Chapter 22
Iwhistle as I stroll down the hall to the kitchen. I may still be bound to the manor, the drapes might still hide the sun from my cursed skin, and I still have no real leads on how to break the curse, but I feel good.
Even the memories of my past don’t feel as dangerous as they used to. Before, I locked them away, keeping them far from my mind so they couldn’t affect me. But now, as I remember moments of my childhood and a friendship with my brother likely to never be resurrected, it doesn’t hurt quite the way I thought it would.
I still feel pain and loss and regret and guilt, but it doesn’t feel like the pain will be forever. In fact, I feel hopeful. It’s dangerous to let feelings like this in. But I can’t stop myself.
I blame Stella.
“I did not eat that many,” I hear her laugh as I approach the kitchen. Peeking through the open doorway, I see her standing at the counter, a plate of cookies in front of her. She looks blissful, the sunlight streaming onto her face. There’s a weightlessness to her that wasn’t there before.
Maybe it’s the set of her shoulders or the way she meets everyone’s eyes without anxiety or distrust, but she looks happy. It makes me smile.
“There were a dozen cookies on that plate when you walked in here,” Kaitlyn argues, grinning at Stella, Brutus shaking his head behind her. “And I sure didn’t have any.”
Stella turns to David and Carson, raising her eyebrows.
“Don’t look at us,” David says, raising his hands in a claim of innocence. “We didn’t eat any.”
“Yeah,” Carson chimes in, “We snuck a bunch before they took them from the baking pan. Whatever was on the plate was yours.”
“I did not eat…four, five, six cookies in ten minutes,” Stella insists, pointing at Kaitlyn.
The girl shakes her head, her dark hair swishing. “Wasn’t me.”
Stella points to Brutus. “Brutus? Are you setting me up? It feels like something you would do.”
“Why Miss Stella, I wouldn’t dream of it,” the older man swears a little too innocently. But I know he’s only playing.
Whether or not Stella admits it, she eats like a bear about to hibernate. I bring half a dozen scones to the library every night after dinner and without exception, she eats her half and some of mine.
It’s endearing.
“Aw come on Freckles,” I drawl, waltzing into the room. “Let’s not pretend that you don’t eat my portion and yours at most meals. Especially sweets—ah!”
A wild scream tears from my lips as the sunlight I’d forgotten about slides like razors across my skin.
Dropping to the ground, I crawl behind the counter, clutching my hand to my face, and grimacing against the pain like my skin is on fire.
“Alistair!” Stella screams, crouching beside me. Her worried eyes run the length of me, and anger fills her expression when she spots the new abrasions on my hands and the one across my face.
Thank God I had my head turned when I entered the room and only one half of my face received a sun lashing.
“Kaitlyn, get me some clean damp cloths,” Stella shouts, her fingers gently inspecting the skin around my wounds. “Carson, David, I’ll need some bandages. Brutus, do you have any poultices or herbs that will help with pain and infection?”
“Aye,” he replies grimly from my other side. I jump a little, not aware that he was kneeling on my other side. He nods and then stands, moving to the cupboards.
“I’m fine, Freckles—ah! What the blazes are you doing?” I snarl as she messes with the wounds on my hands.
“I’m trying to see how bad it is,” she says, not looking away from her task.
I pull my hands away, schooling my features so the pain doesn’t show. Stella glares, and I feel my face trying to pinch into a grimace as the pain roars again.
She must see it because she shakes her head. “You’re fine? Really Alistair? Just let me help.”
“No.”
Kaitlyn brings the rags and a bowl of water and Carson and David follow with the bandages. I feel the weight of their eyes on me before Brutus sends them from the room.
“Trust, remember?” Stella whispers, some of the hair in her braid coming loose around her face. She almost looks pretty.
“What does trust have to do with burning myself like a strip of bacon?”
“Trust means admitting you need help,” she says, her voice stern. “It means letting someone get close enough to help.”
I hate that her words make sense. But I don’t stop her when she takes a damp cloth and starts cleaning the blood from my wounds, letting out a few hisses here and there. It is genuinely painful, but I’m being a bit overdramatic because I’m put out about being coddled.
“Stop fussing, or I’ll start calling you Alison,” Stella warns me, a mischievous look in her eyes as Brutus hands her a poultice.
“You’re mean,” I complain as Brutus leaves us alone in the kitchen, chuckling on his way out. “And so is he.”
Stella sets the bowl of herbs down and begins cleaning the wound on my face. She’s more careful with this one, dabbing slowly. If it didn’t hurt so blooming much, I might actually enjoy it.
“And you’re a pain when you’re feeling weak,” she retorts, though there’s no acid in the words. “Why did you come in here when the drapes were open? Did you not see them?”
I watch her work, the way the green in her eyes seems almost hazel here in the shadows. Her skin is smooth and bright, contrasting against her freckles. Once again, I’m struck with the realization that she almost looks pretty.
For a second, I wonder if the curse is fading, but then I remember my newly earned lacerations—evidence that the curse is as strong as ever.
