I was not at all fit for this world.
The maid, Ina, took some clean linen from the wardrobe. “If ye get dressed I can mend your nightgown before bed,” she said.
“I could do that,” I said. In the work house we did a lot of sewing.
“Ye might be busy with other things. I think Mrs. Rafferty is excited to have ye.”
As she laced my stays she told me to hold the bed post.
“Why?” I asked.
“Ye don’t want a wee tiny waist? All the ladies want a tiny waist. It’s quite the competition.”
“Well, then…” I was competitive, but this seemed an unpleasant competition. I dragged my fingernails along the polished wood, fighting off panic at my newfound prison as she yanked the laces tight. I shut my eyes and imagined my mother’s voice. Come now, Fersa, are ye a wolf or a mouse? What’s to panic about? You have a new clan and they’re taking good care of you.
But I could only imagine what she might say. In fact, she might say the opposite, that I would never fit in here and shouldn’t bother to try. I had never faced anything like this before, to be dressed by a maid in a ridiculous gown and sent to drink hot chocolate with a woman who expected a lot of me, in a prison of carpet and glass.
My father’s house had a name: Meadow Lost Manor. I thought it was odd to name a house after something lost, but it seemed fitting. I had lost my meadows as well. As I walked into the breakfast room and saw him and Katherine and the boys sitting there quietly, drinking cocoa out of silver cups, it was so hard to imagine such a man crossing paths with a wolf woman, much less falling in love with her.
“You look lovely, Fersa. You wear gowns very well,” Katherine said. “But you do have to watch the slouch.”
“Aye, well, I’ve spent the last three years hunched over a needle and thread,” I said, before I could help myself.
“The dance lessons will help,” Father said. “It breaks my heart to think of you in that work house. Are they still operating? That woman there who wouldn’t let you send a letter to us? I’d like to see her behind bars, I tell you what.”
“She is behind bars,” I said. “Ellara and Prince Ithrin took care of that.”
“Good. I hope she rots there.”
I saw a little of myself in his ferocious expression. “Father…can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“How did you meet my mother?”
He glanced at Katherine and I held my ground. I probably shouldn’t have asked, but didn’t I deserve to have him speak of my mother? “Have you seen the painting of my grandfather in the great hall?” he asked. “You can hardly miss him. He looks like a mean man even on the canvas.”
“I don’t think so…”
“My father died when I was ten, so my grandfather raised me after that. If I can give him that much credit. He really was a bastard. Nothing I did, nothing my grandmother and mother did was ever good enough for him. He’d get on his drunken tirades and no one was safe. So when I was fifteen I decided to run off to the capital to find my own way in the world. I was a stupid young buck. Left my grandmother and mother at his mercy. The road seemed like no place for women.”
“In these clothes, I guess not,” I said.
He gave me a wry smile. “Believe me, I know just how you feel. At your age, I didn’t want anything to do with all the rules of society. It felt like a prison. The inheritance just didn’t seem worth it. I wanted to be free. A highwayman robbed me of all my money, and—well, long story short, I was penniless in the woods in the middle of Mardoon. That was when the wolves came upon me. One of them changed into a beautiful woman with eyes just like yours, and the minute I saw her I was half in love. I stayed with the clan for almost a year.”
“Almost a year? Mother always said you spent some time, but I never realized it was that long.”
“Yes, but…” He shrugged. “It really was stupid. Humans aren’t meant to live with wolf clans. I felt like a dolt the whole time, not being able to transform, shivering in the cold without fur, never able to track well… The clan liked me at first because I could talk to other humans and deter them from going after the wolvenfolk, but before long, I was just a drag. And I got homesick for this world, for music, and tufted chairs, and cake.” He laughed. “As I said, I wanted to bring you here at that time—you had just been born—but your mother said a wolf couldn’t be happy in a town.”
“But I hope that’s not true!” Katherine said.
