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It’s the subtle whiff of rose that does it. Buried beneath layer upon layer of tangy sweat, dirt and grime, and mingled with something foreign and masculine. The shock of it knocks the wind from his lungs, and he finds it impossible to draw another breath over the sputter and shudder of his heart.
Mine.
None of the other Snatchers smell so pretty. Scabior reckons he might have some questions if they did. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but to know where they’re getting rose-scented soaps in the middle of a war and not fucking sharing might be a thing of interest.
He stops in the middle of a small clearing and holds up his hand for his companions — a generous term if ever he heard one — to halt, too. Forest stretches boundless on every side, but he knows if he closes his eyes and draws on that well of determination — of need, of desperate, bone-rattling want — within him, she’s all his.
Scabior pulls in a deep breath through his nose and feels the forest, the other Snatchers, the birds in the trees, everything, disappear until there’s nothing but white around him.
It’s a small group that he senses, his rose-girl and two males. They aren’t too far away, either, maybe another kilometre or so. His heart makes another crazy lurch in his chest when he realises it’s them, the Potter bastard and his companions. Who else would it be so far from home, hiding like mice under the baleful glare of an overhead eagle?
He cracks his eyes open again, finding his men watching him with the wariness he’s become used to since The Bite.
He’s used to weird looks. Straight off, he knows he hardly looks the regulation Death Eater, with his slim build, his dainty hands, and affinity for the newest wizarding trends. From the very beginning he’s had to situate himself near the top of the pecking order to keep from being trampled at the bottom. But even his sharp mind and a voice laced with suggestion hadn’t always been enough; he’s lost count of how many gallons of Skele-Grow he’s had to consume over the years to mend and regrow his broken bones from being volunteered as the resident punching bag. Turns out, all he ever needed was a bite from a werewolf for his supposed impertinence in the face of the Dark Lord to set himself up at the top of the Snatcher food chain.
Because no one would double-cross a werewolf, even one as dainty as Scabior.
Perhaps, though, it’s the shittier end of the bargain. Even as a werewolf, and knowing the significance of this girl they’re hunting, he still has to bring her in, toss her at the Dark Lord’s feet and watch and wait as she gets tortured — and still do nothing to stop it.
And fuck, even the fleeting thought of something like that happening to her is enough to send a wave of caustic heat and anger through him. He’s only experienced the sensation once, yet Scabior doubts he could ever become accustomed to the sudden wave of protectiveness, the powerful need to see this woman safe and unharmed.
If the feeling is so powerful now, before anything has even really happened to her, what is he going to do later? Will he even be able to shepherd her to her death without ripping Voldemort’s throat out with his teeth?
He had been warned. Greyback, sadistic prick that he is, hadn’t left him bleeding half to death — as if they weren’t on the same fucking side of this fucking war — on the floor of one of the Malfoy’s many guestrooms without at least a few words of warning as to what he might expect.
Kill the bitch on sight, Greyback had told him as he licked at his blood-red mouth, though Scabior hardly knew what he was talking about, bleeding out from the gaping wound in his side as he was; he had been fading out faster than the gravelly voice of his Alpha could register. Fuck her if you need to, but make sure you kill her. Can’t have your bitch holding you back.
Now that he knows firsthand what it feels like, Scabior wonders whether it would have been so easy for Greyback, if he even had the balls to pull the proverbial trigger on his own mate.
Probably, he muses. Greyback would never lower himself to something as base as love.
That the L word is where his mind heads, and so soon, too — without even actually seeing the hapless woman that will be tethered to him for an eternity — really should have been more disconcerting, but Scabior can’t find it within himself to be bothered by it. He feels light, giddy, and he isn’t sure he could keep the grin off his face if he tried. It’s her. The one, the only. The Forever.
It hits him like a sucker punch to the kidneys, though, realising just how fucking creepy his thoughts are. No chit worth her salt would ever consider shacking up with the guy who has designs on her based on her scent alone. Or who was under orders to bring her to the den of a madman. Alive, preferably, though he doubted anyone would argue were she bought in dead.
He follows the scent to an empty copse of trees. Magic ripples in the air, bending it and making it shimmer with an odd sort of light. He grins as he imagines the clever little swot his mate must be to weave such magic.
It’s only a matter of biding their time. Scabior gestures to the other Snatchers to make themselves comfortable. It’s not like his rose-girl and her friends can stay hidden in their little tent forever; they’ll have to come out at some point.
They wait an hour before Scabior notices different scents rising — a panicked, acrid sort of tang taints his rose-girl — and can hear a trio of heartbeats thumping in unison. And then — in the space between blinks — their tent is right there.
