Chapter Sixteen
Beatrice
The gate swings shut behind me, the familiar whine of its rusted hinges a sound I’ve heard a thousand times. It’s supposed to be a welcome. A final, comforting click of a lock falling into place. You’re safe. You’re home.
So why does it feel like my cage door slamming?
I take a shaky breath, forcing my feet to move forward.
The main lane is the same hard-packed dirt, but it feels different under my boots.
The cottages flanking it are too new, their wood still pale and unweathered, the thatch on their roofs too bright a gold.
They’re neat replicas, built on the ashes of the ones the Minotaurs burned.
I recognize the layout, the ghost of a place I knew, but the soul is wrong.
It’s like looking at a stranger wearing a familiar face.
The big oak where we used to swing as kids is still standing in the center of the green, a lone, scarred survivor, its branches a little more barren than I remember. It’s all here, but not. It’s a painting I’ve stared at for months in my mind, and now I’m standing inside a poor, hasty copy.
It feels…wrong.
My skin prickles. The wide-open sky of the grasslands felt like freedom. Here, the sky is just a blue ceiling, hemmed in by fences I used to think were for keeping danger out. Now I wonder if they were always meant for keeping us in.
Old Man Hemlock is the first to see me. His head snaps up from whittling on his porch, his eyes widening.
There’s no joy in his face at the sight of me.
Just a slow-dawning horror, like he’s seen a ghost carrying a plague.
He drops his knife, fumbles for his door handle, and vanishes inside.
The click of his lock is louder than the gate’s.
A cold knot tightens in my stomach.
Then, the whispers start. They slither from behind curtained windows, from the shadows of doorways.
Women I’ve known my whole life—Sarah, who taught me to mend a hem; Lissa, who I braided daisy chains with—they cluster by the well.
Their eyes aren’t friendly. They’re assessing.
They rake over my worn trousers, my tangled hair…
They don’t see Beatrice. They see a strange animal that’s wandered out of the woods.
“…they said the Minotaurs never let go…”
“…heard they keep them as… pets…”
“…looks well-fed, though. Wonder what they fed her…”
“…she’ll never settle back into a decent life now. Mark my words…”
Their words are tiny, sharp needles, pricking the last, fragile bubble of hope I’d been carrying. The anger that has been my armor for months rises, hot and familiar. Good. I’d rather be angry than feel this… this crushing disappointment.
I walk on, my gaze fixed on the little cottage with the blue door. Aunt Hettie. She raised me. She has to be different.
The door flies open before I reach it. She stands there, her hand fluttering to her chest. I watch the emotions war on her face, and my own hope curdles in my stomach.
For one breathtaking second, it’s just shock—pure, unguarded recognition.
Then, a flicker of something soft, something that looks like the love I’ve been starving for. My heart lurches toward it.
But it’s gone in an instant.
I see the exact moment she remembers the gossip, the shame, the risk I might represent.
Her eyes shutter, her mouth tightening into a thin, cautious line.
The warmth is doused by her fear; it’s so cold it feels like a door slamming in my face.
She’s not just seeing me anymore. She’s seeing a problem.
A complication. A ruined thing that crawled back from the monsters.
“Beatrice?” Her voice is a thin reed. “Gods be good, is it you?”
“It’s me.”
She steps forward and pulls me into a hug. It’s brief. Stiff. Her hands pat my back like she’s dusting off a flour sack. When she pulls away, she holds me at arm’s length, her eyes searching my face for a girl who doesn’t live here anymore.
“We heard…stories,” she says, her voice dropping to a whisper.
“What the Bull-men do to their…spoils. We mourned you. We had a service.” A tear tracks through the wrinkles on her cheek.
For a second, my stupid, hopeful heart leaps.
She grieved for me. Then she speaks again, and her words are a guillotine, severing me from my past life in one clean, cruel cut.
“I lit a candle for you. For all you girls. Almost as if you were my own children.”
Almost.
The word rams into my chest, hollowing me out.
Almost.
And just like that, the last illusion shatters.
