Chapter 2
SELENE
The first thing I think about the man who chased me in the woods is that he is very large.
A beast of a person, really. I thought he was a bear when he first started after me, and I’m still not sure that he’s not with how much hair he has on him.
The blond hair on his head is trimmed short but it’s still fluffy, and so is his beard.
He even has hair on the backs of his hands.
His belly is bigger than I would imagine for a town guard, but after the way he chased me, he can clearly move fast despite his size.
I shouldn’t be thinking about that. I should be thinking about how to escape as he leads me through the woods. He’s surely taking me to his home to rape me, even though he promised he wouldn’t.
Father said everyone in the world is a liar, and they’ll do whatever they need to do to hurt and take. To get what’s “theirs.”
The moment this man gives me the promised food, I’m running again, as much as my feet ache. They’re raw, and every press of my bare wounds onto the pine needles makes me wince.
The big man pauses and peers down at me.
“You can’t walk, can you?”
I lift each of my feet to look at the bloodied bottoms.
He grimaces. “Thought so.”
The man releases my hand, and before I can bolt, he leans down and slips one arm under my legs, taking my feet out from under me. He lifts me up, and I let out a yelp as I swing off the ground.
“Hold on now,” he says as I wriggle in his arms, trying to escape. “I’m carrying you so you don’t have to walk. Maybe you could be a little more cooperative?”
There’s a surprising humor in his voice, and I stop moving.
“There we go. That’s easier.”
I look up into my captor’s face and there’s a hint of a smile on one side of his mouth as he heads on through the trees.
There’s an inexplicable gentleness there, and though I hear Father’s warnings in my mind, the longer he carries me I also sense…
compassion, I suppose I’d call it. He has a humanity to him.
Maybe he’s not going to rape me.
Eventually, the woods give way to the main road, where we pivot toward town. I remember the town square vaguely from my childhood, when Father would take me with him to market to sell his wares.
I’m shocked that the big man is still able to carry me after all this time, and his breath is just as even as it was before. He’s barely sweating.
“Will you object if I take you to my home?” he asks. “I promise, I won’t do anything untoward.”
He wants to take me to his house?
“Do you have a wife?”
His brow quirks. “No, I do not. But it’s clean and warm, and I have food there I can share with you.
” His gaze travels down my body and then back up again, and I cover myself with my hands, not having realized after years of wearing the same few items of clothing that they didn’t fit me anymore.
“You look like you haven’t had a good meal in a long, long time. ”
“Father fed me.”
I don’t know why I’m defending him, but I must insist on that. He did bring me food twice a day.
“Father?” the man asks, frowning. “You say he fed you as if you were unable to feed yourself.”
My lips stick together. I wasn’t, but I don’t know if I should be telling this stranger that.
“It’s complicated,” I say instead.
He must sense that I’m not interested in talking about it, because he changes the subject.
“What is your name, then, wild woman running around the woods at night?”
I peer up into his face, where his friendly smile is still visible despite his bushy beard.
“Selene. I’m Selene.”
He nods. “I’m Harold. But you can call me Harry.”
I think that over.
“Harry,” I say, testing it. His smile gets wider.
When we reach town, Harry diverges from the road, taking us along a quaint lane with a few homes behind hedges, spread apart to allow for their own small plots. When he turns down one of the paths, I cling to him tighter as the door grows nearer.
This is a mistake. I’m going into a strange man’s house. He could lock me up, too, when he realizes what I am. Perhaps he is an alpha in disguise, and he will do what he is supposed to do. Violate me. Hurt me.
I writhe in his grasp, overwhelmed by the sudden need to escape. To get away from that door.
“Whoa, whoa,” Harry says, trying to keep me from falling. “Let me set you down.”
He lowers me to the ground, gently putting me on the front step of the house. The cold stone sends pinpricks of pain up through the wounds in my feet. While I’m trying to stay upright, he pulls a key from his pocket and puts it in the knob, then turns it and pushes the door open.
“It’s not much,” he says as he steps over the threshold, “but it’s home.”
The inside of the little house is dark, and I squint as I peer through the doorway. Harry lights a lamp inside, and it coughs to life. Then he lights another, until I can see the small entryway and kitchen beyond it.
“Come in, come in,” Harry calls out. “I’ll get the tea going.”
Oh, tea? I haven’t had tea since… well, since my mother was alive. It was her favorite, and Father banished it just like he banished every memory of her.
Lured by the promise of tea, I step through the doorway into the house.
Inside it’s warm, as if a fire was lit only hours before in the hearth.
I watch as Harry busies about his kitchen, getting his stove lit and his kettle filled.
It’s so strangely normal, a normal I haven’t known for so long I forgot what it looked like.
“Sit down,” Harry says, gesturing to the table. “Get off those feet, and then I’ll see to them.”
I obey, taking a seat on one of his solid wooden chairs. As soon as the kettle is going, Harry’s off, rummaging through a back room. When he returns, he has a bag in one hand, which he opens on the table to reveal an assortment of medical supplies.
