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The whispers were beginning again.
This wasn’t necessarily unusual. Every year it seemed, Rey heard whispers about witches. A farmer had a failed crop? Must be a witch. A babe was stillborn? Must be a witch. A husband had taken a fancy to the younger, prettier daughter of his neighbor instead of his beleaguered wife? Well, obviously she must be a witch to have so thoroughly entranced him.
Such murmurings and gossip was so common an occurrence that it had become akin to the quiet din of a babbling brook. Easily Ignored. Easily dismissed.
Until now.
Because for the last few days…she’d begun to notice those whispers directed…at her.
And that was dangerous.
Because Rey is a witch.
Not the kind she heard spoken of in the church pews and gossip circles though—the ones who supposedly danced with Satan around a fire and flew naked on broomsticks—no. She was a far less exciting kind of witch. The kind who delivered babes and made sure the mother survived the ordeal. The kind who brewed medicines and potions to heal all manner of maladies. And if she used a little magic to ensure her success in those endeavors…well. It wasn’t as if she was hurting anyone.
Not that the other villagers would see it that way.
She could leave town of course. Move away to another village where people were none the wiser. But this was her home. The place she’d been born. Where her family was buried. Where her magic was strongest. Leaving felt…wrong. And starting over would be difficult. Almost impossible really, as a woman with no husband or family to vouch for her.
She needed a plan.
She needed protection.
Or…a protector.
·☾·
The solution came to her almost like a gift from the heavens.
It was late when she saw him. Few wandered into the woods this late. But Rey was running low on certain herbs and it was safer for her to look for them in the dark when no one else was around. It was in the cold and damp, stumbling about in the dark and the mud and squinting at plants—was that pennyroyal or just another weed?—when she saw something out of the corner of her eye.
At first she wasn’t quite sure what she was seeing. A shadowed figure on the hill. A man? A beast? It turned toward her, its face revealed in the light of the moon and Rey faltered. She recognized that noble-pale skin and sable hair. That tall, powerful build. That frowning countenance.
What in Heaven’s name was Lord Solo doing alone out in the woods this late?
And… naked?
She nearly spoke. Almost called out his name in surprise. But whatever Rey would’ve said to him lodged in the back of her throat when she saw…when…
He… changed.
She saw a queer, horrifying ripple of skin. Joints shifting in what could only be the most painful of ways. The sudden and alarming growth of night-black hair that blanketed his entire body like a cloak.
Lord Solo was…
He was a…!
Growing up, Rey had heard stories of monsters who hunted in the moonlight and dragged children from their beds, all while wearing the faces of men in the light of day. Tall tales spun for her by older village children, eager to share their ‘wisdom’.
“Such nonsense,” her grandmother had told her afterwards. “They’re no more monsters than the creatures of the wood are. Is a wolf a monster simply because it feels hunger? There are those who would call us monsters, my dear.”
“But I’m not a monster!” Rey had cried indignantly, still young and naive to the ugliness of man.
“Of course you’re not,” her grandmother had agreed. “Which is why you should not pay any mind to the ravings of the ignorant. They fear what they do not understand.”
It was a lesson Rey had taken to heart.
But now, seeing a werewolf with her own eyes, she stood frozen in fear. A strange mixture of horrified awe locking her limbs and rooting her into place like an old oak. But the creature— Lord Solo , she thought in a daze—took no notice of her. Perhaps she was downwind or perhaps he simply had no interest in her. Either way she found herself watching as he trotted away and was swallowed into the gloom. As if the darkness were welcoming one of its own back into the fold.
Eventually she found the strength and will to slink away, herbs entirely forgotten in her rush towards the dilapidated hut at the edge of the forest that she called home.
Lord Solo was a werewolf.
Lord Solo was a werewolf!
Never in a thousand years would she have believed such a thing. Like so many in the village Rey had seen the previous lord and his son numerous times growing up. Whether to hear the grievances of their serfs or to collect their annual taxes, the two were a common enough sight to all who lived in the village outside their estate.
