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Then a shadow sped between the trees, running alongside me just out of sight. It was enormous, the source of the primitive voice whispering inside my mind.
“Run, little witch. Run as fast and far as you can.”
I pushed myself harder, the first faint worm of fear slithering into my heart. I would get a glimpse of dark fur, a flash of brimstone eyes, and then nothing—nothing but the knowledge that I was being followed.
There was a hidden promise in the Beast’s words.
“We will hunt you… and we will find you.”
Sides heaving with exertion, I streaked away from the shadow, and he followed. I was moving slower, my body feeling like I was bogged down in syrup.
“We willalwaysfind you.”
Hot breath touched the back of my neck. I pushed harder, faster, and saw that I no longer had paws… my pale hands were streaked with dirt and blood. I was running on all fours, awkward and slow.
A whimper escaped me as I lunged upright, stumbling through the Wood on two ungainly legs.
Something heavy hit me, knocking me back to the leaf-strewn forest floor. There was no time to scream, no time to even blink before the Beast was on me.
“Open your mind, open your eyes, witch,” he snarled at me. “We are through with waiting.”
“I’m no witch,” I gasped, trying to wriggle out of the cage of claws, but there was nowhere to go. The bulk of the Beast’s body pressed me down, keeping me pinned in place.
“You are.” The Beast flipped me easily with a massive clawed hand and pain erupted in my back as it touched the ground. Thick, warm fur brushed my bare skin. His slavering wolf’s head loomed over me, teeth gleaming like sickles.
The sharp agony from the nape of my neck to the base of my spine was impossible to ignore. I tried to heave myself upwards, but the Beast’s claws were on my chest.
“Please,” I whispered, and he cocked his head, pointed ears like horns in the moonlight.
He wrapped those claws around me and gently picked me up.
“Was our gift not enough for you?” His voice was a low, bone-shaking growl, no matter how softly he tried to speak. “It is the bride-price. Flesh for flesh.”
Even though I was no longer touching the ground, the pain was still immense. The edges of the world were blurring, and as everything seemed to spin around me, I understood that none of this was real.
It was all a dream. The Beast cradling me against his chest, the moon shining red, the pain—nothing but a dream.
“We’re coming for you,” he told me, and a burst of lightning through my spine ripped me away from the dream entirely.
I woke with a strangled cry,my voice muffled by the flattened pillow under my face. The minute the musty smell hit my nose, I knew where I was—back in the belfry of the Church of Vostok.
But the pain hadn’t stopped. Fresh agony tore through my back as something cool dripped over it.
I was lying on my stomach, wrists bound to the bed with leather straps. A soft humming told me who my companion was as another splash of wet coolness touched the pain.
“Yana.” My voice was hoarse. Had I been screaming in my sleep this entire time?
“Shh.” Yana stopped humming. I heard the sound of cloth being dipped in water and wrung out. “Your back is still bleeding.” From the clarity of her voice, she was not wearing the heavy veil.
My memories were foggy and slow. I remembered the skinned deer, the awful visions of it getting up and walking—and then vague notions of Father Borodin descending on me with lash and rod.
Yana was his daughter, a silent, submissive girl of nineteen. I had known her my entire life. I’d known her long enough to know that neither her silence nor her submission were natural.
“What did I do?” I asked, slowly trying to rotate my arms. Painful tingling at my fingertips told me they were almost entirely asleep.
Father Borodin never put the ties on me unless I did something wrong.
Unless I completely lost control of myself and the thing that lived within me. No better than one of the Beasts.
