By she, Vynasha assumed he meant Soraya. The people of the Forgotten Village tended to speak viciously of her when the subject arose. The more Vynasha learned about the curse and what it meant for her and her family, the more she understood why. The key hanging from her neck began to hum with latent energy at the thought and she absently pressed it against her chest.
“Are you sure you’re ready to travel? We could rest here a bit longer,” she suggested.
Baalor cut her a scathing glare. “For the last time, no. Other predators will come sniffing us out. We are lagging as it is. And Crafter knows how many more of those beasts are roaming the land, searching for you. I plan to be in the village the next time one comes prowling.”
Vynasha nodded but was too weary to protest. Her little sprint through the woods and practical majik lesson had stolen what reserve sleep had bequeathed. Also came the lingering guilt from the last time she’d left the village unprotected, when she’d unwittingly sent Erythea into the monster’s claws.
Does he still blame me? she couldn’t help but wonder as she followed him beyond their clearing and the bloody trail they had created.
Would he kiss you if he did? came the next unbidden thought, staining her cheeks. Vynasha forced the new sensations from her mind. Tempting as it was to admire her Wolv, she needed to focus on the uneven terrain.
The storm had ravaged the land with brutal strokes, prodding and poking in its search for her whereabouts. Heavy snows obscured the path they followed before, disguising pitfalls and crevices, so they trod with lighter feet. Smaller trees had been completely uprooted and even a few grandfather firs had lost their pointed crowns in the winds. From their shelter on Mount Grimm, the damage to the valley had not been so obvious.
Vynasha wished she understood majik and the bond she shared with Grendall better. Maybe then she could have stopped the devastation they’d found upon returning to the Forgotten Village.
The sun indeed had fallen by the time the golden lights first appeared in the dim. Her wyldcat’s eyes allowed her to see the finer details the scattered clouds obscured. Seeing the candle lights made them pick up their pace. Vynasha almost wished she had taken up Baalor’s offer to take their time now that her hands shook and the pounding had begun once more in her mind. Majik, it would seem, was not finished punishing her yet. She reached for Baalor’s hand but he was already stalking ahead, muttering under his breath.
“Couldn’t even wait for our return, bleeding cowards.”
Vynasha struggled to keep up as he loped ahead, past the nearest hut and onto another path. She turned the same corner onto the narrow path leading to the Iceveins house, black spots mingling with the blurred picture of many torches.
Baalor’s pale hair gleamed like a beacon she followed. To her surprise he was waiting for her, hand extended, a guilty expression crossing with the fury and fear beneath his cold veneer. The instant she took his hand, her vision cleared. She let him lead her off the path and into the nearby tree line, skirting the edge of the mob.
The closer they drew, the louder the mob roared and the scene played out.
Much as the village had gathered before Ceddrych’s home what felt a lifetime ago, now Baalor’s people were gathered on his doorstep.
“We all saw what the child did before the curse breaker brought her back to life!” a woman called from the middle of the crowd. The villagers crowed their agreement and terror.
“—can’t be trusted!”
“—daughter of that human witch!”
“Enough!” An older male lifted his robed arms above the crowd from the front. “We are not a community of murderers like the gray ones we do not speak of.”
Grandmother cackled from the open doorway, golden light pouring forth behind her. “Is that so? I have it on good authority you have hunted and slaughtered as many humans as my son, Gerrelt Stokker.”
The Elder growled, “If you won’t listen to reason, Ilya, at least acknowledge the wrong that’s been done here.”
Ilya’s smile sharpened into icy steel. “The only wrong I see is this intrusion on an otherwise peaceful evening. Was the storm not enough to drive the madness from your minds? Or do you listen to the evil sent from the Lost City?”
“How dare you name that place here!” Gerrelt snarled. “One beast was ill tidings enough, but we will not suffer a witch to live in our midst.”
Baalor’s grip on her hand tightened and Vynasha felt the tremble of his arm. She wrapped her other hand over his biceps and their gazes clashed briefly, gold and green.
