Page 14 of The Howling
I probably should have tried harder yesterday, not allowed my feral desires to get the better of me. To have formed a coherent sentence. To have shaken off the wolfsbane before I spoke.
I want to claim her, bite her, make her mine. If it came out aseating, then I’d like to do that too. Sort of. I think.
I watch her long blue hair round a corner until she is out of sight and contemplate my existence. I have never wanted anything other than food and souls. Any other choice was denied.
But I want her. I want the human with the blue hair and blue dress. I want to make her mine, give her everything I have. I want to burn for her.
I want to defy the Reaper for her.
This little female is my mate. Somehow the Yeavering found me and gave her to me.
I look into the empty space where she was.
I am not giving her back.
WYNTER
Iget around the corner and take in several massive gulps of air, pressing down on the panic which rises inside me.
I genuinely cannot believe I challenged the huge beast in the cage. Reavely has to be close to seven foot in height. He’s impressively broad in the chest, and with his claws, he looks like he could snap me in half without even thinking about it.
He also has high cheekbones and a set of eyelashes around his fire-filled eyes which any girl would kill for.
A detail I also squash down inside me. The filthy creature basically urinated on me and thought it was fine. He is an absolute monster.
A monster I am going to add to the list to keep away from, if I can. It’s starting to be a long list, given the Yeavering is filled with things which bear humans ill will.
Starting with the Faerie. The mere fact Lord Guyzance chose to visit the dungeons when I thought I would be safe from his gaze troubles me. I don’t like he spoke to Reavely, and I don’t like the fact I accidentally nearly walked in on them yesterday.
I know what I risk every day here in the Yeavering, and keeping away from the Faerie Lord and his cohort has been myevery waking thought. It’s the reason I stayed grubby, hid my hair, stayed under the radar, or the Yeavering equivalent.
In fact, I don’t think I’ve been as clean as since I came to this dingy dungeon, which is a contradiction in and of itself. I thought I was safe. I expected not to see another Faerie as long as I was down here.
But Lord Guyzance surprised me and sent everything I thought I knew into a spiral. He isn’t afraid of the dungeons and Reavely can string a sentence together which doesn’t involve the wordseatandyou.
I wonder which one I should be more wary of. Probably the one who thinks pissing on me is acceptable.
My work completed for the morning, and having stowed away my cleaning items in the small stone store room, I head back to my quarters.
There’s no sign of Lilburn, although, as always, the fire is burning merrily in the grate and there is a full kettle waiting to be swung in over the flames. As tea is basically what we both live for, I push the heavy cast iron receptacle into the fire and drop into my chair to wait for it to boil.
“Hello, Wynter,” a deep voice says in my ear. I jump in the air with a strangled cry, twisting to see who spoke because Lilburn had assured me we were the only people who could get into our quarters.
There’s no one there. I clutch at my chest as my heart attempts to batter out of it. Am I imagining things? As I look around, a mist coalesces in one corner, slowly solidifying into the form of a grinning Lilburn.
“What the f-?”
“I’m sorry.” She wheezes out a laugh. “It’s what I do. I’m the Hedley Kow.”
“You scare the life out of people?” I sink back into my chair.
“Not the life, although there’s nothing to say I can’t do such a thing. No, I am a mischief maker, so I make mischief,” she says, pulling the kettle from the fire as it reaches the boiling point. With a large checked cloth, she lifts it clear and fills a teapot.
“Is that what got you here in the first place?” I ask, just as the sound of a long, low howl reaches us.
“What have you done to the Barghest?” Lilburn asks, her sharp eyes on me.
“That’s Reavely?”