I stirred my hot chocolate with the delicate spoon and took a small sip. I don’t know that I even liked chocolate. It tasted awfully strange. They damn sure didn’t offer us chocolate in the work house. “So you came back and got married instead…,” I said, unable to shake some betrayal.
“It was for the best,” he said. “Your mother wanted me to start over and have a human life.”
“I guess…she wouldn’t come with you?” I asked. He had just said as much, but some part of me persisted in being angry at him for not saving her life. If he really loved her, he would have saved her. He would have stayed close. He would have known where we were and, at least, saved me…
He looked briefly lost for words. “No, Fersa. Surely you know your mother would never be happy here.”
“But you think I can be?”
“You’re my blood,” he said. It almost seemed like a plea, deep down. “It might not be easy. But tell me, if anything troubles you. All of this ended up being my inheritance after all. I’m quite fortunate. I have more of God’s gifts than the average man, and if I can’t share them with my children, then what’s it for? I think you have my rebellious nature, but in time, that will settle down and you’ll see how good life is here.”
I squirmed a little. He didn’t see her die, I thought. He wouldn’t speak of ‘God’s gifts’ if he’d seen her die.
My life was decided for me now, that was clear. I wore what they wanted me to wear, I ate what was offered, I went where I was told to go. After breakfast, I was to meet with my first tutor. There I was, sitting anxiously on one of the tufted chairs Father said he missed, drawing anxious little breaths that made my bosom rise and fall beneath the demure-but-teasing scrap of thin fabric pinned over them. I was wearing a gown of cream silk with a print of violets and there was a line of bows down the front of the bodice and bows on my shoes as well. I wasn’t sure where to put my feet or my hands. I felt so displayed. At least Mr. Arrowen, being a scholar of writing and figures, would probably be rather old.
“In here,” I heard Katherine say, and she showed a man into the room.
Oh no. He wasn’t old at all. I mean, I guess he wasn’t young either. Maybe thirty or so. But that might have been the worst age possible. He was old enough that I felt girlish and idiotic, but young enough that he was still very fit and handsome and within the age of a suitor. And was he ever handsome. Tall, alert, with a thick chest suggesting a wolf’s natural strength but also lithe grace in the way he moved. Maybe he was the dancing teacher and I’d gotten the schedule confused. But he was carrying a trunk that looked heavy as he put it down, like it held books.
Everything about him screamed at my deeper instincts.
“Fersa, dear, this is Mr. Arrowen,” Katherine said, with a little twitch of her hand implying I should stand up and curtsey.
I did, as demurely as I possibly could. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Arrowen.” I glanced up just in time to see the golden glow of his eyes.
He took a small step back, going stiff as a skeleton. “I think there has been a misunderstanding, Mrs. Rafferty,” he said, in a voice that was so cultured I felt sure my eyes deceived me. He couldn’t possibly have wolf eyes if he spoke like that.
“A misunderstanding?”
“I didn’t realize…the young miss has strong wolvenfolk blood.”
“Oh!” Katherine seemed to notice for the first time his golden eyes. “Oh, dear, I hadn’t even noticed—your eyes. But—Mr. Arrowen, perhaps this is a happy coincidence! I think Miss Fersa mi
ght feel more comfortable around someone who shares the blood of her kin. And you know we don’t judge here.”
“No,” Mr. Arrowen said shortly. “I can’t. I’m not sure how to put this delicately.” He picked up the trunk. “She is too young. Wolfkin girls have instincts that might be roused in the presence of someone else with wolf blood, entirely against her control. It would be completely inappropriate for me to take that risk.”
The very word ‘roused’ emerging from his sharp canines, teasingly revealed when he spoke, was doing things to me. This couldn’t be a good sign.
If I had remained with a clan, I would have been mated by now. Wolf clans retained some human courtship rituals, such as dances, but generally we would have grown up together. As soon as we came of age, we would have paired off with very little in the way of preamble. Wolves knew very quickly who their mate should be; I think we could smell it and we were almost never wrong. If I had remained in the clan another year I would likely have been mated and pregnant before my sixteenth birthday. Rather than asking permission of our parents, the alpha bestowed his blessing on young couples, but it was almost unheard of for him to say no.