Grandmother’s reply rang over the increasing din of the mob. “A time was when a witch ruled our land as Queen. A time when we needn’t live in fear. You feared the curse breaker as well, but she is the only reason our village stands. Yet now you come to my door and demand my granddaughter. Have you no compassion for the innocence of a child? Or at least no fear for the wrath of my son when he returns?”
The woman from earlier answered then, “You mean if Baalor returns. The storm nearly destroyed the land and then we heard the Call. We must obey.”
Vynasha drew in a breath and looked more closely at the crowd. There were no Forgotten among them, she realized, no people with vines for hair or antlers growing from their heads. Where had they gone? Or perhaps they watched from the edge as she and Baalor did. Indeed, as she searched the outer edges, and then the forest, dim shadows rippled in the night. But all the villagers before the Iceveins home were of Baalor’s kind, the Wolvs.
She glanced over at him, but the pack leader would not look at her now and she released the breath she had been holding. Had her cry affected more than the castle’s beasts?
Grandmother turned suddenly with a low growl. “Get back inside, foolish child!” Erythea’s quiet protest was muffled and hidden enough but for the flash of skirt and pale hair at the edge of the doorway.
Unfortunately, the mob also noticed. “There she is!” the woman cried and the others surged forward. Baalor leapt from the trees in his Wolv form and several villagers bowed immediately at the sound of his snarl.
Grandmother stepped into the snow, lifting a longsword as tall as she was. She cut a wide arc across and someone screamed before she held it aloft. The sweet scent of blood tickled Vynasha’s nose and the beast flared to life inside her.
“Stop it! Stop it!” Erythea screamed from the doorway. Her mother’s blue flowers twisted and curled to life over the threshold, stretching out and spreading across the muddy earth.
Everything happened at once and time slowed for Vynasha as she stepped out of the tree line, her hands uplifted. “STOP,” she said, and a wave of violet light rushed over the Wolvs and broke against the Iceveins house.
Time stood still within the light as Vynasha wove her way through their frozen bodies. Every step was agony, like walking on hot coals and needles at once. She ground her sharp teeth together and her arms shook. She ducked beneath the arc of Grandmother’s longsword and then stopped before Erythea’s open-mouthed scream. She turned and lowered her hands with a deep groan. Like before, when she’d frozen Wolfsbane’s daughter, taking the majik back was twice as difficult. Yet she drew her hands in until her claws pricked her palms and tried to breathe the power back in.
A small hand covered hers and the world rushed to catch up.
Grandmother’s sword sliced open a female’s chest, while Baalor tumbled into two others mid-leap. Cries and whimpers faded as they looked to the curse breaker and while some looked with curiosity and fear, others reflected wonder. Baalor rushed to Erythea’s side while Grandmother kept her steel ready.
Vynasha’s voice was hoarse to her ears, deeper in the way her beast brought forth. “Are you finished? Don’t you see what’s really happening here? You formed this village to protect one another from people who would kill you for what you are. You were sworn to protect, not destroy. Now you’ve become the evil you hate so much.” She still trembled and the pounding in her head returned, increasing with the beat of her hea
rt. Thea’s fingers tightened over her fist and she released a shuddering breath, then growled, “Go home.”
To her surprise and secret fear, the people obeyed without cry or complaint. Young and old alike helped carry their wounded back down the path or through the forest to the village. The shadows watching from the darker reaches of the forest faded back to their secret homes. Baalor in his Wolv form barked and the pack gathered to him before stalking back into the night.
Ilya Iceveins kept her longsword lifted until the very last torchlight winked out. The old Wolv pressed the tip of her steel into the earth and leaned on the hilt. “Well, that could have gone a lot worse.”
“Come inside.” Erythea coaxed Vynasha away from the clash of blood and majik mingled on their doorstep. “It’s okay, you’re safe now.”
Vynasha blinked past tears and let the girl lead her to a chair beside a warm fire. A pair of kind but sad blue eyes filled her sight as Erythea brought a cloth to wipe the grime and sweat from her face. Why was she sweating?