Lord Han had been a good lord. Gruff but fair. Always coming down to the village to drink with the common folk and race with the men in the summers.
His son though…Benjamin Solo…he was nothing like his father. Rey remembered seeing him when he was still a young man, sullen and awkward next to his father as he spoke to the tax collector. Clearly desperate to be away from the muddy common people his father so preferred. She heard tell that his mother was a princess—though why a princess had married a lesser lord out in the back country was anyone’s guess—which would certainly explain his aversion to anything below his station.
After Lord Han had died, she saw the new lord less often. Without his father there to strong-arm him into visiting, he seemed content to send his steward to speak to the villagers in his stead. Only during holy days did anyone see their lord, when he came to the church to pray and sit for mass under the benevolent gaze of his uncle, Father Luke.
Had he been hiding all this time because of his…affliction?
Rey felt a strange pang of sympathy for that sullen boy she’d watched as a girl. Perhaps he had been desperate to stay away from the people because of, not who he was, but what he was?
She could certainly relate.
A thought occurred to her then.
A wild thought. An impossible thought. An intriguing thought. It buzzed about her head like a fly. Whispering things to her.
Lord Solo was in just as precarious of a position as she. He may have a title and more wealth than she could possibly imagine…but if anyone discovered his true nature…he would face the pyre, same as she.
But there was one thing all that wealth and title could buy...silence.
There were rumors about her, just petty gossip and whispers. But whispers could grow into something more. Something dangerous. She had no one to protect her. No father to stifle such rumors. No husband to plead her case and defend her…unless…
Unless she married.
She had never dared consider marriage before. Rey, unlike so many of her peers, had never been pushed toward matrimony. Her parents had died long before they could have ever thought to sell her off to the highest bidder. Her grandmother had been more than content to raise her only grandchild up on the ways of herbcraft and healing over those of married life and motherhood.
But she was alone now.
And lone women were rarely looked upon kindly.
Oh she still saw plenty of business from the many womenfolk of the village. Still sold them their pennyroyal tea and love charms upon request. But it was hard to please everyone. And when some people didn’t get what they wanted…they lashed out.
“My sister told me the charm she sold her broke!” Rey had caught Lizzie whispering to her friend at the butcher’s.
“An ill omen!” The other girl had cried, glancing at Rey.
Such encounters had only grown more frequent as of late. But they were the easiest to deal with. The worst a silly girl could do was whisper gossip behind her back. Other incidents though…those were harder to manage.
“Get out!” Her patient had screamed when her babe had been pulled from her womb, lifeless and pale. “Witch! You killed him!”
Rey had only narrowly escaped from that home, the woman’s husband enraged at the loss of another precious son. Of course it was not Rey’s fault that their child had died. Truly, she had done her best for them. Even whispered a few beseeching words to Mother Earth, begging her for a safe delivery. But the child, like every child born to that couple, had died long before he had ever taken his first breath.
She did not know how many more dead babes it would take before the entire village finally turned on her.
A husband wouldn’t stop the gossip…but one would be able to protect her from the worst of it. A dutiful married woman made for a less vulnerable target than the orphaned spinster who lived at the edge of the old wood.
But… a lords’ wife?
Well…no one would ever dare speak against the lady of the land.
Now the question was…how to break the news to her liege lord.
Rey did not for a moment believe that Lord Solo, the sullen, scowling man she had seen growing up, would be interested in marriage to her. Lords did not marry peasants. It simply wasn’t done. But if that lord was a secret werewolf…
It would be a risk, blackmail. A great risk. She could just as easily find herself hanged for such insolence as raised to a status normally unreachable to those like her.
But what other choice did she have? What choice did he?
Well, she thought with bitter humor. Better the noose than the pyre.
·☾·
It was shockingly easy to sneak into the keep.