The memories rearrange themselves, sharpening into a brutal, ugly truth.
The way I was always reminded to be grateful.
The way my opinions were patted down like unruly hair.
The way my fire was called a “temper,” my spirit “unruliness.” I wasn’t a daughter.
I was a ward. A Hucow. A useful, milk-producing creature they tolerated until I could be bred to someone convenient.
They never saw me. They saw what I could do for them.
Silas…
Silas valued my will, my mind, my…fire. He didn’t want a docile milk-cow. He wanted Beatrice.
The hollow ache in my chest ignites into a white-hot rage.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” a voice sneers, slicing through my revelation. “Or should I say, what the bull dragged out.”
Jacob Carter. He’s leaning against the smithy, a nasty grin on his face. The same Jacob who used to follow Maeve around like a love-sick puppy.
“Your friend Maeve took to it real easy,” he leers, his eyes crawling over me. “Spreading for a monster. You learn any of their animal tricks, Beatrice? You come back to show us?”
Something inside me snaps and, before I even realize I’m moving, my fist is connecting with his nose with a crack that’s the most satisfying sound I’ve heard since I left.
It’s for Maeve’s happiness. It’s for Annie’s gentle heart.
It’s for every single girl who they ever looked at as less than a person.
“He staggers back, pressing a hand to his bleeding nose, eyes wide with shock. ‘You crazy b—’”
“Shut your mouth!” I snarl. “You don’t get to speak her name. You don’t get to speak to me. You’re nothing.”
I look from his bloody face to Aunt Hettie’s horrified one, to the ring of villagers whose stares are now openly hostile. I am a monster here. A dangerous, corrupted thing. This place, with its neat fences and smaller skies, was never my home. It was my pasture.
I don’t say a word. I turn my back on the blue door, on the life that was a lie, and I run.
My boots pound the dirt, kicking up dust, then suddenly I’m through the gate, bursting into the sea of golden grass.
The wind screams in my ears, whipping my hair free from its braid.
It doesn’t smell like manure and smallness here.
It smells like sun and earth and wild, untamed freedom.
Every stride is a shedding of a skin I never asked for.
I’m not a Hucow. I’m not a ward. I’m Beatrice. I am fire.
And he is my oxygen.
I see him then, a dark, solid silhouette at the edge of the field. He isn’t at the camp. He couldn’t even make himself leave. He just stood here, waiting, watching for me. The hope on his face is so raw, so unguarded, it steals the air from my lungs.
I don’t slow down. I crash into him, my body slamming against the solid wall of his chest. His arms lock around me, lifting me clean off my feet, crushing me to him so tightly I feel his heart hammering against mine.
“My mate,” he breathes into my hair. “You came back.”
“You idiot,” I sob, laughing and crying all at once, my face buried in his neck. “Of course, I came back.”
He sets me down, his hands cupping my face, his thumbs stroking away the tears. “Beatrice…”
“They didn’t want me,” I choke out, the truth finally setting me free. “They never did. I was just an animal to them. A thing. But you…you see me. You love me.” I grip his wrists, my eyes blazing into his. “I love you, Silas. My home is with you. It’s you. I choose you. I’m yours.”
A shudder wracks his entire frame. A sound, half-groan, half-cry, tears from his throat. He doesn’t say it back. He shows me.
He crashes his mouth down on mine.
This kiss isn’t like the others. It’s every unsaid word, every lonely night, every battle we’ve fought alone and will never have to fight again.
It’s sweet and brutal and perfect. His tongue tangles with mine, tasting of promise and forever.
I pour everything into it—my rage, my pain, my soaring, terrifying joy.
I kiss him like I’m claiming him right back.
When we break apart, we’re both gasping. He rests his forehead against mine, his eyes closed, our breath mingling in the space between us.
“Take me home,” I whisper.
He opens his eyes, and the love in them is a physical warmth, washing away the last of the cold from Havenmoor.
“Yes, my fire,” he rasps, his voice thick with emotion. He laces his fingers with mine, his grip firm and sure. “Let’s go home.”