A/N
Kind of trying a new writing style this book, tell me what you think of it. :) Or if you can even tell.
The Woods are feared. The Woods are what gets your knuckle slapped if you dare to step a foot into its timbre of danger. The Woods are what Ezra taught Rosalie to stay away from, warned her when he would thread her cloak and flip her red hood on her head.
The Woods are what cursed their family; it's what the town whispered about and what kept Ezra up at night.
The Woods is where the Wolf lives.
*
There is a red cloak that floods over Wye's Valley- the tiny village of a hundred- but with it, follows the woodsman. The two never seem to be parted, the young girl with the rosy red cheeks and the boy with porcelain skin and strong hands.
The Cerises weren't of wealth; their father had been buried deep in the ground and had been followed by their mother when Ezra had barely turned fifteen. But what they lacked in fortune, they made up for in vanity.
The two of them were beautiful.
With lips the color of candy floss and cobalt eyes that could make any man's hard heart melt, Rosalie promised a life of beauty.
But she was not what the town held in their eyes, next to her brother, she was just another rosy-faced kid.
Ezra was absolutely stunning, the boy- no, the man- almost reached six foot with long legs that were covered in threadbare trousers, in each stride they promised strong chorded muscles. His lithe body held the eyes of anyone in the village, men that had never thought of anyone but a woman stopping to watch the way the boy reaches down to his sister and kisses her nose when she touches the constellation of freckles on his porcelain cheeks.
With a pretty enough face to have enough men raising an eyebrow and licking their lips, and broad enough shoulders to make the women swoon, it was a troubled existence that led to hands getting bloody and Rosalie seeing too much at such a young age.
When Wye's Valley saw the Cerises, the women of the town beckoned them to their windows and asked if they needed anything, books, you're always reading Ezra; I have a lovely one my husband traded a brick of bread for. Or you're both growing so quickly, come in- stay for dinner- I insist.
Staying for dinner meant Ezra sitting with his hands braiding Rosalie's hair in a way not to let his knuckles connect to the sons that lived in the home- with their hungry eyes and rough hands that'd nick his chin. Taking a book meant an unofficial acceptance to a date to one of the most eligible brides of Wye's Valley.
But staying with their grandmother, eating bitter dried meat and burnt rolls while reading the same book to Rosalie for the twentieth time was better than any evening of rich meals or new fairytales.
*
The wolf was coming.
Three days and it'd be here, when Ezra would be locked up in the town's church the monster would be prowling the streets- it wouldn't leave until it had something- someone- to eat.
Last year, the entire village had been compacted into the small church that was meant to fit only fifty for nearly a week until an old man kissed his wife and walked down from the pews, opened the door and dropped his cross-necklace on the floor.
They hadn't closed the doors fast enough.
The wolf had leapt on the man and the dry dirt was mucked up in crumbles of scarlet blood mixing with the ground. Rosalie had screamed, dug her face into Ezra's tunic as if rubbing snot over his clothing would make the monster disappear.
It didn't- it had taken nearly three minutes for four men of the church to close the doors to shield the villagers from the wolf- he had seen it- watched as the wolf burrowed it's snout into the man's neck before ripping it open.
The Wolf is coming.
*
There is a place in the Woods where it is safe to go, where you don't look over your shoulder and fear the Wolf standing above you with its reeking breath that would make you place death a scent.
It's a small grove where the Woods are sliced into by the men of the town, where hatchets and axes are the men’s extension of themselves and the low hum of 'Tiiiimber!' is always followed by the scattering of feet.
You don’t ever go past the grove, past the grove is where the Wolf lives.
It's a place where Ezra walks from his grandmother's humble home after dropping Rosalie off at the school-house in the middle of the village where it sits beside the church. It's the only work he'll do- though he is employed by an imbecile who still says a joke or thirty about how pretty he's looking.
Sometimes he hates it- the way his hands will come back with hot knots in his palm and the peak of blisters on the heels of his feet are something he can handle- accepted. But when it's unbearably hot and the rest of the woodsmen are throwing their threadbare shirts to the ground, he'll find himself cursing underneath his breath.
Because Ezra knew he was beautiful.
He's known it since his mother wiped her hands in his hair and sat him in her lap, cooed at him as she kissed his button nose and told him he's far too pretty for his own good.
And letting his chest be bare to the world was as scandalous as a woman going through town naked.
It was something he wouldn't do, even when the fabric stuck to his back and puddles of sweat sopped it. He didn't need the taunting that'd come from the woodsmen- while in reality they would throw snide comments at him to catch a sliver of his back for just a second.
