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“He did,” Jonathan agreed, smoothing Petyr’s unruly hair. “The Black Wolf saw to that.”
The Black Wolf.
The mere mention of him made her skin tighten and crawl. Jonathan’s features softened at her distress. He gently laid a hand on her shoulder and shook his downcast head. “I know what he took from you. I can’t imagine your pain, milady, but?—”
“Yes, you can.” She shook his hand off her shoulder. She locked onto Jonathan’s eyes with a steady gaze, her insides clenching against the force of her anger. “No matter, the Black Wolf is still a monster. He ravaged my family and home like the beast he is.”
He knows everything, yet he’s protecting me. He will surely sell me to the Black Wolf. Blanchette searched his weathered, kindly face, looking for the truth.
All she found was that lopsided grin.
Jonathan forced another smile to his face that fit all wrong. “Yes. Well, let me find you something to eat. A nice stew should be manageable, I think?”
Blanchette nodded, then released a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.
Jonathan nudged his son toward the door. They both paused beneath the archway as the din of the soldiers resounded beyond the house. Jonathan looked at Blanchette apologetically. But before either of them could speak, a sudden knock blasted through the home. Blanchette jumped at the sound, her heart hammering along with the pounding.
Jonathan nudged his son from the room. “It would be best if you remained here, milady. And stay perfectly quiet and still. You, too, Petyr, just like I’d told you.”
She nodded. No more words were needed. She was sealed inside the room a moment later as she listened to the Black Wolf’s soldiers parcel out food and goods from her home.
She sat on the rigid bed, her knees pulled to her face. She squeezed her eyes closed and fought to calm her breathing. Her throat felt raw, her heart more so…
Surely, he shall sell me as a hostage… that’s why I’m here, why he saved me.
Yet the door never opened again.
Muffled voices seeped through her wall. Petyr’s excited cry. Jonathan’s gracious words and incoherent mumblings.
It was all a jumble.
My world is a jumble. A shattered dream.
But one voice she heard with perfect clarity. “We believe the princess escaped the castle, likely with an escort. Maybe you’ve seen her or know someone who has?”
Blanchette breathed a vain prayer and reached for her cross, already knowing it was gone. She heard Jonathan’s muffled voice, but she couldn’t make out the words over the pounding of her own heart.
She lay back on the bed and stared at the cracked and peeling ceiling. She heard the excited commotion in the village, felt hot tears streaking her cheeks, and below all that, the whisper of her own hoarse voice, “I promise. I promise. I promise…”
Four
Wet earth and pine needles sloshed under Blanchette’s bare feet as she raced through the woods. Light snow fell and numbed her body. Her heels were cut and bleeding, yet the pain didn’t hold her back; it propelled her forward and lit a fire inside her soul.
The chase was on, and all she could bring to mind was her promise to her grandmother.
A wolf’s melancholy howl rose around her and trembled through the trees. The cry held a note of despair and a tone of human suffering. A flock of ravens burst from the grasses and thickets. She felt lightheaded and winded. Her red riding cloak streamed behind her, whipping in the musty air like a queen’s trail.
But I am no longer a queen, am I? Not even a princess. Just a lost and frightened girl, running through the woods and trying to find my way home with a bloodthirsty predator on my heels.
The wolf cried out again, closer this time, calling for her, hunting her. The sound came from everywhere at once—the wood’s sloping ridges and mossy crests, the deep ravines, the half-nude tree branches, the moist soil and divots of mud, the tangled roots beneath her toes, and the huge moon that shone through the branches and shed its illumination as best it could. Even the wind caught the sound and exhaled it in a long, cool breath.
She paused, paralyzed by that haunting melody, and pulled the red hood up and into place.
He shall hear the beat of my heart, she despaired. He shall hear my heartbeat and find my hiding spot. Then he shall devour me like he devoured my home and family.
Suddenly, the woods grew quiet and still; even the wind held its breath. The one sound that penetrated the din was Blanchette’s own heavy exhales. She pushed her spine against the trunk of a tree and stifled the sound with her palm. Salt from her sweaty skin seeped between her lips and flavored her tongue.
She felt it before she heard it. That tightness on the back of your neck and across your heart… an ominous breath on the back of your neck…
