Chapter Text
Heiress Genevieve Prewett clenched her teeth and desperately attempted to control her breathing. It was nearly impossible given her current circumstances.
An eerie howl rang through the forest. She swallowed a whimper before it could betray her.
If Genevieve loosed a single sound, the Turned werewolf would assuredly uncover her location. If its sense of smell was as superior as a Lycaon, it would have already tracked her to where she huddled between the roots of an enormous tree. Undoubtedly, she would be dead in a matter of moments if it mauled her again.
Agony radiated through her body.
Her eyes burned with miserable, stinging tears at the sight of her own blood, such a vivid color that it stained her eggshell-cream skirts something horrid. It was a shade darker than her own hair, but the sight of it and the pungent metallic tang of it made her want to retch. The hem of her cloak was drenched in blood.
Mother Magic, keep me safe, Genevieve prayed.
Surely, even with its inferior senses, the beast would scent her any second now, no matter how she tried to staunch the bleeding on her prone leg. Even at her halest, she would not have been able to flee from the Cursed creature. Now, after it had shredded nearly half the skin and muscle on her right ankle with its filthy claws? It was outside the realm of possibility.
A sickening crunch of leaves sounded behind Genevieve, like Death come to visit before Its time.
Her heartbeat quickened at the cackling howl that pierced through the first rays of dawn. It was spine-chilling. In her terror, she had lost her wand. Without it, she had only her hands and skirts to staunch the bleeding. It was insufficient. At this rate, Genevieve was Fated to die in agony.
She did not want to die.
Genevieve squeezed her eyes shut and sobbed in silence, for her mother, for her older sister and her younger brothers at home, for her father who had always protected her so fiercely whilst he lived, for her grandmother who would be terrified, wondering why she had not returned from collecting herbs beneath the waning light of the full moon.
I love you. Forgive me, she sent down her familial bonds before ruthlessly closing them, that her loved ones might not feel her inevitable death.
The sharp rocks surrounding her were all she had as weapons, crude as they were. The athame she used to harvest herbs was, to the best of her knowledge, still firmly embedded in the creature’s shoulder. Even as she prepared to battle it—a final, desperate struggle—Genevieve knew it would amount to nothing in the end.
Yet, she was a Prewett. She refused to surrender without a fight.
Her heartbeat echoed like the thundering hooves of a horse in her ears.
Just as the horrific snarl edged close enough that Genevieve could smell its fetid breath, a hunting horn sounded in the distance. She glanced up in shock, barely daring to hope.
An enchanted arrow whipped past Genevieve, sending the loose tendrils of her curly updo flying.
The howl of agony that rang through the forest sent chills down her spine. She shuddered.
"Are you all right, Heiress Prewett?" a gentleman in the Black family livery asked as he dismounted an ebony stallion that was seventeen hands at minimum.
His eyes were dark gray. His hair was as black as a raven's wing. His magic radiated authority and protection and, selfishly, she wished to swaddle herself with it. Genevieve was certain she and the wizard were acquainted, and yet ... she could not recall his name. Regardless, she felt safe in his presence.
There must not be a proper chaperone in leagues. She was injured and bleeding into the tattered leaf litter on the ground, and still ... still, with him at her side, Genevieve knew no harm could befall her.
Even as his name slipped from her grasp as the mists of The Misty Isles swirled about her, she knew enough. This pureblood wizard was a son of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. He would never—could never—harm her.
"No," Genevieve replied, for she was ever honest, as her grandmother had taught her. “I fear I am not.”
Prewetts spoke true. Always.
Heir Theros Black’s gaze fell darkly on the wretched Turned werewolf’s corpse, pierced through with his enchanted arrow. The creature behind her explained her injured state, an indignity no pureblood witch should ever have to suffer.
“The creature is felled,” he assured her.
It was galling that such an assault occurred on the Black family’s estate. It was unforgivable that Heiress Prewett had come to harm in the Black Forest.
As always, she was as beautiful as a woodland fae, an enchanting little thing with curious bay eyes and dusklight-red hair.
She shifted against the roots of the tree and then whimpered, a sound Theros never desired to hear again. The blood-soaked hem of her skirts and cloak wounded his heart. To learn that the pureblood witch he intended to court was viciously assaulted within his family’s ancestral wards— He could not bear to think of it or his mind would splinter.
“I am most grateful for your timely assistance,” she rasped.
It was a gentleman's duty to attend to anyone who had been so terribly harmed whilst on their land.
“May I have your leave to tend to your injury, Heiress Prewett? I give you my word of honor that I shall guard your modesty to the utmost possible degree whilst attending to you.”
Theros looked to her for approval after drawing his wand, not wanting to frighten her further, and, after she gave him a tearful nod, he cast what healing spells he knew. He would do everything within his not inconsiderable power to ensure she survived this day. Theros could not bear to lose her.
"Might I know who my rescuer is?" she whispered, clearly weakened but desperate to maintain her composure.
Theros’s magic stilled. She did not recognize him? The immediacy of her blood loss and pain must be more intense than he speculated.
He noted the glazed look in her eyes, almost as if she were under an Imperius Curse. Her skin was pallid. Of course, she did not recognize him. She would not know a Malfoy from a moonbeam in this state.
"I am Heir Theros Black, my lady."
She offered her hand, somehow, though it shook in her blood-drained state. "H-Heiress Genevieve Prewe—"
She fainted before finishing, and Theros lurched forward. He cradled the back of her head in his palm, preventing her head from colliding with the tree, and prayed she would forgive him for the impropriety of touching her hair, even with a glove. She was a maiden of the main bloodline of the Proficient and Most Ancient House of Prewett, deserving of every courtesy.
