that catches the eyes off guard and makes them look again, until they see past the surface abnormalities.
“I think I do.”
He scoots across the moonlit space between us, pulling me to him. In the dark, his frost eyes glow with the burning depth of buried coals, warming my cheeks as he searches my face. Suddenly, I’m no longer shy of that look. I want him to keep looking at me like that forever, to burn off the artifice until there’s nothing there but the real us. I lift my face to his, but I don’t close my eyes. I want to devour him with every part of my being, my mouth, my eyes, my body.
“I know I do,” he says. His lips caress mine, but unlike hope, desire is not a flower blossoming inside me. It’s a raging firestorm. I bury my fingers deep, deep in the thick fur on his back, twine my limbs around his, open my mouth and pull him in. His body is hot as fever against mine, his core pulsing out a deep, animal heat that mingles with mine.
After a minute, he pulls back, but I can feel his heart hammering against mine. “I love you, Stella,” he says. “I Chose you. You know that, right?”
I struggle to swallow, my throat suddenly deeper than before. Remembering. The line between truth and deception, mine and his, blurs and shimmers like a mirage. “But you thought I was my sister.”
“No.” He smiles and slips his hand around my back, securing my body to his. “I definitely didn’t.”
“But…I mean, it got interrupted. Does that count?”
His eyes search mine again, searing into me. “It counts. It’s not something I’m trying to get out of on a technicality. I meant it, and I still mean it.”
“I thought…she said if you Chose someone, they had to marry you.”
“No,” he says. “You don’t have to do anything. You don’t even have to answer. But you should know that I did. That I do. That I always will.”
“If you don’t have to marry someone, then I don’t understand what it means. Choosing someone.”
“It means I Chose you to love and only you. You’re the only person I ever will love. The only person I can. You’re the only one. Before. Now. Always.”
Suddenly, it’s hard to breathe. I don’t know what it means to love someone like that. I only know what it means to love someone the way I do, in my shifty shifter way. But I also know that although I might not be capable of wolf love, I’m capable of something more than I was as a human. My human mind is still trying to wrap itself around how this is possible, but my heart knows.
My body knows. I stroke his hair, his naked ears, and pull him in until our lips meet and our heartbeats meld. I revel in it all, the movement of muscle under skin, the smell of our sweat, the heat of his breath on my face, the way our flesh and blood bodies are so solid and raw, so visceral and present, breathing and bleeding and unyieldingly, unapologetically fused.
35
When my breath and heartbeat return to their normal rate, I wriggle around in the cocoon of Harmon’s arms until I’m facing him. “If you knew it was me at the eclipse,” I say slowly, tracing the outline of the tiger eye against his tan skin, “Then why did you pick me? You didn’t even know me. How did you know you’d like me?”
“I know you now,” he says. “And I was right, wasn’t I?”
I give his shoulder a little push. “I’m serious. Tell me.”
“You know how people call it love at first sight? Well, it’s not really like that. It’s like knowing at first sight.”
“So you knew you were going to Choose me before that?”
“Sometimes it happens at third or fourth, or ten thousandth, sight. It’s not about knowing all the little things about you or even liking you. That’s what I’m trying to say. It’s about just knowing that you’re my mate.”
I try not to laugh at the word. He’s being serious, but ever since my sister said it, it’s always made me feel strange. “What if I don’t know?” I ask.
“That’s okay,” he says. “You will.”
“Does that ever happen? That someone Chooses a mate who doesn’t Choose them back?”
He hesitates, then shakes his head. “No.”
“What if I don’t? I’m not a wolf.”
“I don’t know,” he says, pulling me closer. “I guess I’ll be happy alone. Like your mother. She Chose a shifter.”
The thought makes me sick. Is that how it will end? Is that why wolves are supposed to stay within their tribe, their species? And what if they know their mate is outside the wolf world? Will I leave Harmon bitter and cold like my mother?
“If you don’t change back,” I say. “If it doesn’t work. Will you come with me? We can be together outside this community. We’ll keep to ourselves. But at least we’ll be together. And if you can’t be Alpha, you said leaving might be best for the pack.”
He grimaces, his jaw clenched, but then he nods. “And if I change back?” he asks. “Will you come here and be with me? The wolves will be grateful for what you did for me tonight, and they’ll welcome you. And you’re the heir to the shifter legacy. I’m the pack leader. We can do what your parents failed to do. Make peace with both our peoples.”
I want to remind him that I’m only sixteen. I can’t lead anyone, let alone a bunch of violent outlaws. The shifters don’t know me. Most of them probably don’t even know I exist. They don’t trust or respect my father. I’m the last person who could make them want to make peace with the werewolves.
“What if the pack doesn’t accept me?” I whisper, searching his eyes.
“They will,” he says, his voice fierce. “And if they don’t, I’ll leave with you. I’ll be a lone wolf. We can start a new pack. Make our own pack laws.”
If he would leave his people for me, why wouldn’t I leave these same people I don’t know for him? I nod mutely, and he smooths my cheek with his paw. “Don’t look so scared,” he says, a smile playing on his dark lips. “It makes me think you regret bringing this neckla
ce.”
My cheek presses into his caress like a cat. “I don’t,” I promise him. “I want you to be happy.” I stop myself before I finish that sentence. Because despite what I just agreed to, I know that it’s not going to make me happy to stay here. No matter what he says, the wolves don’t trust me. And I sure as hell don’t trust them.
“Thank you, Stella.” He smooths back my hair and kisses my forehead. “That’s what I want for you, too. And for us. Together.” His lips find mine this time, tender and fierce at once. When he finally pulls away, he smiles his strange smile. “Let me hold you while we wait?”
I nestle into the warmth of his body and try to relax, as if the rest of my life does not depend on the next few hours.
36
Harmon’s shudders subside as I lie there. At last, the darkness begins to lift, and light creeps in through the small window. I haven’t slept all night. I lie in his arms, feeling like an imposter, like I’ve stolen something precious and sacred. Like I’ve stolen some kind of innocence from him—his innocent promise to love me forever.
But I’m not a wolf. I don’t make vows that last a lifetime. I’m a shifty shifter.
Sadness seeps into my bones like poison as I lay in his arms. I don’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve to be stuck with me, someone who has no interest in being a wolf. And he deserves a wolf, a mate who will choose him for life. A mate who will shift into a wolf and hunt beside him, who knows and obeys the customs of his people. I don’t even like his people.
But he can come with me. We’ll find some place in the mountains, like Dad has. An unassuming little house in the woods. It could work. It really could. We won’t have to worry about the wolves—they think what’s best for the pack is for him to leave. But he won’t be alone. He’ll have me. And I’ll have him. We’ll be together like this every night. During the day, I’ll hunt as a tiger and bring home food. He won’t have to leave the house at all, won’t have to endure the stares and shock of outsiders. We’ll have each other.
Beastly Beauty: A Fairy Tale Retelling (Girl Among Wolves Book 2) Page 21
