“Please don’t go yet,” the girl hissed, “it is only my father.”
Vynasha bared her teeth and stared at the way Baalor’s broad form filled the doorway.
VYNASHA WANTED TO claw at her hair for being so stupid as she recalled that nagging feeling she’d ignored earlier, the one insisting she was forgetting a very important detail about her new little friend. This girl’s father had nearly taken off her brother’s head before Vynasha intervened. This cursed male, who threatened her use of majik, lived in a house so rife with it the walls carried visions and pressed upon her chest with unbearable weight. To hide the struggle, she clung to the animal half of her senses, praying it would be enough as she watched Baalor shut the door against the night.
After hanging his cloak on a peg beside where Thea had hung Vynasha’s earlier, he entered his home with easy, prowling steps. His tone was softer than she had heard him use before. “Mother, is there any stew left?”
Grandmother stirred at the sound of his voice. “Kept some aside for you, boy. Knew those old windbags would keep you late.”
“Good.” He sighed. “Never found time to eat while dealing with those fools… Thea upstairs?” He glanced up the stairwell and then froze in the shadows where candle and firelight couldn’t touch.
The tension Vynasha felt when his scent first washed over her coiled even tighter as his profile stiffened. Wind accompanying his arrival had sputtered enough for him to catch her scent. A small, vaguely human part of her marveled how the curse made her see so differently. Yet the girl who’d struggled to feed her nephew alone in the wilderness watched warily for what the Wolv would do.
I am not helpless or weak anymore.
Erythea squeezed her hand, as if sensing her internal struggle, and took a step forward as if to shield her. “Father, come and greet our guest.”
Baalor’s eyes gleamed with a flash of emerald. “Who gave you permission to allow this stranger into our home, Erythea?”
The girl glanced back at Grandmother, who waited, poised over the cauldron, then to Vynasha. “Well, I…” she sputtered.
“Thea was kind enough to invite me in,” Vynasha interrupted, determined not to let the girl take the brunt of this brute’s anger.
“Strange that I wasted most of the day arguing with the village about you, after the threats you made, only to I find you here.” Snow melted against his silver hair and beard and he smiled as he closed the distance between them.
“I seem to remember you offering threats of your own,” Vynasha snapped, then bit her upper lip. She needed to stay in control. No matter what Baalor said or did, Grandmother and Erythea had invited her into their home. For them she could hold her tongue.
“Yes, you caused quite a stir. I rather enjoyed it.” He smiled at her and some of the Wolv left his eyes, enough to convey his humor.
In that moment, Erythea might have been a league away. Her father seemed to swallow up the room with his presence. The Prince had had a similar effect due to his appearance, Vynasha supposed. Baalor set her nerves on edge for a different reason and it was all she could do to lower her arms stiffly at her sides.
His eyebrows rose as he traced curves newly revealed by her new clothing, then frowned at the old woman behind them.
Erythea’s grip tightened on her hand. “Father, Vynasha protected me when Ae…” Her voice trailed off as she choked on her words, and ducked her head. “When the children were hurting me.”
Baalor cut his narrowed gaze to his daughter and rested a large hand over his daughter’s shoulder. “So that is what Aelon was blubbering about to his mother. Though as I recall, he claimed a beast attacked him.” His lips quirked up with amusement at the last and he threw a quick, appreciative glance for Vynasha. “Good beast,” he remarked before he knelt and lifted Erythea’s chin with tenderness. “Let me see the mark, lass.”
“It has already healed,” the girl muttered while her father inspected the healing bruises.
Vynasha watched as the same brute who’d thrown threats at her earlier, which he apparently enjoyed for some insane reason, gently cared for his daughter.
As he took Erythea’s hands in his, his expression hardened. “You must learn to fight back, Thea. Do not let Aelon touch you again.”
Vynasha gaped and, before she could hold her tongue, blurted, “But she’s just a child. How can you expect her to defend herself against a boy twice her size?”
Baalor stood in one fluid motion. “I do not expect an outsider to understand our ways, but our children are expected to fight. If they do not learn how to fight one another, how can they survive this wilderness?”
