"You wish to return home because your village is on fire?" Everett repeated.
Seated at the dinner table, him at one end of the twelve-seat structure and his wife at the other, he had never felt more alone. Never felt more strongly that she was drifting away from him. That he was doomed to lose her forever.
Of course, he was no brutish beast—at least, not entirely—to keep her from her family, from her father and brother, when she loved them so deeply. But he had thought, had hoped that—
That what? That she might love him?
"Yes," Lenore said, digging into her roast and not looking at him. Pinkish blood oozed from the cut of meat as she sliced into it, but his appetite was gone. He could only think again of the emptiness of the castle, the ghostly figures haunting him in reality and in his mind.
"But—the treasure," he said dully. Could he say nothing more? Could he not tell her the words that threatened to slide off his tongue, spilling his secrets to her like so much wine from an overturned goblet?
"I believe I have an idea of what it could be." She chewed her roast slowly, then swallowed. "I have reason to suspect that she hid the treasure in the horse."
"In your horse?" he repeated.
"Yes," she said. "Think about it. The horse, you say, is a creature that has always been on the grounds since you were... turned. Yet it's always shied away from you. It despises you, apparently, but when I arrived, it warmed to me. Why would it be so skittish around you, if Marya had not enchanted it to avoid you so that you might never learn of the treasure in it?"
He cocked his head to one side. Her proposition seemed reasonable. "Do you propose that we, what, slice the poor creature open and examine its innards for a golden egg?"
"It's hardly waterfowl," she said, that look in her blue eyes halfway between insouciance and resigned sorrow. "That doesn't seem necessary. All we need to do is keep the horse out of her clutches."
He sighed. "That seems like such a passive endeavor."
"I assure you, it is not one I enjoy the prospect of." She lifted one shoulder. "Perhaps I could bring the horse into the village, with me."
"The horse?" Everett choked on a bite of a roll. She was sliding out of his grasp. She would go back to the village, and he would never see her again. She would become only a distant memory to him. Even though Kirk was gone, others would see her, remember her. The village would claim her for their own. She would be lost to him. "Nay, keep it here. She may have sent her minions to set fire to the village, and what then? Seeing you with the horse, they would try to seize it from you."
"I suppose you're right. Then how do you propose I return to the village?"
"You will tell..." He swallowed. "You will tell them what your brother told them. That you married a mildly successful hunter, that he is providing you a carriage to visit town when you saw the fire, and that..."
"Why do you not want to come with me?" she asked suddenly. His heart seized, tripped, and seemed to stop beating altogether for a moment.
"How would you explain to your family that your husband turns into a wolf every night?" He arched an eyebrow. "What would you tell them about the night we met?"
She smiled. "That I found a man in the woods, injured, and I nursed him back to health."
The past rose up between them, a lump in his throat, a wall he could not surpass. "I could not impose upon your father."
"He is a very generous man. Almost as generous as you."
"I assure you, the comparison does not commend him much."
"How lowly you think of yourself." She sighed, picking up her wine glass, and took a sip, before pushing her half-eaten roast away from her. "I think I shall retire early tonight."
"You will need to pack, of course, and make all the necessary arrangements." His mind buzzed. He tried to remember if he had a ghostly coachman.
"I..." As she got up, her emerald-green skirts swishing across the floor, she walked toward him. "I will think of you."
"Fondly, I hope." He dabbed at the corners of his mouth with a napkin. Trying to smile, the expression felt utterly foreign to him. Who was he to smile at when she was gone? Who would he have?
Everett stood, clasping her hands in his. He wanted to tell her not to go. He wanted to tell her to bring her with him. But he could not. Would not stop her.
It would be better this way.
"Is there something you'd like to say?" The look in her blue eyes was a test. It was one he failed, forlorn and defeated, slinking off to lick his wounds. Hope shone in her eyes, hope the world had not yet taken from her.
He wanted to hold her in his arms and never let her leave, to kiss her until she swore off leaving at all.
