Werewolf fairytales

A coward

*Theo*

I walk straight out of the castle, down the great marble stairs, and to the lake. I move blindly, seeing nothing but the disappointment in Paisley’s eyes. I feel a queer ache in my heart at the thought of it.

Yet what can I do? I love her… Dear Goddess, I love her the way I never imagined was possible. I would step before a raging bull, I would throw myself in…

But I can’t do what she wants. Marry her. Make her into the mate of a butler? Never. Never.

I am staring at the still surface of the lake, agonized by the turn of events that has brought Paisley to me, and the social conventions that will likely keep us apart, when I feel a touch on my shoulder, turn my head, and find my brother at my side. As brothers do, we understand each other without a word; Gabriel is squinting at me in a way that conveys to me that my private kisses are no longer private.

“Damnation,” I say flatly.

“Hmm,” Gabriel says, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “Paisley is a lovely girl. Ella adores her.”

“I can’t marry her.”

“Why not?”

It takes a moment before I can compose myself and look over at my oblivious brother without rage in my eyes. I pride myself on never showing emotion of that sort. “I’m in your service,” I say, finally. “As a butler.”

“Only because you chose to be so,” Gabriel responds.

“Once that choice was made, the decision was irrevocable.”

“Rubbish. I can hire another majordomo in London. You only took over because we had no money, don’t you remember? Well, now we have Ella’s unexpectedly lavish inheritance, not to mention the payment I received for my book on Greek archaeology. In fact, I just bought Ella’s father’s estate from her stepmother. We could…”

“You could what? Make me legitimate? Make me the proper spouse for Paisley?” I can’t help it. The calm front I am so proud of maintaining cracks along with my heart, and bitterness pours like acid into my voice. “You can’t give me what I most need: a father who didn’t bed a dairymaid and impregnate her. You can’t give my mother her marriage lines, nor myself the pedigree that Paisley deserves.”

I see my arguments hit home. “I’m no husband for a ranked she-wolf, Gabe,” I say more quietly.

“Paisley loves you,” Gabriel says rallying. “A blind man could see that. She doesn’t care about your pedigree.”

My throat is too tight to answer. I know that my brother can see raw despair in my eyes because he pulls me into a rough embrace. “She couldn’t do better than you,” Gabriel says a moment later, thumping me on the back.

I just shake my head. “Bollocks.”

“There’s just one way in which you fall short.”

It doesn’t seem like merely one way to me, but I wait for Gabriel to elaborate.

“You’re a coward.”

At this slur, a flush of hot rage, the kind that only my brother can inspire, surges up my chest. “You dare not say that to me,” I say between clenched teeth.

“You’ve got the balls to love her, but not the balls to take her,” Gabriel says. “And do you want to know why I know that?”

“No.” My hands are curling into fists.

“Because I was the same with Ella. I was trapped, thinking that I had to be as rich as Croesus before I could marry. You’re not responsible for our father’s idiocy. You’re afraid to just reach out and take her, even though she wants you.”

“I’m no coward,” I say between clenched teeth.

Gabriel actually laughs. “Luckily for Paisley, she’s beautiful enough that another man will come along who has the balls to accept what she’s offering.”

A muted roar erupts from my throat, and I throw myself at my brother. We fall to the ground with a thump, roll over in a flurry of blows, roll over again. I find myself on top. “She may want me now but…”

My sentence is derailed by a deft move by Gabriel who manages to flip me on the ground, and knock the wind out of me. It isn’t until we are both lying on our backs panting and gingerly feeling our knuckles, that I say it. I say it flatly, because I’ve examined it, night after night turning the facts over and over in my mind, and I know it is true. “Years from now, she will wish she had a man who could take his place next to her in pack society.”

My brother pushes himself to his feet. “How do you know? Maybe she just wants a braver me, a man with the balls to stand up and say he’s as good as any other man, regardless of birth.”

I take the hand my brother holds out to me. “I can’t be what she deserves,” I say, feeling my jaw.

Gabriel looks at me with disgust and turns on his heel. “She does deserve better than you… and I’m not talking about your pedigree.”

*Paisley*

After Theo abandoned me in the sitting room, I slipped back up to the nursery, fully conscious that I can’t continue to press him for what he’s told me… over and over… he cannot give me. Moreover, Jonas is thriving: he no longer wails after eating, and his little cheeks are filling out; just today, he smiled at Ella for the first time, and later, at his father, and then, at every one of the footmen.

It’s time for me to go home.

I will miss the baby and Ella terribly, but it will be a simple matter to engage a new nursemaid. My heart heavy, I sit down and write a letter to my father, seal it, and give it to a footman. My father will have it by evening.

Leaving the castle now, like this, will mean leaving my heart behind. It has been stolen: stolen by a man with immaculate comportment, a quiet and intelligent face, and passionate kisses. I, a daughter of a small country Alpha, have fallen in love with a butler.

I am in love with Theo.

But Theo insists he cannot marry me. He respects me; if I love him, I have to respect him. Even if it means never seeing him again.

Even then.

But still… I gave everything to Rodney… to revolting, despised Rodney. If I could give everything to a lumpen dolt, why can’t I give everything to Theo, whom I love? Setting aside the fact that he keeps refusing me, of course.

It isn’t in me to simply give up.

At length, I decide to try once more, just one last time. Tonight.

The idea grows until my heart is racing with conviction. I will do it. I will ask, beg, seduce Theo into making love to me, just once. So that I know what it’s like, with him. So that, during all those evenings playing chess with my father that lie ahead, I can think back on this one night. It isn’t just chess that looms in my mind.

There is Rodney. After that letter to my father, there will be no escaping Rodney.

There will be no ‘happily ever after’ for me. Life with Rodney will be… whatever it is.

But if I manage to seduce Theo, I will have memories, at least. Still, I will have to be subtle… he has a will of iron, and mere sensuality will never break it.

One ethical question keeps bothering me. Do I have the right to try to overcome his resolve? Theo’s enormous reserve and his adherence to honor stem from the same place: his illegitimate birth. If I succeed in persuading him to make love to me, am I tarnishing that quality he holds so dear?

With a wry little smile, I think about the knight in shining armor my girlhood self dreamed of. There is no man more born to being a maiden’s champion than Theo. He is all that is honorable, good, and true.

In the end, I decide that as long as I don’t cause Theo to break his code of honor, I cannot do an injustice to him. And that means he has to make love to me not because he desires me, but because I need him… or rather, the act… to save me… to rescue me. In making love to me, he will become the instrument of my salvation.