“We’ll take you to the doc tomorrow,” he says, “but for now, we should get these wounds cleaned up and bandaged.”
Maybe he really isn’t going to… well, do anything to me. Maybe he’s actually a good person who means to help.
“All right,” I finally say, and extend my feet toward him. “Thank you.”
He smiles up at me through his thick mustache.
“Just doing my duty.”
HAROLD
Wordlessly, I clean up Selene’s tiny, slender feet, noticing once again how frail she is. Her skin is unnaturally pale, her veins clearly visible through it. The wounds on her soles are bad, but not irreparable. She will have to stay off her feet for some time while they heal.
When I’ve finished cleaning them, I wrap a bandage around each one and caution her not to walk.
“I can carry you to bed after you’ve eaten,” I offer. “Then I have to go back on patrol and finish out the night.”
She bends her neck. “I’m sorry for interrupting your workday.”
“No, not at all. I’m glad I found you before you got even more hurt. I’ll take you to the doctor tomorrow when he opens.” I get to my feet and dust off my hands. “Is it all right if I pick you up again?”
Now I can see the color of her eyes, and they are strange but beautiful, yellow and amber and green all mixed up together in a starburst. Her hair is jet black, like the feathers of a crow.
Selene nods, and so I gently slide my arms under her back and knees, then hoist her up. I carry her into my bedroom, lamenting that it’s certainly where a single man sleeps with the bed unkempt.
“Is this your room?” she asks, brow creasing as I lay her down on the bed, then pull the blanket out from under her.
“Yes. But I have a cot, too, in the closet.” My mother used to visit me from time to time when she could, but now she’s old enough that I have to be the one to make the trek.
“I can’t make you sleep on a cot!” Selene sits up when I try to cover her with the blanket.
“You’re not making me do anything. I’m not using this bed tonight, so you should get some rest.”
Without waiting for further objections, I head out of the room to the front door.
“I’ll be back in the morning,” I call out. “See you then.”
“Goodbye,” a tiny voice answers. Then I head off into the night.
As I find my way back to my patrol path, I start wondering. What was she doing out there? Who is this father of hers who brought her food? I have so many questions to ask her. It’s probably a good thing I had to go back on patrol, because clearly she needs rest.
It’s many hours before my pocket watch tells me it’s time for my shift to end, and I’m dead on my feet.
After grabbing my things and clocking out at headquarters, I trudge back home.
When I get there, the lights inside my house are still on.
I peek into the bedroom and find Selene there, fast asleep.
Good. In the back of the house, I open the closet as quietly as I can and pull out the cot. It’s nothing fancy, but it’ll do.
I fall asleep before my head has even hit the pillow.
When I awaken, light fills the room, and I jolt upright, consumed with an irrational panic.
Where’s Selene? Has she run out into the wilderness again? Did she vanish while I slept?
I hop off the cot, put on my clothes, and search the house for her. When I find her, though, it’s right where I left her—in the bed, reading a book. I’m panting when I come in, and her brows rise.
“What’s wrong?”
“I thought…” I shake my head to clear the remnants of my dream away. “What are you reading?”
“You had a very thrilling adventure novel on the shelf. You said I wasn’t supposed to walk, and I haven’t read a book in a long time. Unfortunately, I have somewhat forgotten how to read.” Her eager smile is the opposite of what she just said, though. “I’m enjoying myself. Re-learning.”
“Why so long since you last picked up a book?” I ask, coming to sit at the foot of the bed.
Her lips purse. She’s clamming up again, but I don’t pry further, simply waiting while she thinks. Those kaleidoscopic eyes study me, like Selene is trying to determine how trustworthy I am.
“Father didn’t bring me books,” she says at last. “I asked for them, but he said it would put ideas in my head. Bad ones.”
I try not to react to this information, nodding as she talks. But I already dislike the sound of this man.
“You said he brought you food, too,” I say gently. “What do you mean? You didn’t have access to these things? Books and food?”
Selene balls up the blanket in her hands. “No. I didn’t. Not unless he brought them.”
“Why?” I press.
“Because he kept me in a room. With the door locked.”
My vision swims for a moment. That would explain so much of what I’ve seen. The skittishness, the malnutrition, the atrophy.
I swallow hard before I ask, “For how long?”
“I don’t know. Years, I think. I was eighteen—eighteen and a half—when he put me in there.”
She is certainly more than eighteen now. Perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five, though it’s hard to tell with how skinny she is.
“Years,” I echo. “Your father locked you up for years without ever letting you out? For sunshine? For fresh air?”
Her face is shockingly blank as she whispers, “But he brought me food.”
I am so aghast I don’t know what to say. I lift a hand to her cheek, and at first, she flinches. But when I don’t move, when I don’t look away, she returns my gaze.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I’m sorry someone did this to you. And I’m glad that you made it out alive.”