"I am a man of few words, as you will know."
"I do recall that about you." Something very close to affection glimmered in her expression. "It is something I... I have grown rather fond of."
"As it is, I much prefer action."
He dropped her hands, and before she could move away, rested them instead on her waist, fingers digging into her hips, the softness of her body evident even through the layers of her gown. Had he really once called her too gaunt, all skin and bone? She could not be that now, could be nothing but a woman who fit perfectly in his arms.
Her fingers sat tentatively on his shoulders before trailing up, winding through the untamed strands of his hair, tugging downward to bring his mouth to hers. He kissed her as if she were the last drop of water in a dying man's canteen, when one was stranded in the desert. As if she were the last book in a burning library, and all he wanted was to savour every word on the pages before they faded to ash.
A gasp escaped her when his hands trailed lower, grasping the backs of her thighs, pressing her even closer against him. Her legs wrapped around his hips, even with her skirts between them. He wanted more. Wanted her. Loved her, even if he didn't know how to say it.
Somehow, in all the time that had passed, he had grown to need her. To depend upon her presence in his solitary home. To depend upon her quick wit and silver tongue and wide-eyed innocence mingled into an alluring package. To not merely grow fond of her, but to—well, he yearned for her, even now when she was in his arms.
And he knew all too well how hollow he would feel when she was gone.
He wanted to break open the walls she still kept up between them. To see her secrets and her past burst forth. To know her completely, and love her still.
But a part of him was terrified that if he did, if she asked for the same from him—
Not that he wouldn't be able to give it. But that he would. That she knew too much about him already, and that was why she was leaving.
That was his greatest fear.
So he set her down. Extricated himself from him. Took a deep breath and found it useless to calm the racing of his pulse.
"What was that for?" Her cheeks were flushed as she gazed up at him.
I love you, somehow, and I don't know when it happened, but I only know that it should not have.
"Something to remember me by," he said instead.
"I'll be back, you know." She shook her head, her blue eyes soft. "I won't be gone forever."
"No," he said hoarsely. "I'm sure you'll be back before I know it."
***
As Lenore filled her trunk with clothes, a few books she'd taken from the castle's cavernous library, and a few loaves of bread packed tightly and wrapped in clean towels, she couldn't help but touch her lips. It had not been her first kiss.
But it had felt like he was terrified it would be their last.
Was there more to that expression in his eyes than she had thought? Did he really...
Did he really care for her, beyond the gentle banter they shared and the cause they were united under?
She touched the ring on her hand, the one he'd given her when they'd married. The emerald stone winked at her.
She wished her mother were here. Somehow, she had the feeling that even though her mother would be shocked by the fact that her daughter had married a wolf, she might actually like Everett, once she got over the curse.
She had the feeling that if her mother were here, she would know exactly what to od. She would tell her to do something, and it would be the right decision.
This—returning home to see whether her family's home had been burned to a crisp—did not feel like the right decision. Though logically, reasonably, and even in her heart, she could tell herself every reason she had for returning to the town, she did not know why a voice in the back of her mind nagged her so.
It was why she had asked him to come with her. Hoping that somehow, he might assuage the noise in her mind, telling her that she was making the wrong decision,. That she would regret leaving him.
I'm coming back, she whispered to her conscience. I'm not leaving him forever.
The thought of leaving him—this man who had changed her in ways she couldn't articulate, this man who had killed to keep her not merely alive but unstained by the darkness of his world... This man who had given her shelter, yes, but also companionship, what he could offer despite all the dark, broken places inside him... He'd given her what he could. He'd given her more than he had to.
And now she was leaving him.
Tears sprang to her eyes, and she sat down on the bed, the shift in her hands falling onto her lap. She wept into the well-worn cotton, not caring that her tears stained the fabric. Why did it hurt so? It was good that she should return home, that she should look out for Timothy and her father. Good that she should care for her family.
But she was married. Her husband was her family, too.
And he could not come with her.