Bride Of The Beast

The Old Weir

I was standing beside the pack. They were frantic, pulling at their clothes in excitement for the hunt. How many of them wanted me dead? How many didn't care if I survived or not?

I hit my lip when I saw Eilis held down beside the king. His wolf was just as ferocious as it had been at the wedding.

I inhaled deeply and braced myself. I won't know the outcome until I try.

The horn’s final note bled into the wind, leaving a silence so sharp it felt like it could cut. I didn't wait for the echoes to die.

I turned and plunged into the treeline, the heavy velvet of my skirts catching on the first frost-brittle thicket I hit.

I hiked my skirts up, the hidden stave bumping rhythmically against my thigh. My breath came in ragged, shallow stabs as the binders constricted my chest. I needed to reach the western slope.

I had barely cleared the first mile when the wind shifted. A low growl vibrated through the trunk of a pine to my left. I skidded to a halt, my boots churning up the frozen mulch.

Two sets of yellow eyes ignited in the darkness. They weren't massive like the Prince, but they were lean, hungry, and there were two of them. Sub-Alphas, likely younger sons of the Council families, looking for a trophy they didn't have to work for.

They didn't waste time with a warning. The first one lunged from the shadows, a blur of grey and white.

I didn't have the strength to wrestle a wolf, so I dropped my center of gravity, whipping the wooden stave from my skirts in one fluid motion.

As the wolf’s jaws snapped inches from my face, I jammed the end of the stave into the soft dirt, using it as a brace.

The wolf slammed into my shoulder, its weight nearly dislocating my arm, but I used its own momentum to shove it sideways. It tumbled down a small embankment, yelping as it hit the rocks below.

The second one was smarter. It circled, belly low to the ground, snapping its teeth to keep me distracted.

"Back off," I hissed, my voice cracking. I wasn't a girl at that moment. I was a cornered animal.

The wolf leaped, aiming for my throat. I swung the stave with both hands, a horizontal strike that caught the beast squarely across its snout. There was a sickening crack, and the wolf let out a high-pitched scream, retreating into the brush with its tail tucked.

I didn't stay to see if they’d come back. My heart was a drum in my ears, and the metallic taste of adrenaline was coating my tongue. I couldn't believe I'd done that. I fought with wolves and lived.

I pushed harder, scrambling up a steep incline where the trees grew thinner.

I reached a plateau of jagged stone—the area Marilyn had mentioned. The Old Weir.

The air was different. It was colder, stripped of the scent of the lower woods. I looked back and saw a shadow moving along the ridge behind me.

It was twice the size of the scavengers, a silhouette of pure, predatory power that moved with a terrifying grace.

Eilís.

He wasn't running; he was stalking. He knew exactly where I was. The distance between us was closing with every heartbeat. I remembered Marilyn’s voice: Stay to the left of the stone markers.

I saw them, three weathered pillars of granite poking through the snow like rotted teeth. I veered left, my boots finding a narrow, solid shelf of stone. Behind me, I heard the heavy, rhythmic thump-thump-thump of the Prince’s approach.

He hit the patch of melt-water and mud I had avoided. I heard the frantic scrabbling of claws on slick earth as he overshot the turn, a massive, dark shape sliding into the ravine.

He let out a frustrated roar that shook the very air in my lungs.

But he didn't fall. He caught himself on a ledge, his muscles bunching as he hauled his massive frame back up. He stood on the path, shaking the mud from his fur, his eyes glowing like twin embers in the dark.

Even as my heart beat accelerated I stood still.

The hunger in his gaze was hollow, a bottomless pit that demanded to be filled. He let out a low, vibrating growl that made my teeth ache.

He lunged.

I used the pine tree as a pivot, swinging around the trunk just as his jaws closed in the air where my waist had been a second before. He was too fast. He pivoted on his hind legs, his massive paw swiping out and catching the hem of my dress. The fabric tore with a violent screech, and I was jerked off my feet.

I hit the ground hard, the stave flying from my hand. The binders felt like they were going to snap my ribs as I gasped for air.

Before I could scramble away, Eilís was over me, his shadow blotting out the moon.

His weight pinned my legs, a crushing pressure that made it impossible to move. His face lowered, his nose wrinkling as he took in the scent of my throat. I could see the individual hairs on his muzzle, the flecks of gold in his pupils.

"Eilís," I whispered, the name a plea and a command all at once.

His teeth grazed the skin of my neck, searching for the pulse. I froze, hoping to the gods he wasn't thinking of biting me.

I felt the sharp prick of a canine against my jugular. But then, he stopped.

His head tilted. His nostrils flaring, drawing in a deep, lung-filling breath of the skin behind my ear.

The growl in his chest died, replaced by a strange, high-pitched whine. He pulled back, looking down at me with an expression that was hauntingly human.

He let out a long, huffing breath and nudged my cheek with his wet nose, his tongue flicking out to taste the salt on my skin.

He laid his heavy, furred head on my chest, pinning me to the frozen earth not as prey, but as something he needed to protect.

I reached up, my hand shaking, and buried my fingers in the thick, coarse fur of his neck. My breath hitched as I felt something thug my chest, the feeling growing until all I could think of was the rhythmic beating of my chest.

The hunt was over, but as the moon reached its peak, I realized the silence was worse than the chase. We were alone in the dark, a wolf and a boy, bound together by a secret that would burn the North to the ground if it ever came to light.