They broke the taboo.
“Come out of there with your hands up,” he calls out, his voice hoarse. “We know you’re in there! You’ve got half a dozen wands pointing at you and we don’t care who we curse.”
The warning is nothing, though. The other dozen Snatchers converge on the tent, stripping away the heavy canvas and tearing down the frame so only a meagre pile of belongings and three sickly-looking — one looks like a fucking blimp, actually — teenagers are visible. Scabior’s eyes immediately search out the girl. He’s seen her on Wanted posters, long brown curls and chocolate-hued eyes, but the girl on the poster pales in comparison to the waifish, sullen-looking figure in front of him. He lets out a sigh and feels something like contentment or peace wash over him at her sight and scent.
It’s short-lived, though, and the Snatchers all have incredibly short fuses. There’s perhaps a beat of nothing where he just stares at his rose-girl before the Snatchers move in, and the teenagers flee.
He catches her against a tree, pushing her back up against the rough back. Her eyes are wide — terrified — as she stares back, but defiant, too. He feels the trickle within him as his eyes shift from cobalt to gold. He could go his entire life, he realises then, and never, ever, come anywhere close to understanding the wolf that dwells within him.
He buries his nose against her neck and draws in a deep inhale. Fuck, but it was the greatest thing he had ever smelled, her warmth the greatest thing he had ever felt.
“Oh my, oh my,” he murmurs, running his nose along the tightly corded muscles of her neck. There is so much there, layered — dirt, stale sweat, lake water, fear, those other two cunts she was with, and below it all, roses. Nothing has ever smelled so good before, he doubts anything ever would again.
His rose-girl sucks in a deep breath, her chest rising to brush against his. Her eyes are wide and unblinking as her gaze drifts over his shoulder to the scuffle behind them. Slowly, Scabior turns his head and watches on as well.
Potter — because who the fuck else would it be? — has a head the size of a melon. He wants to grin at the ingenuity of the girl in his arms, but he has a role to play in this war, just as she does, and he can only hope that one day she can forgive him for everything that is about to happen.
Greyback has her little red-headed friend cornered, toying with him like he’s nothing more than a mouse. His rose-girl whimpers as she watches, and the scent of the panic that rolls off her makes Scabior want to hurl.
“Easy there, Greyback,” he calls over his shoulder, his tone impressively even, but the only response he gets is a low, wet chuckle. “The boss wants them alive, remember?”
He can hear the convulsing of her throat as she swallows and the frantic pounding of her pulse beneath the delicate skin of her neck. It must be some sort of instinct that he doesn’t quite understand that makes him nuzzle the crook of her neck and rake his teeth over the tendons there.
“What’s your name, lovey?”
Under his breath, and with a significant look he can only hope she catches, he adds, “Lie.”
Her eyes widen, then narrow. “Penelope,” she states, not even a hint of a tremble in her voice. “Penelope Clearwater. Half-blood.”
“Good girl,” he whispers, low and praising. The rest of the forest melts away as he looks at her. He knows there is some sort of pheromone he can release that would calm and relax his mate, but buggered if he knew how to do anything with it.
The wolf that lingers — always — at the back of his mind bays its pleasure at having its mate so close. He’s almost dizzy with happiness. Now that he has her, he can’t imagine a time, ever, where he won’t, or can’t. This is where she belongs. It’s where he belongs.
“What are you doing out here?” he asks, softly.
“Camping,” she replies at once, like it’s a conditioned response.
He chuckles. “Now, love. No lies between us.”
She glares at him and bites out, “I’m not lying.”
“Of course you aren’t, Rosie.”
“Rosie?" she questions, her mouth twisted.
“You smell like roses.” He shrugs. “Nothing to it.”
She squirms in his hold, fighting to free the arms he has pinned behind her back. While she’s quiet he can hear the discussion around them, whether or not everyone is who they say they are and whatnot, but with her so close, he just doesn’t care.
“What are you going to do with us?” she asks.
“You’ll come with us.”
“To Vold —”
“— Hush, girl!” he snaps. “You’ve fucked yourselves over once already by saying the name. Don’t do it again.”
Her face falls to something utterly miserable, her eyes downcast with something like shame. “We didn’t know,” she whispers.
He scoffs. “Of course you didn’t.”
She struggles again before giving up with a huff. “Why aren’t you hurting me?” she asks.
“Someone else wants the pleasure, Rosie.” He swallows and braces himself. “You aren’t for me.”
