Page 206 of Evil Hearts

“Czerwony,” I repeat, committing to memory how it rolls along my tongue. Many human names are difficult for me to pronounce. They are meant for flat faces and square teeth. But this name,Czerwony, feels as natural to speak as my own. So I do. “Fenra.”

Czerwony’s eyes dart to mine, heated and dark beneath thick lashes. Her tongue darts out, flicking her lips as if tasting the sound before speaking. “Fenra.”

She says my name like a growl, low in her throat and rumbling in her chest. Hearing it from her lips shifts something in me. My duty to the wood and my vow to protect the villagers no longer matter. At that moment, with my name on her tongue, all I wish for in this world is to press my ear against her breastbone and feel the rumble as well as I can hear it.

Czerwony twists her wrist again, cupping the back of my knee. Her fingers stroke an idle circle, and she gently squeezes, carefully avoiding my wounds. “Sleep Fenra.”

I could weep for how she says my name. “I have my watch—”

“The wood is quiet.” A nail tickles my leg, coiling something unfamiliar in my belly. I fight the urge to wriggle as the sensation worms deeper, drawing me to lie back. “And the lindworm has spread the story of your ferocity.” A smirk dimples Czerwony’s cheek, and she leans forward, lowering her voice into a teasing whisper. “But if it makes you feel better, I will keep your watch for you.”

“I am sure you will,” is all I manage before sleep takes me.

Czerwony is gone when I wake, and the wood beyond my shelter is dark. Rolling onto my knees, I sweep the tarp aside and enter a pool of crisp moonlight. Ears pricked, I scan my surroundings, listening for any footfall or brush of scales over the undergrowth.

Peaceful quiet meets me. A dove coos in a distant tree, and to my left, a fox stalks a mouse over alder roots, but otherwise the woods are quiet and calm.

It is how I wish them to be. This peace is the drive and desire behind my vow, so why does it leave me ill at ease? I am moving the moment the thought enters my head, striding into the woods with steady, sure steps, half a dozen paces from my shelter, when I stumble to a halt.

No pain.

Not a twinge or an ache. My leg is as steady and strong as it was when I descended from my sleeping platform to stalk Czerwony and the lindworm through the wood.

Unease raises my hackles, hairs prickling as my ears twitch and swivel. Czerwony claimed that the food had healing properties. That her grandmother lived deep in the wood. My wood. No human dwells in my wood beyond the witch, and I stop to consider Czerwony’s easy deferral when I asked if her grandmother lived in the village at the other end of the path.

A shrug and a nod that was half a shake of her head.

“Near enough.”

“Clever,” I murmur. The snapping of a branch whips my head to the left. It repeats, further away. And again, some creature fleeing my presence and voice. I lift my head and sniff the air, eyes flying wide at the scent of orange blossom and bacon. “No.”

She would not be so foolish, would she? To sit alone in the wood at night, smelling as delicious as she does in that absurd cloak … it would call all manner of beasts and monsters. No creature could resist such an enticingly wrapped and aromatic morsel, and I count myself among their number.

I am already running when I decide: Yes. She would be that foolish. Thinking herself invincible because her grandmother is the witch. Czerwony with her lack of regard for the rules put in place for her safety. She would sit on her fallen log, whistlingand singing, snapping her cloak and announcing her presence to any monster within earshot until she got bored, of course. Then she would startskipping, her skirt flouncing and revealing those creamy pale legs to anything with eyes.

The thought has me speeding up, chasing those snapping twigs and rustling branches to pursue whatever creature must have chased her away. If any monster in the wood is to see those legs, it will be me.

I stop short at the certainty with which the thought rings through me. Who am I to claim Czerwony, much less her legs? A half-beast outcast who spends all her time alone. Despite my frequent sojourns through the wood, I have never seen another of my kind. I have seen enough lindworms and tarasques, woodwoses, and firefoxes to fill a bestiary but never a beast like me.

As badly as I wish to see her legs, to feel the smooth skin beneath my callused palm, in what world or wood am I fortunate enough to do so? As much as it pains me every time one of those tiny, sad smiles flits across her face, who am I to wish I could erase that sorrow?

A lean, loping creature darts across the narrow deer path, hauling me from this morose spiral. Moonlight glances off its fur, illuminating the haunches and bristled tail.

Wolf.

Czerwony’s scent tickles my nose as quickly as the wolf vanishes. I break into a run. If a true wolf has caught her scent, I am already too late. Unlike the lindworm, my kin are fierce and unrelenting. They do not wait until their prey is tired; they attack, and the strength of the orange blossom filling my head tells me she is close—that the wolf is close.

I do not care as pine straw and twigs snap beneath my feet. I ignore the snap and rustle of branches I push aside. I must reach the wolf before it reaches her.

Heart pounding, I bend low and flex my fingers, pressing my claws out as a snarl builds in my throat. The wolf is quick, darting over streams and under brambles. It must know that I am gaining ground, for it bounds onto a trunk, a boulder, a branch, glancing back at me with moonlight gleaming in its eyes.

And then it drops out of sight.

I scramble up the boulder, muscles bunching and pushing me up to the branch. I swing and let go, landing in a secluded glade I have never before visited. My hackles raise further, and the snarl dies in my throat as I pick out the standing stones, forming a perfect unnatural circle.

Will-o-wisps bob in even intervals, their haunting gleam lighting the runes on each stone, adding a haunting cast to the moonlit glade. Short-trimmed grass blankets the glade, and there, ten feet away and downwind from me, Czerwony crouches in her cloak.

The scarlet wool is blood red in the moonlight, cascading down her shoulders, the hood obscuring her face, but I know it is her. She fills the glade with her scent, and its headiness sends my mind reeling. Before I know it, I am halfway to where she crouches, and she throws out her arm, palm up.

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