Then why has she changed? When she first arrived, she was as unattractive as a person could be, her features strangely disproportionate to her face. But over the weeks, she’s gone from ugly to plain to almost pretty. But the only thing that’s changed since she first arrived is our relationship—Oh.
That’swhy Mildred never looked different to me even after the curse began, while the other women in the manor appeared somewhat hazy the way Stella does now. Because I’d known Mildred for years and already cared for her when I was first cursed.
I’ve known for a while now that my feelings toward Stella were growing warmer, but it’s strange to think of them so matter-of-factly. I care for her. And apparently the curse cares that I care.
“Alistair,” she repeats, looking concerned by my silence. “Why did you come in here with the windows open? Are you feeling alright?”
“I was distracted,” I whisper, still mooning over her.
Stella freezes, her hands soft as they go still on my face. I watch her lips part, a mingling of surprise, confusion, and—dare I say—hope swirling on her face.
“I didn’t think anything could distract you,” she says quietly.
“I didn’t either. But I think you enjoy proving me wrong. You’ve done so with all my other assumptions.”
“Like what?”
I reach out, rubbing the tail of her braid between my fingers. It’s softer than it looks, and I have half a mind to tear the ribbon off and let the whole mass come tumbling free.
“Like the fact that you’re not ugly. Or that people can change. That I can change.”
Her hand cups the uninjured side of my face, bringing my gaze back to her. “You didn’t need to change, Al. You just needed to shed the fa?ade that we both know wasn’t the real you anyway.”
“Shed like a snake,” I smile.
“Mhm. Maybe I should start calling you Slither.”
“Do you mind that I give you nicknames inspired by animals?”
She reaches for the bandages. “No. Because I know they’re not insults. At least not anymore.”
I wince as she presses a fresh bandage to the wound on my face.
“Of course they’re not insults,” I say incredulously. Is that what she’s thought this whole time? “I call you Lioness, Little Wolf, Slither and all the rest because even from the beginning, I’ve known that you’re just as strong as they are. Possibly stronger. You’re clever and stubborn and determined and nurturing and fearless like they are. How could I compare you to anything but a majestic beast who’s at the top of the food chain?”
She’s quiet for a moment, sitting back on her heels to study me. There’s a glimpse of deeper emotion in her eyes, and I think she might let herself cry if she wasn’t so shocked.
“You really think those things about me?” she asks. I brace myself, knowing that this question is important. The way I answer it will determine the trajectory of our relationship.
And I really want it to go forward.
“That and more, Little Wolf.”
She looks down at her hands, wiping the remains of Brutus’ poultice from her fingers.
“When you first called me that, I hated it,” she explains. “Someone I know calls me that. He always say things like ‘run, Little Wolf, it’s all you know how to do.” Or when he’s angry, he says ‘you’re a packless little wolf, don’t be a dead one’. So I guess I resented the name.”
My fists tighten as she speaks of this vile man, and I imagine myself ripping the nose from his face and watching him choke on it. It would be a drop in the bucket toward the suffering he deserves for saying such things to her. And given the words, I imagine he did more than say cruel things.
“I’ll kill him,” I growl, my fingernails digging into my palms, my wounds forgotten in the face of my rage. “Give me his name and he’s dead.”
A smile tilts Stella’s lips and she grabs my fist, smoothing my fingers until they relax. “Thank you for caring.”
“Of course I care. And if me calling you Little Wolf upsets you, I’ll never say it again.”
Her forehead wrinkles in thought. “Why Little Wolf? What made you compare me to a wolf?”
I shrug. “Easy. Wolves are strong. Even if they”re cut off from the pack, they survive. They’re also nurturing and clever, stubborn and resourceful, and they look after their own. Pack is family—they’re loyal until the end. From the beginning, I knew that anyone in your pack would be defended with the same ferocity that you defended yourself. I admired it. Still do.”
She’s quiet for a few moments and I begin to worry that I’ve unintentionally offended her. Maybe comparing a woman to an animal isn’t quite the compliment I intended it to be.
But then her expression warms, and she squeezes my hand. “Say it again.”
“Say what?”
“Call me…that.”
My pulse thrums fast, matching the beat of my wonderstruck heart. Careful not to scare her away, I slowly flip my hand and wrap my fingers around hers. “You won’t be trapped forever, Little Wolf.”
This time, the tears break through her resolve and build in her eyes as she smiles. Thankful that we’re free of prying eyes and a sidebar commentary, I pull Stella into my arms.
She hugs me back without hesitation, hiding her face in my neck. I feel her tears trickle down my shirt, but I don’t mind.
I don’t mind at all. I feel like a king, greater than Orrin or even my father. Holding Stella as she cries is the richest I’ve ever been.
To hold someone’s vulnerability, to protect it from the world for her, feels like the most powerful, important job anyone could have.
It’s one I’m realizing I don’t want to give up.
We stay there in the kitchen for a while, silently holding each other’s emotions in this small safe haven. The artifact we were going to search the manor for is completely forgotten and I don’t care if we ever get around to looking for it. When Stella rests beside me, her head on my shoulder, I study her face.
In the last few minutes, she’s gone from forgettable to beautiful. Before, everything was dark, but now I see daylight when I look at her. And I think I know what that means.