Grandmother clucked her tongue and approached then, ignoring Baalor’s glare as she grabbed him. “Vynasha is right, boy. Thea may be your daughter, but she has shown no signs of the curse yet. Unless she does, the other children are honor-bound to leave her be. Besides, there is no excuse for the cruelty of that boy Omalia is raising. Now, enough of pack matters. Sit and eat your supper like a good pup.”
Vynasha pursed her lips to dampen her smile as Grandmother pulled him to the table and fussed over his bandaged arm. “Have you been hunting humans again, boy?”
“Mother, it will heal on its own if you only cease your meddling,” he grumbled from the fireside.
“After you eat I shall take a better look at that scrape,” Grandmother intoned and then took Erythea by the shoulders. “Time for bed, lass.”
“But I wanted to show Vynasha my books!”
“You can show her another time, little love.”
“Listen to your grandmother,” Baalor added when Erythea lifted her chin in quiet defiance.
As she passed Vynasha she whispered behind her hand, “Come over tomorrow.”
Vynasha struggled to smile in the face of Baalor’s scrutiny. “Maybe…”
Grandmother ushered the girl upstairs with a brief reassuring squeeze of her arm. “You are most welcome in my lodge, lass.” They trudged upstairs, Grandmother whispering low to the girl while Erythea worried aloud. “But what if they start fighting again?”
“Hush, lass. Never you mind about that.” The pair trudged up the last stair, their voices muffled as the door shut with a soft click.
Vynasha stood alone with the changeling and watched him consume his meal to the sound of the crackling hearth for as long as she could bear. Baalor did not look up from his food once, but she knew he was aware of every nervous twitch of her muscles. Without Thea and Grandmother’s company for distraction, the majik surrounding this place was scratching at her skin again. Digging her claws into her palm just shy of drawing blood, she looked longingly over at her brother’s fur cloak.
“I should be furious with you for attacking one of our own,” Baalor finally said between bites of stew. He picked up the bowl and drank the rest, then set it back on the table and leaned back against the cushions. Only then did he level an unnerving stare at her. “As pack master, I have every right to throw you and your brother out of this village.”
She inclined her chin. “So throw us out. What’s stopping you?”
He sprang up from his seat in one easy movement, muscles tensing as he approached. “You, Vynasha.” He openly assessed her for a moment. “I should have turned you both away the moment your brother carried you into the village.”
A strange feeling stirred in her gut, spreading warmth through her limbs, and her voice wavered. “Why are you all so afraid of me?”
The confidence the wolf wore like a cloak disappeared from his face, leaving his face naked and his voice haunted. “You are new to this land, so I don’t expect you to know evil as I do.”
“Is that what you think I am?” Vynasha sucked in a painful breath.
He cocked his head a fraction, again curious and assessing. “Nothing good has come from the lost city. Evil claimed it long ago and still seems bent on destroying us, but I do not think you are evil, Vynasha. I think you are here for a greater purpose.”
For a moment, she
recalled Odym’s hope in her and Wolfsbane’s prophecy, all the things they wanted her to be. To save them, she had willingly accepted the curse, had stopped fighting despite Grendall’s wishes. She’d released the beasts in the Prince’s castle and had no way of knowing whether they’d claimed their revenge, or if what she’d done accounted for beating Soraya’s curse. Baalor’s words struck a nerve, the shame she had been hiding from Ceddrych, all the things she couldn’t say. Once more, someone wanted something from her Vynasha was not prepared to give.
“I came here to find my brother. That’s all.” She growled at the thought of little Wyll, living somewhere with Baalor’s enemy. If he knew her dealings with Wolfsbane, Vynasha had no doubt he would kill her. “Whatever you think I’ll give up for you, forget it.”
Baalor paused in his approach and lifted an eyebrow at her, his teeth gleaming white. Again, he showed amusement where he shouldn’t. “You will find I can be very persuasive.”