Tiny women with baskets of herbs were, apparently, not considered much of a threat. All Rey had had to claim was that she had been called upon to tend to the ailing cook—who had caught a chill, or so she’d heard from one of the women who still came to her for potions—and she was swiftly ushered inside without further fanfare. Unsurprisingly, the cook did not turn away her help. He, in fact, was most grateful for her tonic and tea—laced with a bit of magic of course—and fell asleep in his bed long before she left the kitchens and went looking for her real quarry.
Unfortunately for her, Lord Solo proved far more difficult to locate.
The keep was a maze. A veritable labyrinth of cramped hallways and endless rooms. So many rooms! Why did any one man need so many damn rooms? Surely he didn’t sleep in all of them?
In the end, she found him not through her excellent tracking skills or magical know-how, but by sheer dumb luck.
A scullery maid is who did it. As Rey rounded the corner—of yet another winding hallway—she spied a woman at the end of the hall. A woman she recognized .
“I thank you!” She’d told Rey when she’d brewed a tonic to prevent the maid’s husband’s seed from taking root. “My children are a blessing. Don’t you think they aren’t! But there’s only so many blessings one woman can feed!”
Rey fought down a rising sense of panic as she glanced around for a hiding place. That woman knew Rey’s face, of that she was sure. She couldn’t risk being discovered. Being recognized. Too much rode on this insane plan of hers. Praying to whatever gods were listening, she ducked into the nearest door and quickly shut it behind her. She leaned against it, an ear to the heavy wood, waiting for the woman’s footsteps to fade to the other end of the corridor.
“Who are you?”
Rey jolted. A sliver of dread pierced her heart. She recognized that voice. Had heard it the night before when he cried out during the pain of his transformation. She turned. Slowly. Cautiously. Her eyes caught on a fine dark velvet tunic and expensive leather boots. She dragged her gaze up.
And there, in the flesh, was Lord Benjamin Lukas Solo.
He’s so tall…, she thought as he loomed over her like a dark specter. His face was close enough that she could see the flecks of gold in his eyes. The constellations of moles scattered there. His lips set in a deep frown, clearly unhappy to find some strange, common girl had invaded his home.
She swallowed.
“Speak.” He said, his voice deep and rich. A strangely musical quality to it. A voice at once demanding and accustomed to being obeyed.
“I…” Her words were gone. The carefully practiced speech she’d memorized in her head now nothing but wisps of smoke.
This hadn’t been how she’d imagined this would go. She’d thought–perhaps naively–that she would sneak her way into the castle and surprise the lord with her perfectly logical plan to save both their skins–though, admittedly, mostly hers. Instead she had found herself the one caught on the back foot, as it were, staring up into the predatory gaze of a man who very much could see her dead in an instant. One way or another.
“If you don’t tell me this instant who you are and why you’re here I will summon the guards and have you thrown in the dungeon.”
She panicked.
“Y-you’re a werewolf!”
Rey wished to snatch the words back—stuff them down deep where no one could hear them. But, of course, he had heard. He’s a werewolf you fool!
Lord Solo was not happy.
The look he gave her chilled her to the bone. Golden eyes, a predator’s eyes, bored into hers and she felt her heart beat hard and quick, as if ready to leap its way out of her chest.
Quick as a viper, he seized her and hauled her away from the door. Rey yelped with surprise as she was dragged to an armchair by the fire. He shoved her into it, knocking the air from her lungs. Lord Solo loomed over her, fingers digging so hard into the armrests she heard the creak of warping wood.
“Think very carefully about your next words.”
Oh she was. He could be assured of that.
“I know what you are,” she whispered. “I saw you. In the woods last night.”
His jaw clenched.
“I saw you…in the forest…” Naked, she thought, fighting off a blush. “And then…you changed. Into a…creature. A black wolf.”
“You are mistaken.” He spoke quickly. Too quickly. A more obvious lie Rey had never heard. There was fear in his eyes. He was terrifying, yes, but he was also terrified. Rey knew that cornered animals were always at their most dangerous.