If she had died on their land … Merlin, he could not allow himself to pontificate on the matter without risking his sanity.
Hooves thundered through the forest toward him, the rest of his hunting party, which he had abandoned upon the wards notifying him of a Turned werewolf attacking someone in the Black Forest.
Theros gently lifted her into his arms, mindful of his hands that he might not inadvertently break his vow to her. She required a Healer with all haste. Her safety was of paramount importance. This pureblood witch in his arms was the one with whom he desired to twine his soul. Mother Magic willing, his future lady-wife.
“Theros, what has occurred? You fled like an army of Inferi were after you, my friend!” Heir Eadred Potter called.
“A most egregious crime has occurred,” Theros stated. He threw a disgusted glance at the Turned werewolf’s corpse behind the tree where Genevieve had been sheltering. “This Cursed creature attacked and wounded Heiress Prewett.”
His fellows gazed upon it with equal disdain. Eadred, in particular, who knew of Theros’s feelings for Heiress Prewett, appeared enraged once it entered his line of sight.
“Unforgivable.”
“Outrageous.”
“The wretched beast brought its demise upon itself!”
"Cathan,” Theros ordered his Vassal, “follow its tracks and discover how it managed to get past the wards. Then report to me your findings.”
“At once, Theros,” Mister Cathan Camborne replied.
“Acquire the head for me, Eadred, if you would be so kind. Heiress Prewett might require proof of its demise to calm her when she awakens."
“I shall see to it myself, Theros,” Eadred swore.
Instructions given, Theros left his stallion and hunting party behind and Disapparated to Castle Noir. She was a warm weight in his arms, soft and comforting, yet he could not enjoy it on account of her injury. This was entirely unlike the few times he led her in a cotillion at the Midsummer Ball.
“Master, what’s being—?”
“Prepare a chamber for Heiress Prewett and send for Healer Smythewick immediately,” Theros ordered the house-elf, praying he was not too late.
Mother Magic, I beg You, do not take her from me.
Genevieve awoke in a magnificent bedchamber.
Polished ebony furniture, engraved with Ancient Runes, was shadowed by the setting sun through the picturesque windows. A flare of dusky red lit the silver duvet, shimmering as if it were a living flame. She caressed the healing runes that were embroidered on it in unicorn hair.
It was a sumptuous splendor whose equal she had never seen.
For all that Genevieve's lineage was Most Ancient, her House did not possess the same level of wealth and comforts that some of the others enjoyed. Her grandfather’s godbrother—who, unfortunately, had his entire trust, misplaced as it was—squandered a sizable portion of the estate with his inept attempts at management before being caught.
Things were only now recovering.
Genevieve startled, a hand pressed to her chest, as a house-elf popped into the bedchamber. The loudness was a courtesy to her as a guest, but, after the deranged howling in the forest, she feared that loud noises would startle her for months to come.
If family magic not her own were not wrapped around her protectively, lessening her fear, she would have assuredly fallen from the bed with fright.
"Is there anything Dottie can be doing for Heiress Prewett?" a house-elf with overly large green eyes asked.
"Am I to understand that I am in attendance at ... Castle Noir?" Genevieve asked.
For where else would Heir Theros Black offer her succor?
"Yes, Heiress Prewett."
Genevieve hid her face in her hands and felt the heat of her cheeks against her palms as a blush raged beneath her fair skin. Heir Black must have carried her to the castle in his arms. It was incredibly intimate and … embarrassing. She was a Prewett; she could not believe she had fainted as if she were a pureblood witch of no mettle.
She lowered her hands to her lap and clutched them together to prevent them from trembling unbecomingly. “Has my wand been recovered?” Even as she asked the question, she could not help but wonder how a single piece of wood would be discovered in an entire forest.
Dottie wrung her hands. “We was not knowing it was being missing. Dottie will be making sure the young master knows.”
Genevieve flipped off the covers to inspect her leg and cringed at the jagged scars that traversed from her once blemish-free ankle up onto her shin. She bit her lip. “It is ghastly,” she rasped.
Wounds caused by werewolf claws always scarred, yet— Morgana, it was more hideous than she had feared.
“Healer Smythewick was doing the best they could,” Dottie said. “It is being safe for Heiress Prewett to use, but—”
“Nothing could be done about the scars.”
“No,” Dottie agreed, wringing her hands harder, her large eyes wet with tears.
No one will accept a scarred Heiress of middling fortune for a bride, she thought, a well of bitterness overflowing within her. Not even Theros, whom she only dared to address so familiarly in her mind, who had given her every indication of intending to offer her a courtship following her coming-of-age gala some months hence.
Now, she could not even offer her own beauty as recompense for the vast difference in their familial wealth.
Genevieve cringed at the sight of the scars, ropey and red and twisted, a mockery of macabre embroidery. Why should she be punished so cruelly for doing her filial duty and visiting the Black estate to gather herbs for potions for her ailing grandmother, which the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black so generously allowed? Why her, of all the people who traveled through the Black Forest every day?
“Heiress Prewett?” Dottie asked. “Can Dottie be helping in any way?”
"Please inform Heir Black of my missing wand if you would, Dottie, and then I shall call for you when I require your assistance again."
“At once, Heiress Prewett!”
There was another pop, this one much quieter and less frightening, and Dottie was gone, leaving Genevieve the privacy to grieve a future that was closed to her forever.