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“Are the huntsmen trying to kill us?” Helm asked. He spit his mouthful back into his bowl.
“If this is how Snow cooks, I pity the seven men,” Rood added as he too spit what was in his mouth back where it had come from.
No one swallowed the food, and all tossed the contents of their full bowls back into the pot it had boiled in. Feeling as if I couldn’t defend Snow any longer, I did the same.
“Well, at least we have the deer,” Canis said. “We have a full jug of ale as well.” He moved to the cave to fetch the alternate meal for the evening.
“We are going to need every drop of that ale to wash away this taste,” Grimm said. “I don’t know if I want to kick the huntsmens’ arses for this or pity them.”
“I say we do both,” Rood said with a small chuckle.
Deer and ale sounded perfect, but anything besides the stew would be. Thanks to Snow, I now felt a whole new respect for my level of cooking. And I was fairly certain that nothing I could ever make for these men would ever be worse than this awful rabbit stew. I made a mental note to thank Snow if I were to ever meet her in person. She’d just made my job in pleasing the men with my cooking all the easier. If any of them ever complained or disliked a meal of mine, I would simply remind them of Snow’s famous rabbit stew.
CHAPTER 8
My mind was hazy, but my body hummed. I felt alive and free, and maybe for the first time in my life, truly happy. Laughter, jokes, tales of a better time, and overall joy filled the camp as we finished our deer and drank the last of the ale. It was hard for me to imagine that I once feared for my life around these men. That I had once believed my life to be cast in the worst type of darkness imaginable being their sacrifice. So hard to believe that all had changed in such a short time. I almost felt…I almost felt as if I were somehow becoming part of the pack. Even if it was in feeling alone.
“You appear lost in thought, Red,” Grimm said as he ran his hand down the back of my head.
I turned my head to look at him and smiled, realizing I’d been staring into the fire while my mind churned. “I guess I was.”
“What’s on your mind?” Beo asked.
I shrugged, but my smile grew. “I feel like I’m becoming one of you. Like I belong. For the first time in my life, I truly feel as if I belong.”
“We’re wolves,” Helm said with a chuckle.
“I know. But I still feel it,” I said as I stood on unsteady legs.
With the help of the ale giving me courage, and my overwhelming sense of freedom, I shed my clothes as I stood before the fire. I didn’t care that the men looked on as I did so. I didn’t care that I was drunk again and clearly acting as a lady shouldn’t. I wanted to be wild and have full abandon. I wanted to be animalistic like these men I sat with. I wanted to feel alive as the blood pulsed through my veins.
Fully naked, tilting my head back and staring up at the sky, I howled. I howled as loud as I could and ignored the laughter it caused from the men. In fact, I didn’t care that the men were all finding me amusing. Good. Let me amuse them. Let me give some joy to these men who were so deserving of more than simply being cursed, betrayed outcasts, and constant warriors forever cast out in a dark world.
“I think the girl has had too much ale,” Rood said between bouts of laughter.
I ignored his comment and began swaying my body to the beat of music only I could hear. Lifting my arms and gracefully moving them through the smoke in the air, I began to dance. I danced without a care in the world around the fire while I knew the five men—the wolves—watched. I allowed my spirit to take over. I allowed everything bad in my life to escape freely from my fingertips and my toes as I danced under the moonlight. I danced away the hatred of my grandmother, the hatred of the village. I danced away my fear of the unknown, having faith that all would be fine. I simply danced.
None of the men tried to stop me, and allowed me to act as wild and foolish as I desired. They laughed, watched, and chatted lightly in the background, but not one tried to make me stop or shame me into feeling I should. I was naked, moving about without a care in the world, and it was the best feeling I could remember ever having. I danced until my legs decided they had had enough, and I collapsed back where I had been sitting, breathless and happy.