“I’m nobody’s pawn, you brute,” she hissed. She took a step forward of her own, then, and the strange feeling that tightened her inner core only grew. Vynasha felt as though she was spilling over some mysterious edge, about to fall into something she had no experience in.
Baalor matched her step for step and his breath hitched. “Clearly not.”
“It was a mistake for me to come here,” she said as the sick scent of majik filled her nose.
“A fortunate mistake.” Baalor continued, calm in the face of her fear. A haze of glistening lights seemed to fall like mist around them, illuminating the room in shades of violet.
Vynasha jerked back and released the breath she hadn’t known she was holding. She stumbled backward, fumbling for the coat rack and her brother’s cloak. “I shouldn’t be here. I never should have come,” she hissed, half expecting to see blue flowers and tapestries covering the walls around them if she dared to look.
Baalor took the cloak from her hands and wrapped it around her shoulders, bringing her close enough she could smell the forest, and Grandmother’s baked goods, and the wolf waiting just beneath his skin. His face filled her vision and she noticed all the nicks and pale scars on his already pale face. She shivered when he ran his hand lightly down her arm and lifted one of her hands between them.
“What are you?” he asked as he ran a thumb over her claws. All she could think of was his blood on the tips of her claws and how the taste of him was familiar to her soul.
“Once, I was a monster,” she whispered and wondered why she wanted to close the distance between them.
“And now?” His hand caressed hers and it was all she could do to form words.
Before the fire, they called me Beauty, but after, I became a monster. I am a beast and a witch because of my mother and Grendall’s blood.
“I don’t know anymore,” she said, unsure and maybe a little frightened.
“Neither do I,” Baalor confessed in a tone bordering self-loathing. He opened his mouth and then shut it as he looked down and inspected her clawed fingertips. “You were right to accuse me. I do want something from you.”
Vynasha held her breath, again on the edge of something she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear or discover for herself. She needed to run away, far away from this house with its lost child, loving grandmother and leftover majik. “I need to leave,” she said with slight inflection, betraying her struggle.
Instead of releasing her, Baalor drew her closer with wonder in his fierce face as he ducked his head. “Are you so sure you want to leave?”
The front door burst open with a blast of swirling snow flurries, and her brother calling her name. She jerked from whatever stupor had clouded her judgment as Ceddrych ripped her out of Baalor’s grip. Vynasha fought for balance while Ceddrych swung his fist back and lunged forward to strike.
“Don’t!” she screeched as she jumped in front of Baalor.
Ceddrych was fast, but she was faster than her Wolv brother and caught his fist with her palm. She shook with the effort of holding his arm in place between them.
Ceddrych snarled. “Let go of me, little sister!”
“I was in no danger!” Her anger gave her strength enough to push his arm until it was bent painfully back. She eased somewhat when he winced and explained, “Baalor’s daughter invited me for supper. I was just leaving.”
Ceddrych’s rage faded as the wolf left his eyes and he blinked, staggering back as he looked from her to Baalor. “Vynasha, you don’t know what he’s really like.”
“I know enough,” she snapped and glanced back over her shoulder to find a smirk on the taller male’s face.
“Wanderer, I see your little spies have been at work. Yet there was no need for you to break into my home.” Baalor had backed several steps away, as though he hadn’t held her in his arms moments ago. “As you can see,” he added, “your sister is unharmed and you just interrupted an intimate discussion. Didn’t he, Vynasha?” He dared to speak her name like it was a caress and set her teeth on edge.
Ceddrych couldn’t stomach it either, because he managed to dodge her next block as he pushed her behind him and took a threatening step forward. “You had no right to talk to her before I could. We agreed I would handle it and the Council told you to stay out of it!”
“Agreed to what?” Vynasha hissed.
Ceddrych stilled and turned slowly to face her, his guilt apparent in the tilt of his head. It was the same look he’d had before he left her behind in Whistleande the last time, like he knew he was asking more from her than he should. He held his hands, palms up and spread. “Ashes, I promise I will explain, but not here, please?”
Baalor’s mouth turned up at one corner as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Seems the coney’s out of the snare, Wanderer.”