Humans thought this brutish, but to me it was the simple life I yearned for. Our roles were set and comfortable—my mate would have cared for me and our kits for the rest of my life.
I had no clan now. No alpha to ask for permission. I had not even seen another wolf in years. I assumed I would have to find a mate as humans do. As soon as I set eyes on this strange wolf, it was like coming home. My own kind…
“I see…,” Katherine said. “But…there is no other tutor around…”
“Wait a minute!” I cried, snapping back to my senses. “You think I can’t control myself as well as you?”
“I think I have a few years of control over you,” he said. “I have worked very hard for my reputation and I won’t risk it.”
Whether it was over small waists or a disciplined attitude, I was competitive. I couldn’t help it. The man had, perhaps unwittingly, thrown down a challenge. “Give me a chance,” I said. “I know what you’re talking about. Well then, when I go into heat, keep your distance. But I’m not going to throw myself at you, not now, or then neither!”
Katherine looked completely aghast. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Arrowen. You see why she needs lesson in comportment! She’s spent her whole life in the woods or the work house!”
“Aye, I see.” He crossed his arms. “I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into. I’ll have to ask for more pay.”
My eyes widened. “More pay!” He was audacious, just taking advantage of my family now. As if I was such a horror that he needed more money!
“I’m afraid that’s what it will take to get me to accept this placement. It won’t be easy. I’ll be up late working on the lessons.” He looked at me, his jaw clamping shut, a little muscle twitching there. I think he saw all the same things in me that I saw in him. To put it plain, it was the mating urge. I knew it from conversation, but I’d never felt it, because I’d never been around an adult wolf when I was old enough to feel such things.
Did this mean he was truly a suitable mate for me? Or had it just been too long since I’d seen another of my kind?
“Yes, of course,” Katherine said. “Fersa, dear, please do try not to shout. It’s no problem at all. Listen to everything Mr. Arrowen teaches you.”
I shot him a glance and I already knew that there was only one thing I wanted to be taught, but then I remembered I had promised to control myself, and Father had such high hopes for me. “I won’t let you down.”
Chapter Four
Fersa
Mr. Arrowen opened his case, revealing a variety of books and papers. “I’m told you don’t know how to read at all,” he said, slipping on some reading glasses.
“No…not really.” I added, in some defense, “A lot of the girls at the work house couldn’t read anyhow.”
“Your speech is definitely the first problem,” he said. “It’s somewhat of a hodge podge of accents, and none of it is proper. No girl of breeding should say ‘anyhow’, in any circumstance. And you have to enunciate. You have a habit of dropping and slurring your letters and even if we put aside the choice of words, that will help immensely. I gather that your father would like you to attend a ball soon so we have no choice but to work miracles.”
Really? He would jump straight into lessons on ‘diction’ and ‘comportment’ without acknowledging this other feeling? It didn’t make sense. Wolves didn’t hide their nature like humans.
“So then what?” I said, unable to hold back a certain sullen reluctance to obey him. “Whaddya want me to do then?”
“What would you like me to do,” he repeated, gesturing with a pencil. “Not, ‘wot wouldjuh like me tuhdo’? And watch ‘me’ as well. Don’t let it slip into a ‘may’ or ‘my’ sound. You want nice crisp vowels, musical cadence, if you want to be taken seriously by humans of breeding.” He paused, raising a brow. “Do you?”
“Of course I do,” I said, trying to watch my speech a little more.
“It isn’t easy for wolfkin to assimilate. It takes a tremendous amount of will. You will have to fight against your instincts every moment.”
“What about you? How much wolf blood do you have in you? Because it looks like a lot, but you act like it’s none at all.”
