Werewolf fairytales

Odd feelings

2 years later

*Colin*

I am absurdly pleased to be home for Christmas, although in point of fact I’m not headed home; after leaving my ship, I picked up my brother Fred at Eton, and we are on our way to the country house of the Alpha prince of Islay.

I haven’t been in England for more than a year; I’ve been at sea, fighting the wind and the waves, wearing the uniform of the Royal lycan Navy. My father taught me everything I know about sailing, and inasmuch as Beta Fenrir was a notorious pirate… before he became an equally notorious justice of the peace… I have an unfair advantage over other young men my age.

Those lessons explain why I’m carrying with me a commission from His Majesty’s navy stating that Mr. Colin Garou, midshipman, has received a commendation from Rear Admiral Alpha George Cockburn.

I see that commendation as an expected step on the way to being the youngest captain ever to be given my own ship in the Royal Lycan Navy. I have a burning wish to make my father proud, and since I know perfectly well that my mother would never allow me to become a pirate, a naval captain is next best.

“How are all the Islay kids?” I ask Fred.

Fred shrugs. “Grace and Lily are fine. The twins are still in the nursery.”

“How is the terror herself, Lily?” The last time I saw her, she was an eight-year-old with the temper of a young devil. Her own mother nicknamed her The Horror. Of course, that was two years ago.

“Annoying,” Fred says shortly. “She thinks she’s grown up and she acts like a romp. Grace is much better.”

It’s hard to imagine Lily becoming a young miss. Whenever I think of her I get a little lurch in my stomach, remembering the frogspawn she tricked me into eating. Not to mention the toad she put in my bed a few days later.

“Oh!” Fred says, looking up. “One thing did happen. Grace almost died; did Mother write you about it?”

I frown. “She mentioned an illness, but I didn’t realize Grace was truly in danger.”

“Something is wrong with her lungs,” Fred looks away, out the window. “I hate that.”

“I’m sorry,” I say gently. “Will she get better?”

“Of course she will!” Fred scowls at me and bends his head back over his book. “I have to learn this Greek.”

I nod, not that my brother notices. There are five siblings in my family: myself, Marguerite, Alastair, Sophie, and Fred. Given the four in the Islay family… Grace, Lily, Cressida, and Brandon… nine children tumbled about together for large stretches of my childhood. To lose one would be inconceivable.

Lily was the loudest and the naughtiest Islay, which makes it all the more unexpected when we are greeted by a charming young miss, who curtsies with a sprightliness that makes her perfectly groomed curls bob around her shoulders, and generally behaves like the daughter of an Alpha prince. Even so, Fred regards her with healthy skepticism, and I feel a bit wary myself. There’s something about Lily’s smile… no matter how charming… that suggests she’s enjoying her own performance.

“My poor darling Grace is closed up in the nursery, which is such an insult for a young miss of twelve,” the Luna princess says, after a few minutes. “You did hear that she’s been ill?”

“I was very sorry to learn that,” I say. “I hope she’s feeling better.”

“She’s much improved. We may take her to Spain after Christmas to see if sunshine might help her turn the corner. Do go and see her. Grace always loves news of you.”

“In the nursery, you said?” I feel rather sick at the thought. Grace was always the quietest of the Islay kids, but I hate to think of her confined to bed.

I climb the stairs as Lily’s giggles drift from the sitting room behind me, punctuated by the Luna princess’ laughter. A moment later I poke my head around the nursery door. Grace is sitting up in bed, her vivid red hair in a braid. Her fingers look very delicate, holding a book.

I freeze. It’s the one thing I hate about being in the navy: the fact that people die. Not just men on my ship, but the enemy as well. I am haunted at night by images of a man I shot falling into the waves, and of a man on fire after the mainsail broke out in flames.

I shake myself. Grace is not dying. She has improved. The Luna princess said so.

She looks up. “Colin!” Her face lights up. “I’m so happy you’re back safely!”

I walk over to her and sit down at her bedside. “Poor Grace! You’ve grown as thin as a pennywhistle.” I take her hand, which is as white as her face. My heart is thudding in my ribs. I hated learning lessons about death at sea; it’s even worse to encounter that threat at home.

“I’ll be better in no time. Mother and I are going to travel to Spain after Christmas. What about you? Have cannonballs been whizzing past your ears?” Her hand tightens on mine. “We worry about you so much.”

“A cannonball did hit my ship last month,” I admit.

“That must have been awful.”

I look down at her fingers against my sun-darkened skin. “It was, rather. I don’t like to think of you almost dying, Grace. No more of that.”

“I don’t intend to die,” she replies, with the kind of quiet dignity that characterizes her.

I study her face for a moment and then smile. She has a little pointed chin and huge gray eyes; she looks a bit like an elf. “How old are you now, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Grace turns up her nose. “I’m a young miss, so you mustn’t ask that sort of thing.”

“You’re twelve,” I say, remembering. “My goodness, by the time I next have leave, you’ll probably be dancing your way through your first mating season.”

She shakes her head. “It’s years away, and you must come home sooner than that. Besides, I hate dancing.”

“It’s impossible to imagine a young miss who hates dancing,” I say teasingly, adding, “though in truth, so do I.”

“I prefer to paint. I’ve had to spend a great deal of time in bed, so Mother bought me some proper watercolors.” She reaches to the side and hands me a sketchbook.

I open it and find myself quite startled. Grace’s paintings aren’t the sort of ham-handed jumbles that Marguerite and I created at the same age. The first page holds a vivid painting of a lop-eared dog. The paws aren’t quite right, but I would have recognized that dog anywhere, simply by the look on its face. “Old Bessie,” I say. “Mother wrote me that she’d passed away.”

“We buried her under the flagstones by the buttery,” Grace says. “That’s where she liked to sleep, in the sun.”

I turn the page and discover a portrait of a young maid, and then a window with clouds visible in the sky beyond, and finally an apple just on the verge of turning soft. “I think you’re brilliant,” I say, meaning every word. “I could never do anything approaching this.”

She beams at me, and her smile is so beautiful that I blink. Grace generally stays in Lily’s shadow, and to be honest, I hardly think about her. But now I realize that Fred could be right: Grace might well be the more interesting of the two sisters.

The thought makes me uncomfortable. She is a twelve-year-old girl, for heaven’s sake. And I am eighteen, a grown man. I rise to my feet and bow, picking up her hand and kissing the back of it.

“Miss Grace, I hope you are entirely recovered very soon.”

Her eyes grow round. She has extraordinary eyelashes, as thick a fringe as I’ve ever seen.

“Oh!” she says, pulling her hand away quickly. “I expect I shall.”

I get out of the room feeling rather queer. I am the eldest child in my family, and I have watched as my own siblings and the Alpha prince’s babies arrived. They are all family, nothing more than that.

It’s just odd to think of Grace and Lily growing up, that’s all.