“Shut up! I know you are to blame for all of this,” Vynasha hissed, directing her anger at him. It was much easier and a better outlet for the overwhelming feelings pulsing through her.
Baalor raised an eyebrow and looked her up and down slowly. “If I’m guilty of anything it’s of not noticing your beauty sooner. Doesn’t she look delicious in those clothes, Wanderer? Strange that my mother would be so generous.”
Vynasha flinched at his words, at the way his gaze tugged at her in spite of her brother’s presence.
Ceddrych balled his hands into fists and looked past her head to the open door. “Siam, Rian, you should go home.”
Vynasha hadn’t even noticed the twins hovering just beyond sight in the darkness outside. She could see their fear as she peered at them before they bowed their heads and left. “You shouldn’t have dragged them into this,” she whispered.
Ceddrych’s tone was hard as his gaze as he, too, eyed her new clothing. “I asked them to look after you. I wasn’t planning on them having to protect children from you.”
Vynasha gaped slightly, amazed he was taking the villagers’ side. This, more than whatever he’d agreed to “discuss” with her for the Council, was what made her say, “I was trying to protect the girl those children were beating. I don’t know what kind of customs your new pack has, but I won’t let them mistreat an innocent girl!” She whipped back around and bared her sharp teeth at Baalor, wiping the smile from his face. “As for you, you don’t let your little girl take a beating. A good father wouldn’t stand for that.”
Baalor’s mouth parted as his crossed arms fell to his sides. She didn’t wait for his reply as she darted around Ceddrych’s tall frame and slipped into the night.
“ASHES…” CEDDRYCH WAS insistent. “You can’t ignore me forever.”
Vynasha lifted Soraya’s journal a bit higher, blocking her brother’s miserable face from view.
I cannot take back what has already been set in motion. Much as I try to tell myself he is no longer my son, Odym reminds me otherwise.
It is too late to return to my homeland, but perhaps she can mend it when she comes? I have seen her only in shadows of my dreams, but already I can see she is going to be stronger than all of us…
Her eyes fell over words she had read before without taking them in. When she returned to his small cabin, the first thing she’d done was pull the Queen’s memoir free. At least she could pretend to read.
“How many times must I tell you I’m sorry?” Her brother stretched out a hand across the table, palm upturned.
Vynasha wasn’t the type of person to hold grudges or cling to anger, against Ceddrych most of all. He was her family, one of two members left alive in the world now. She winced at the memory of their father bleeding out beside her by the riverbed and her resolve weakened.
Ceddrych sat back in his chair with a heavy sigh. “You can’t begin to understand these people, Ashes. It was all I could do to keep them from booting us out of the village.”
Would that be so bad?
She bit her tongue to keep from speaking aloud and gripped the vellum book in her hands. Soraya’s script was flowing and strange to her eyes. She wondered that she could read it at all, but supposed that could be attributed to majik as well.
“I know it may seem foolish of me, remaining with them when we should be out there, finding Wyll.”
At this, Vynasha lowered her book to look at her brother, this man she’d once trusted and loved above all others, with suspicion. “How did you know about Wyll?” She had mentioned him briefly before, perhaps, but had yet to broach the subject.
Ceddrych tensed with animal stillness. “I just presumed. That is the reason you came here, isn’t it? You must have left him somewhere safe? I know you wouldn’t take him into the lost city, not unless you found what you came for.”
“You talk like you already know the answer.” She hesitated, then added, “But what would the Council say if we were to bring Wyll back with us?”
Ceddrych smirked. “Council doesn’t know everything that goes on in this village, and I answer to no one.”
Vynasha narrowed her gaze. “Didn’t seem that way today. Sounded like you were willing to help them convince me to do their dirty work.”
His mouth turned down, his forehead creased and his hand twitched as though he wanted to take her hand. The gesture would have been welcome and familiar, before. Instead he clenched his fingers into a fist. “I tried to tell you before. Tried to keep you from getting tangled up in this village, but I didn’t expect Baalor to take such interest.” His accompanying silence was full of repressed meaning.
Scarred Beauty Page 9