All at once, it’s like the wolf that stalks his mind wants to tear him apart from the inside out for denying their mate, for implying that he’ll allow someone else to hurt her. He knows the best he can do for her right now is hold her tight and make sure Greyback stays clear, but soon his best won’t be enough. If he so much as even takes a step towards her once they bring her in, he will die, her friends will die, and she will die. The entire Light effort in this war will be for naught, and the Dark Lord will reign. There aren’t many things Scabior feels one-hundred percent certain of — his rose-girl is the first on a very short list — but knowing that he’s not ready — completely fucking unwilling — to live in that world is one of them.
There’s a yell, something about Malfoy Manor, and a scuffle before Greyback’s guttural voice booms out:
“Grab hold, and make it tight,” Greyback roars. “I’ll take Potter.”
Scabior lets out a breath and holds his rose-girl to him tighter. He twists just so to remove his wand from his pocket, holding it tight in his fist.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers in her ear.
“You are a despicable human being,” she snarls right back.
Because he can’t help himself, he buries his nose in her greasy hair and places the softest kiss to the top of her ear. “I know I am, love.”
Greyback yells, “On three! One — two — three!”
He squeezes his eyes shut and Apparates them away to Malfoy Manor.
They land with a muffled thump in the middle of a country lane. Commotion reigns as they haul their prisoners to the imposing gate of Malfoy Manor. Scabior pulls his rose-girl closer, his thumb stroking back and forth over her arm in some moronic attempt to calm her. Her heartbeat spikes with fear, still smells sour with terror.
“We’ve got Potter! We’ve captured Harry Potter!” Greyback crows, delighted, when the disembodied voice at the gates asks their business. The gates swirl into smoke, allowing them passage to the foreboding, darkly beautiful Malfoy Manor.
There isn’t much time. None at all, really. Scabior brings his rose-girl closer still and gently angles her head so he can speak into her ear.
“We will meet again,” he whispers. “You will live, and one day, Rosie, I will find you again.”
He isn’t sure if it’s fear or repulsion, or indeed excitement that sends the shiver down her spine.
“Not bloody likely,” she mutters.
“Oh, my dear girl,” he says on a sigh. “I guarantee — I promise — we will.”
Before she can reply, she’s pulled out his arms and dragged away. It’s not just the promise of a full moon in three short days that makes him want to vomit. Scabior knows, regardless of who wins this war and whatever the outcome is, that the sight of his rose-girl being hauled away by her hair, by Bellatrix fucking Lestrange, will haunt him for the rest of his days.
XXX
Seven Years Later…
Today is the day Hermione Granger will come face to face with him again.
Not just him, though, she quickly corrects herself. A dozen other werewolves will be released from Azkaban today, for varying degrees of crimes during the war. It isn’t as though he’s important. It isn’t like he’s… special or anything like that. It certainly isn’t as though she’s thought about him nearly every day since… the incident in the woods.
He’s so not special, in fact, that Hermione shuffles his paperwork to the very back of her pile, where his stupid name can’t stare at her anymore.
Hermione very deliberately doesn’t think of him for the entire morning. She definitely doesn’t think of him when the released werewolves file through her office to go over the terms of their release and what’s expected of them now that they’re free. She doesn’t think of him when she takes her lunch break, and she certainly doesn’t think of him when her secretary leans through the door at five minutes to closing and announces that he’s there, right that second, waiting for her to receive him.
“Send him through now, Janice,” she squeaks, coughing quickly to mask it.
Hermione barely as time to straighten her desk (why, though?) and smooth out her hair and skirt before he’s sauntering through the door in tight tartan pants and a beat-up army jacket covered in safety pins, like he’s a long-lost member of some seventies punk band.
When he grins at her, she’s sure she’s thinking of him entirely too loudly.
He looks… different from the last time she saw him. Funding to her department didn’t allow her to visit the imprisoned werewolves more than once a year, if that. She shouldn’t be surprised — she’s seen what time served in Azkaban can do to a person. Not that he was a prize to behold the first time she saw him, even if he did smirk at her like he thought he was; the war did a number on everyone.
He’s freshly showered, his long black hair that’s now shot through with scant streaks of silver has been hacked off. He’s clean, though marred by bruises and tiny cuts nicked along the square line of his jaw where he must have shaved before arriving. There’s something about his eyes, though — bright and blue and alert, with a depth of something so mysterious that Hermione can’t help but be drawn in by them.
“Miss Granger?” he says, his hoarse voice tempered by an underlying silkiness. He looks amused when she finally focuses. “Are you all right?”
It takes a moment before she realises she’s staring. Her face flushes over, and she’s sure she looks the very picture of a besotted schoolgirl. “Quite,” she replies, shaking her head. “And yourself?”