Thea chewed her lower lip a moment, then offered, “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Maybe it never would have happened to either of us, once upon a time. But after you brought me back, my majik came back stronger and I don’t care what they say, it is a gift.”
The combination of the fire and Thea’s warm cloth against her skin calmed the raging beast in Vynasha’s skin and the pounding of her head. She barely noticed the girl help her crawl onto the fur rug before the hearth, nor cover her with a woven blanket. Thea lingered only long enough to smile and whisper, “I know you’re scared. I was too, but I’ve read more from Mother’s books and I think we can learn to control it together. We’re going to save them all, Vynasha.”
Gentle trails of comfort passed over her skin, combing her wild mane back from her face and tugging her from sleep like death. Vynasha blinked past blurred vision and relaxed against her feather pillow the moment Baalor leaned forward to press his lips to her forehead.
“You carried me.” She knew this without question, though for a moment she’d quite forgotten how she came to the Iceveins cottage, the mob or the storm. For a few blissful hours, she hadn’t been a curse breaker or anyone’s hero.
Baalor hummed low in reply, hands continuing their distracting trail along her neck and tracing the dip of her shoulder. His lips quirked at her shiver, heightening contrasting shadow and candlelight along his scar. “You used too much again. I should have stopped you.”
“You were too busy barking at everyone.”
“Suppose you’re right…” His brow drew together and he ducked his head with a harsh laugh. “Wouldn’t have been the first kin strife in this village. Every now and again my family must remind the other Wolvs who is alpha.”
“The Forgotten didn’t interfere.”
Baalor cradled her hand in his, studying the new burn markings with the pad of his thumb. “They know better than to step in the middle of a wolf fight. Besides, they could have stopped us had they needed to. Their memory of earth majik is long and something Soraya dared corrupt. Though I don’t think anyone expected you to bend our spirits.” He sat up with a feral smile. “How they must be reeling in terror over you, witch.”
“Glad you can find humor in this,” she replied dryly, staring at their joined hands, and hesitantly squeezed back. Another rumbling hum, caught between laughter and a growl, drew her gaze to his and knocked the breath from her lungs. His emerald eyes glowed by the dying candlelight, more beast than man. A shadow of a memory pricked her mind, but she was too weary to contemplate and too distracted by the tap of his thumb to care.
“You think I enjoy seeing you suffer like this, or want my child in danger? Have I not lost enough?” His voice wavered like a sail on a winter’s breeze while icy heat traveled from their point of contact up her limbs and called to the sleeping wild thing inside her.
Listen, wait, it seemed to say. Baalor cleared his throat, his hair spilling from its loose tie to shroud his face. He needed a shave and a bath, yet somehow she found him more appealing—raw.
“A storm like this one hasn’t touched our valley in half an age. The last time it did was because the last curse breaker failed.”
Vynasha had always known she was far from the first girl entrapped by Grendall’s majik, had seen as much in the minds of the female beast before ending her wretched life. Not every beast in the dungeons was a potential curse breaker. In the fleeting moments after her transformation, as she had freed her fellow prisoners, Vynasha had caught flashes of lives lived, both men and women, young and old. Some were evil and others merely wicked, but many had been good once, she suspected.
“Who was she?”
Baalor barely blinked, but she felt him withdrawing from her in some deeper way, his voice a harsh imitation. “My sister.”
The bed she slept in, the underthings she had borrowed, all stolen from a girl who had remained distant to Vynasha until now.
Another curse breaker… what does that even mean?
“After Lua—Luanor failed, things at the castle changed…” He stole a sudden, ragged breath, but kept his gaze fixated on her, as though determined to speak while he could. “A storm came, a punishment perhaps, for our failure to produce a worthy mate for that monster. We all suffered for it.”
Vynasha turned her hand to link their fingers and sat up. “I’m sorry.” Tears blurred her vision, unexpected but spilling from the cracked and bleeding girl within. The girl a prince had tricked and trapped into living with him, when he’d given her the world and expected everything in return. Baalor had to know this, like everyone in this valley.
