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I look up into the darkness above me as her footsteps recede.
Has she forgotten something? Some bauble so precious she would actually risk the extra time to go back for it? I am disappointed in my consort’s intellect if she is so foolish. Her escape was near… at least I was allowing her to think so.
Or maybe…
I frown, then bend my long neck down to smell myself under my arms. I pull away sharply. Especially after my little visit to the dungeon, I am… ripe.
It is time for another plunge into the icy lake to clean myself—certainly if my prey can smell me and flee danger before I can capture her.
Her footsteps are so faint, I can tell she is almost back to her tower where she ought to be. Good. I will go douse myself in the lake and then we can continue our little farce, except I will keep a closer eye on her now that I know she has attempted escape again—
Except my eyes widen again when I hear her coming back down the stairwell!
Have I indeed overestimated her? Is she actually going back for a forgotten treasure she could not leave without?
I blink in the darkness, shaking my head at her foolishness. And I crouch low.
Oh I will enjoy punishing her.
It is not such a bad thing to have a foolish consort after all, I suppose. She will be easy to keep in line. Likely easier to train in obedience. If I am a little disappointed, well, she is wonderful in almost every other way.
I crouch low as I listen to her delicate footsteps on the spiral stairs.
Patter-patter-patter-patter.
There is no shortage of stairs, but she makes it back down sooner than I might have expected.
I stretch my jaw.
Ready to pounce.
Ready for the punishment that will follow.
Chapter Fourteen
HANNAH
God, I’m still amazed at these new legs and what feels like a new body, even if it still looks like the old one from the outside.
And my balance!
It’s bananas that I’m flying down these stairs without even holding onto a banister.
It’s a miracle, even if in the end it comes from a most decidedly unholy source. Even though I’m running stairs, something that’s been historically a dangerous activity for me, I start going faster.
Pumping my arms, I glory in the icy wind gust from the completely open windows against my sweat-slicked body.
We’re really gonna have to do something about this no-clothes situation if I’m gonna stay much longer… And if I’m gonna ever face that snow outside for very long if I try to escape...
I bite my lip and run harder.
At least the stones underfoot are well worn, so they’re smooth under my bare feet. And now on my second way down the stairs, my internal heat has warmed me enough that I don’t feel like I’m freezing anymore. For once.
Where on earth is this castle, anyway? If, by some miracle, I do make it out, how will I even begin to get home? Either way, the first step is endurance. Hence, running stairs.
I’m almost down to the ground floor again. I can tell because even though I can’t see far down because of the staircase’s tight spiral, I’ve started counting windows, and this is the last one before the stairs continue underground.
I shudder to think of what lives down there.
I jog down the last few stairs, about to turn around in the only area where the stairwell widens slightly at the ground floor foyer, before the stairs continue on into the dark shadows below.
Just as I slow—
The shadows suddenly come alive.
Some huge thing leaps at me, and I scream my head off.
“Beast!” I fling my arms up over my head as my life flashes before my eyes. “Save me!”
Abruptly, like being yanked back by invisible strings, the attacking shadow stops.
Whereas before I only saw it from the corner of my eye, now I look at it full on.
And see that it’s him. He pulls back, looking confused, retracting his extended claws.
I stand up straight. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I yell at him. “You just scared the shit out of me!” I’m livid. What the actual hell?
He’s silent for a moment, as if taken aback by my anger, but it passes quickly enough. “What am I doing?” he asks sarcastically, something I haven’t been sure he is capable of. In fact, the more we’ve communicated, the more eloquent his speech has become, as if he simply has to remind himself of human speech patterns after a long spell of not speaking.
But the sarcasm drips off his lips as he leans forward. “What are you doing? Did you think I would not catch you trying to flee?”
“I’m not trying to flee, you big oaf!” Only a small twinge of guilt hits after I say the words, but I push them away. Because I wasn’t trying to flee right now, anyway.