His lips split into a grin, revealing rows of teeth that she’s surprised to see are still as white and gleaming as ever. “I’m wonderful now, Rosie.”
She inhales sharply at the nickname and feels a bloom of red flush her cheeks. “Miss Granger, if you don’t mind,” she reminds him primly.
“I’ve waited entirely too long to settle for calling you that, Rosie. I told you we would meet again.” He flicks a hand about her office. “Outside of my cosy cell, obviously.”
“Please,” she whispers, for him to stop or keep going, she has no idea.
“You are so pure,” he murmurs. He reaches over her desk and tucks back a loose curl, and shudders when his fingers graze the skin of her cheek. “I wonder what it tastes like.”
She coughs, as though it can disguise the shiver that runs through her. When he bares his teeth again in a slow, smug grin, she knows she is unsuccessful.
“So,” she says, in a voice far too high to be her own. “For the record, your name is…?”
He chuckles and leans back in his seat. “Scabior.”
She narrows her eyes. “Scabior… what?”
“Just Scabior.” He waves a hand. “Like Cher.”
“Of course.” She sighs and rubs at her eyes behind her glasses. “Age?”
He grins. “Forty-one.”
She makes a note. “How long have you lived with Lycanthropy?”
His grin widens. “How long is a piece of string?”
She shoots him the same glare that always makes Harry pale like he’s seen Voldemort reborn, but it doesn’t have any effect. “A real answer, if you please.”
Scabior chuckles, like he’s never heard anything so adorable. “I was thirty-two when I got bit.” He shrugs, like it’s no big deal. “Can hardly remember what life was like before that.”
“How are your transformations, usually?”
“Painful as fuck. Love, do you always asks such asinine questions?”
She ignores him. “Occupation?”
“Unemployed vagrant.”
She narrows her eyes at him. “Prior to imprisonment?”
“I’ve had a criminal record as long as old Dumbledore’s beard since I got out of Hogwarts. So, no, I’ve no former occupation to return to.”
She meets the deep-blue of his eyes again, her lips pursed. “Any plans for the future?”
He gives her a deliberate once-over with his eyes and licks his lips. “A few, yes.”
“As in?”
“My plans aren’t for your delicate ears quite just yet, Rosie.”
Hermione slaps her quill down and snaps, “I am trying to help you! Scabior, please, please, would you take this seriously?”
Scabior raises his hands in a gesture of surrender. “As a heart attack, I swear.”
“Thank you.” She huffs. “Now, education?”
“Hogwarts, love, but you already knew that.”
“Special skills?”
His gaze turns into a smoulder, and she swears she can see the glint of gold in his eyes. “I have some very special skills, Rosie.”
“Would you stop calling me that?” she splutters. “I am a grown woman.”
“Oh, I very much hope so,” he purrs.
“Stop that!” she snaps. “You cannot just parade in here, speaking like… that…”
“Like what?” He bats his eyelashes, all innocence and light.
“You know exactly what I mean,” she hisses. “Just… why?”
His face takes on a serious mien as he leans forward, resting his elbows on knees. “I think you know why.”
Somewhere, deep down, she does, but she can hardly understand it. Why does she react to him the way she does; why did she feel so heartbroken when he handed her, Harry and Ron over, even back then; why she can’t even seem to see straight when they share a room?
Why, above all, does he make her feel this way?
He clears his throat, the sound a buzz-saw slicing through her thoughts. “Love? Can I be frank with you?”
Hermione makes a choked sort of sound from the back of her throat. “I didn’t realise you were holding back.”
He clears his throat and goes on as though she hasn’t spoken, “You’re my mate —”
“Oh, no,” she mutters.
“— and despite all the… unpleasantness — for which I’m very sorry, by the way — I’d very much like a chance —”
“— Oh, God —”
“— with you.
She could cut the ensuing silence with a hot knife, she’s sure. She shakes her head and asks,
“Are you absolutely certain?”
He quirks a brow. “I’ve had a good long while to ponder the notion, darling, as have you, whether you wanted to or not. So yes, I’m fairly certain.”
“Why me?”
“Why anyone?” He stands and moves around to her side of the desk, licking a trail around his lips with the tip of his pink tongue. “You can’t tell me you feel nothing, love. That’s not how this mates business works.”
“And how does it work, exactly?” she snaps, though she can’t hide the curiosity from her tone. The lore surrounding the process and aftermath of werewolf mating had always been shrouded in secrecy. No text offered anything more than folktale, and no mated pair she had ever come across in her time at the Magical Creatures department was forthcoming with details.
His eyes gleam at the invitation, everything about his face and body is laced with a suggestion that heats her from the inside out.