Sometimes he loves it- sometimes when he feels the axe cut into the wood, he thinks of how he'll go deeper in the forest, how he could separate his village, his Rosalie, miles and miles away from the Wolf. When he feels blood curl out of his fingers because his knuckles are white from holding on so tightly to the wooden handle, he'll just plow that much faster. He won't stop until it's down, he'll work on a hundred year old oak for an entire month by himself just to prove that he's more than a pretty face.
He's cut through six trees during his three months working as a woodsman. After you turn sixteen in the village, you worked- and being a fresh-faced, bambi-eyed boy didn't put him in privilege. Of course it meant that his grandmother begged him to work at the baker's shop, that an opening could be squeezed in if wished, or maybe he could work underneath the hand of the preacher at the church. Anything but not as a woodsman, not so close to the Wolf.
He didn't listen.
He should've listened.
*
There is a reason why Ezra had never been taken by the back of his scruff and dragged off into the woods. There is a story behind why the Wolf only stayed away as long as he had to from the village, from Ezra.
Ezra never dared to wander within the Woods- no matter how close to the edge of the city he walked to, he didn't even press a foot on any soil that didn't belong within Wye's Valley.
Sometimes he'd be led astray, his legs would lead him to the very tip of it but never did he let himself slip out past the small wooden sign that had 'Wye's Valley' carved into it. Because that's where the village began and were Ezra always stopped.
But to get to the cluster of trees he'd cut down, to where the woodsmen worked, he had to step past the beginning-ending of the town.
The first day he did- the Wolf was sighted yards away from Mrs. Ladenburg’s home.
Two weeks after, two lambs where found slaughtered.
For three months there wasn't a night that didn't pass where the Wolf wasn't howling, screaming, shouting into the night.
Ezra was just at the edge of the Woods, close enough for the Wolf to just reach out and dig claws into his snow white skin, leave mars of long scratches down his back and press teeth just beneath the Adam's Apple that bobbed in his throat.
But Ezra did something he wasn't supposed to.
He entered the Woods.
*
There was an Oak that a woodsman had been cutting for the last three days- it was the tallest in the grove of trees.
It was beside Ezra's- his a small pine tree that could be cut down by the end of the night if he worked hard enough- and that had been the only thing Ezra could think of- he had to cut down that tree, had to prove it to himself he was capable of cutting down.
He was too focused in sawing the tree down, that he didn't hear the low 'timberrrrrr' that the woodsman behind him released.
He didn't know he was in the line of fire before he was dropping his axe and hearing the shouts of men.
He could feel the bark biting at his calves as he ran, breath panting as he pushed himself out of its way in the cold of winter.
He entered the Woods, didn't think of it as a place of where the Wolf lives but where he could survive- if he could just crawl a few more feet before the tree landed on his legs he could get out of the forest and forget about how calm it was- how even if it was only fifteen yards away from the grove of trees, it was so different.
The air in the Woods felt different- it was dark and it clogged his lungs.
The tree barely missed him, only by a foot and it had shaken him into the air as the oak made the ground tremble as it landed.
He was too close.
He was bleeding and he was too close- too close to the Woods where the Wolf lives.
“Ezra!” It’s a haze of shouts from men, they all stare down at him- they’re only nine feet away but they don’t dare to enter the Woods, just stare at the boy as he catches his breath. It’s like something invisible is pushing the men back from taking out their hands so Ezra could grasp it- usually they’d be falling over themselves at the opportunity.
“I’m- I’m fine.” He saying it but he’s not believing it.
The woodsman stands up, a cloak of darkness peaks in the corners of his eyes, but he blinks it away.
Hands steady on the top of the tree that was just axed down, he gives a small grin to the men, “I’m fine.” He says it because he knows something is watching from the depths of the forest, that in the quick coming of night that the evil that lurks in the Woods isn’t just close to him, but close enough to take a few steps and rip him apart.
“I’m fine.” He takes another step, there’s blood on his hands, palms scrapped and skin peeling with crimson.
The reason why the Wolf stayed away from the boy, forced himself back into the Woods when all he wanted to do was tear him apart and put him back together. It was because the boy never entered the Woods, never left his scent- never taunted the Wolf with his sugary sweet savor.
But today he did.
*
The Wolf did not howl tonight.
He came to Wye's Valley two nights early.
He was going to take his mate.
A/N
Sorry for it being bland and a bit blunt.
Next chapter is going to make actual sense, and they meet with -if I say so myself- a very good twist.
Seriously, stay tuned because it's going to get good- I promsie. I just needed to get this one out of the way. (probably redoing it)
Tell me what I need to fix.