He exhaled with faint irritation. “This is why I didn’t want to tutor a wolfkin girl,” he said. “All that matters, as far as you are concerned, is that I have learned to assimilate.”
“Can you shift?” I asked him.
“I could.”
“Do you?”
He frowned at me and took out a board with the alphabet printed on it. “Do you know what this is?”
“The alphabet,” I said. “I’m not stupid.”
“I never said you were.”
“Well, you surely do make it clear that you think it’s better to be a human than a wolf.”
“I never said that either. But you are here, aren’t you? Making every appearance of a human lady? What is the point of doing a thing if not to do it right?”
“Aye, well, I don’t have much choice, do I? This is my only kin now.”
He paused. “Ah. I didn’t realize. I thought you might have chosen to live with your father’s kin.”
I gave my head a small shake, avoiding the more painful reasons, and leaned forward a little. “You chose to live as a human, eh? Tell me why. Maybe it would be easier to put up with all this if I saw a reason for it, I mean, besides my family. They are kind and I don’t want to be a disappointment, but lord, these clothes. These houses. These manners.”
He handed me the intimidating slab of alphabet and then paused. “How about this, Miss Fersa? If you’ll work hard with me this week, I’ll tell you my story at the end of it.”
“Clever man. You must know a girl loves a mystery.” I jabbed my finger at the board. “Fine. But I don’t make any promises that I’ll be any good.”
He seemed satisfied. I tried not to linger on his golden eyes. He might have tried to hide his nature under respectable clothes and a shave, but he couldn’t hide from me. His eyes still held a hint of a feral nature, of something untamed and about to break loose. I couldn’t help imagining that he would break loose for me. His hair was dark and thick, and I could imagine the texture under my fingers. I could imagine his fur too, rough and protective at the outer layer and soft as down underneath. He had long, slightly wild sideburns that added to the wolfish look. And he had a wolf’s grace—stronger than Patrick, I thought, and faster. Nature gave wolves an advantage over humans even in human form—before you added cruel weapons to the mix, anyway.
I had succeeded in not lingering on his eyes, but I failed at everything else.
“Do you recognize any of the letters?” he asked.
His hands were stained with ink but otherwise very clean. I remembered he was, in this moment, no true wolf. He was the most un-wolflike creature you co
uld imagine.
I pointed at ‘F’. “I know my name starts with that one. And I know the first four are A, B, C, D. Sometimes at the work house they labeled things as such.”
“Well, you’re only missing ‘E’ and you already have six letters,” he said, like that was really something. “Can you write them out?”
“Maybe.”
“Why don’t you try and I’ll write down some words that use only those six letters and we’ll begin there.”
I could tell this was going to be godawful boring.
It was even worse once we got going. Bad enough to learn all those letters, but he started going on about variations. Capitals, lower case, cursive. Why not just have one sort of letter and be done with it!
I was getting very fidgety before long. I nudged my feet out of my shoes. I wished I could feel grass under my feet. I wished I could run, wild and naked, drawing deep breaths of cold air into my lungs.
Snow started dancing past the window panes. My mind wandered away from the paper and I stood up to look out. It didn’t snow that often in the work house. Wyndyr was farther south. Anyway, it wouldn’t have been this beautiful at the work house. This reminded me of childhood snow. Fluffy flakes danced down from the gray sky and coated the garden outside. I pressed my fingers to the wavy glass.
“Miss Fersa?” His voice was sharp. “Where are you going?”
“I had to move.”
“You could at least have communicated that fact. Are you cold?” he asked. “I should build up the fire.”
“No, not cold. I just can’t think anymore.”
He looked at the clock on the mantle. It had only been an hour. He did build up the fire, anyway. I tried not to look at him lifting up a log and poking at the fire with tools; the sight was likely to stir even more urges than I already had.
Then he came up behind me; I watched his reflection approach.
“I know it’s a lot to remember at first,” he said.
Taming Red Riding Hood (Fairy Tale Heat Book 8) Page 3