How many were stolen before the end?
Baalor blinked rapidly, his mouth working a moment. A shadow of warmth and fear shone through his gaze. “Why are you apologizing to me, Beauty?”
She bit her lip, just barely breaking the skin. Baalor’s nose flared, his eyes drawn to it. She gasped, when he closed the space between them and kissed her. Blood and tears and this unraveling sensation, so full of all she ever wanted. Until he pulled away, eyes gleaming with emotion unshed, and pressed her hand to his heart.
“I wish we could—that is, wish I could…” Frustration and pain stole the light from his eyes. A grim set to his mouth, clenching of his jaw, and then Baalor took one long, steadying breath. When he looked at her again, it was with the pack master’s authority. Still, he kept her hand pressed to his chest, harder, and spoke low. “This storm was worse than any I’ve seen before. It won’t stop until he has you back.”
Somehow, she pushed aside the lump constricting her voice. “I only need a little time to learn control. I know I can best him. He may have bound me, but I am stronger because I have… all of you.” She tucked her chin, heat flaring in her face that was very much the girl and not the beast.
Baalor lifted her palm to his mouth before setting it back in her lap and straightening to reply, “Until you are ready, we will do what we can to keep you safe.”
“You’re leaving?” She felt the loss of touch keenly, had come to somewhat rely on that assurance he offered.
“I had hoped to put off leaving at least another night, but the Forgotten tell me the storm and your call are waking the old ones. We must be aware of them before they sniff you out. I hope you are ready when the time comes, Vynasha.” He stood and the grim lines about his face deepened. “I cannot say how soon we will return. It has been many years since the pack patrolled such large territory.”
Vynasha gripped the sheets and tried to appear confident as she replied, “I’ll begin the hunt with Wolfsbane, soon as I can.”
Baalor’s loose fists clenched at his sides. “I meant everything I said about your choice. I wish I could say…” He growled low and his eyes flashed against the dimness. “I should have told you everything from the beginning.”
She reached for his fist with a clawed hand and his anger abated. “You can tell me when you come home.”
“I promise.” He spoke into her
hair, lifting her into his arms, holding her head to his. It was enough.
Words had never been her strength, her tongue always tumbling over and twisting them up. Since she came here, she found her tongue had a mind of its own, and the words often tumbled out. But she meant everything she had and hadn’t said to Baalor Iceveins. She wasn’t sure what that meant or what he fully meant to her yet. With more time and perhaps in a different life, things might have been much easier, simpler between them.
Wishing on stars and howling at the moon wouldn’t change the fact they had this one life now, for however long, and in the dying candlelight, they chose not to waste it.
THE BEAST’S LIFE had been forfeit the hour the Prince had locked her in the dungeon.
She often dreamed of glittering gems beneath a canopy of starlight and soft silks against satin skin. A perfect wolf moon gleamed in the glass skylight above so silvery beams blended together with the hazy glow of a dozen candelabra. Joy filled her every step as they danced together, her hand in his, smile lines about his perfect silver eyes. He was like the moonlight and she filled with all the warmth of the sun. His words blurred together in her memory, full of promise and hope until her light died. It was the last moment of her life she could remember and, though she could not explain how she knew this, the moment her dreams had died.
All dreams died in the damp dim of the dungeon of Castle Bitterhelm.
The beast woke to the echoing roars of her brothers and sisters, kin who had been trapped half an age and more, then snarled at the lingering memories. Dreams and memories, like jagged pieces of broken glass, stabbed at her mind now and then at the worst opportunity. Just as she was enjoying the feeling of air moving through her fur, as she sat back to release her own cry to the moon.
In the endless black of their prison, she had forgotten much more than the name of the castle. Now it came to her as her last moments as a woman came to her mind, stalling her lumbering movements. She froze, the cry escaping as a bitter whine, and she twisted her great head to the courtyard behind her. Bushes covered in blood-red blossoms surrounded her and inside the castle, her brothers and sisters waged war against the master.
Scarred Beauty Page 24
