I hasten through the dark and snowy woods, as quickly as the poor horse will carry me.
Dusk is falling fast and an icy wind is rising, piercing through my coarse peasant robe as if it’s barely there. Storm clouds scud across the sky, low and fast. In the distance, but not distant enough, a wolf howls, then another, and then yet another. Their voices stir the tiny hairs on the nape of my neck with ancient terror. I must reach the castle before they reach me. I must.
The castle is just coming into view when the horse catches the scent of something that spooks her. She stops short, rears, nearly bucks me off. I calm her enough to let me dismount, then turn her loose and continue on foot. I wish her well. The voices of the wolves are closer now. I don’t think they’re hunting horse tonight.
At the rusted iron gate, I waste a moment in a nervous pause. The gate is falling off its hinges. This isn’t a castle, it’s a ruin. Dark. Cold. Forbidding. Not a light to be seen; not a hint on the wind of a warm fireplace inside. Could it be abandoned, empty?
The howl of a wolf, much nearer this time, makes my decision for me. I push through the gate, rush across the courtyard and up the steps, and by some miracle find the front door open enough to let me slip through, and then am able to push it a little in the direction of being closed. Closed enough to keep the wolves out? I can only hope.
The interior of the castle matches the outside. Ruined furniture, shredded tapestries; a fireplace that hasn’t held a warm blaze in years. There are windows, though, some still with stained glass in them. Through them I see that the winter moon is fully risen now. I slip through the castle, taking care to stay in the shadows, nostrils flaring at the scent of mold and mildew from the rotting curtains. I carefully skirt the pools of glaring moonlight on the floor. It’s as if I can feel the moon’s coldness in every hair on my legs.
I smell him before I see him, and it makes me freeze in place. It’s a fierce, male-animal-in-rut odor. Rank. Musky. Sour.
Delicious.
And then like a nightmare he bursts from the shadows into the full moonlight, and is upon me. Roaring; savage; all untamed fur and flaming red eyes and long white fangs gleaming in the frozen moonlight. He is everything the legends said he would be. Broad. Powerful. Fierce. Savage.
Gorgeous.
“You’re too late!” he roars. “The last petal has fallen! I am trapped in this beastly form forever!”
I cast aside the last of my clothes, step proud and naked into the full moonlight, and bare my fangs and roar right back at him. “You’d damned well better be!”
§
Later, as we lie in the wreckage of what had once been a lovely 4-poster bed, satiated beyond all human comprehension, he brushes aside my facial fur with a gentle paw, favors me with a tender lick, and then is suddenly overcome with that wonderfully endearing male awkwardness. “Um, darling?” he asks. “Er, ah, about children…”
“Yes,” I say, guessing his question. “The curse is linked to my estrus cycle. This is my fertile time. It’s why I sought you out.”
“Oh.” He purrs gently. “Then I guess this means you’re hoping to stay awhile?”
“Will the wolves be a problem?”
“They’re hungry and aggressive, not stupid. They won’t come past the gate.”
“Then yes, I would like to stay awhile. If that is acceptable to you.”
“Hmm.” He purrs again. “Yes, I believe it will be.” He closes his eyes in a blissful smile, nuzzles in closer to my neck—and then his eyes pop open, and he sits up with a start. “Um… One more question, though.
“Will we need a nursery, or a kennel?”
Isabelle D’Amato was born and raised in Europe but now resides in the U.S. This is her first published story.
2 comments:
Shades of Beauty and the Beast! Nice non-disney twist.
Ha! Loved it.
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