“It means we fuck,” he says, his eyes lidded, his voice thick like honey as he drifts further forward. “It means my mark on that lovely, creamy neck of yours. It means you and me, from here on out. Forever. It means never being lonely, never feeling unsafe. Feeling loved to the end of days. It’s perfection, Hermione, for the both of us, in its most primal form.”
She swallows. “It’s wrong,” she croaks, even though some other part of her brain that is both highly rational and highly stupid screams at her that it isn’t.
“Oh, no, love,” he speaks in a whisper of breath, warm on her lips. “Nothing has ever been, or ever will be, so right.”
He remains perfectly still, refusing to be the one to close the scant distance between them.
It would be extremely ill-advised. In fact, Hermione is certain that inching forward to claim those incredibly soft-looking lips with her own would violate several key tenants of her department, not to mention her own personal rules.
On the other hand, though, she considers, werewolves have a legal right to their mates. It was one of the more archaic laws she had once attempted to abolish, to which she had garnered very little support. A werewolf mate, she learned, is a powerful factor in any werewolf’s life, bringing with them, depending on the nature of the relationship or lack thereof, peace, happiness, rage or even death. A refusal to acknowledge the bond on either side of the partnership could drive the wolf insane. Plus, no one can find it within themselves to argue with the notion of fated pairs. Hermione saw Professor Lupin with Tonks, and she couldn’t deny that they had been meant for each other.
Still, Scabior watches her with those piercing blue eyes. She knows, if she is his mate, his waiting for her isn’t just his way of making her comfortable, but part of something greater, still. For her to make the first move means acceptance of the wolf within him, something she knows holds an even greater significance in werewolf lore than marriage: the first step to sealing the bond.
She can’t deny feeling the way she does about him. She’s lost count of the number of times in the past year alone that she’s brought herself to orgasm with just her fingers with the image of him in mind. The first time she pictured Scabior, teeth bared, moving his mouth over her neck, she’d come harder than she ever had in thirty seconds flat. And it’s not even just the physical; he’s proven himself to be shrewdly clever in a way she can’t help but find attractive, too. She just can’t get her mind off any part of him.
So, really, it makes all the sense in the world. Before Hermione can second-guess herself, she loses the last few inches between them and presses a soft, chaste kiss to his unfairly pillowy lips, holding there for one heartbeat, two, three, before pulling away.
“Oh, love,” he murmurs, his eyes dancing with mischief, “I think you can do better than that.”
Her hackles rise at the challenge. He looks like he’s about to laugh when she seizes the lapels of his coat and hauls his lips back to hers. She takes advantage of his surprised laugh to slip her tongue between his lips, to dance along with his, to let him know her need, her desire of him. The kiss is all hers, Scabior allowing her control at every turn, and every inch of her screams how very right their closeness is.
She hasn’t kissed many men in her time, but she’s kissed enough to know it’s never felt quite like this.
His hands cup her face, his thumbs stroking over her cheekbones in soft flutters, before wresting that control from her. He pulls away with a sigh, satisfaction written all over his face.
He smiles at her, his eyes a molten gold in the waning light of her office. “Was that so difficult, Rosie?”
“I… no.”
He laughs and presses forward again, kissing the tip of her nose. “We kissed away all your smarts.”
She scowls at him. “Give me a moment, would you?”
“You don’t get kissed very often, do you?”
“Given your nature,” she reminds him sardonically, “I would have thought you would think that a good thing.”
“Oh, I do,” he agrees, bending to rest his forehead in the crook of her neck. He licks over the skin joining her neck and shoulder, nipping and nibbling along the way, a taste of what’s to come now that she’s all but agreed to go on this journey with him. “I just wanted to warn you.”
Hermione sighs and angles her head to the side. “Warn me about what?”
Scabior looks up at her and grins, revealing up-close teeth quite a bit pointier than hers. “I plan to kiss you stupid every day for the rest of our lives, love.”
She quirks a brow at him. “The rest of our lives?”
“You are mine, Hermione,” he growls into her neck, nipping her pulse in rebuke. “Will that be a problem?”
It should be. She’s a smart, wholly independent woman with the world at her feet. She doesn’t now, and won’t ever, belong to anyone.
So why does Scabior’s declaration cause the most delicious shiver to run through her, like it’s the only thing she could ever want?
“You’re mine, too,” she ventures as she moves her lips over his again, delighting in the low rumble in his chest. “It’s only fair, if I’m yours…”
He winds his arms around her back and pulls her out of her chair, holding her tight against him. She can hear his breathing even out, his beating heart slowing to a steady, calming thump against her ear.
“Forever and ever, Rosie.”