Best step lightly, she thought.
“Am I?” She said, pitching her voice low. Soft and fragile. The voice of a helpless maiden who was no threat at all.
That scowl of his, if possible, deepened. “You are.”
“But you see,” she said in that syrupy sweet voice, “I don’t think that I am my Lord. We have something in common, you and I.”
His eyes sharpened and he leaned in, inhaling loudly. Was he…was he smelling her? Suddenly she felt self-conscious. Did she stink? But she had only just washed this morning!
“What are you doing?”
Lord Solo looked at her with narrowed eyes. “You don’t smell like a werewolf…”
Rey blinked.
He thought…oh!
“I’m not.” She said quickly.
He frowned. “Then why…?”
“I only meant that we…both wish to avoid the pyre.”
It was a gamble. The greatest gamble she had ever made in her too-short life. To even hint at her true nature was enough to have her dragged through the street and set ablaze. And she was trusting a man who was all but a stranger to her. She had to believe that his self-preservation instincts were as robust as her own.
He stared at her. Really stared at her. A wolf sizing up something he’d thought prey only for it to fight back with tooth and claw. He leaned back, just a bit, his face thoughtful.
“Speak plainly, girl.”
“ You turn into a monstrous beast that eats children,” she said with a wry twist to her lips. “ I cavort with the devil and dance naked around a fire. Or so Lizzie has been telling everyone at market for the last fortnight.”
She wondered again how many of those stories about him were true and how many were just baseless gossip like the ones told about her.
“You’re…a witch?” He sounded, not as disgusted or horrified as she would have expected, but…pensive. Even curious.
Cautiously, hopefully, she pressed forward. It was the biggest gamble she’d ever made and the stakes were her life.
“Yes.” A whisper.
Rey had never spoken it aloud before. It was far too dangerous to speak of such things openly. Even when her grandmother had been alive, they had spoken of their kind in veiled language. Speaking without speaking. Sharing knowledge without drawing attention to its source.
“I know your fear, My Lord, because I share it too.” She took a risk and laid her hand over his own. Lightly, just enough to feel the warmth of his skin under hers. “We could help each other.”
He took in the sight of their hands together. One over the other. The tanned skin of a peasant over the moon-pale skin of a noble.
“And how exactly,” he began gruffly, suspiciously, “Do you intend we do that?”
Rey took a deep breath. It was now or never. It was this or taking her chances on the road. In the woods. Anywhere but the pyre.
“I want you to marry me.”
He stared. Clearly, whatever he had been expecting, it wasn’t that.
“Is…is this a jest?” He asked. He seemed…confused. Rey frowned. Well, skepticism was better than malice.
“I assure you, My Lord, I do not make jests about my life…or yours.”
“So,” he said with a mixture of baffled shock and complete disbelief, “You just thought you’d…what? Sneak into my home, accost your liege lord, and then blackmail me into marrying you?”
Rey shrugged. What could she say? He wasn’t wrong.
“You are…a fool,” Lord Solo laughed, incredulous. “You cannot honestly believe that I could do such a thing. You’re a—”
“A peasant?” She finished for him. “A filthy commoner?”
His smile was as condescending as it was wry.
“I confess, I am all those things My Lord,” Rey conceded with another shrug. But then she looked him in the eye, refusing to look away. “But I am also a witch. A witch who knows your secret. Perhaps I’ll go to Father Luke and tell him what I saw in the forest last night…”
She heard the creaking of her chair again and glanced down to see his fingers had gone bone-white. Lord Solo leaned closer, breath hot on her face.
“Or I could just kill you.”
She swallowed. Heart hammering a frantic drumbeat against her ribs.
“You could,” Rey agreed, sounding calmer and more self-assured than she felt. “So why don’t you?”
It was, quite possibly, the most audacious thing she’d done so far. Goading a werewolf—her liege lord! But there was no other plan if this one failed. Rey was well and truly out of options. Better she die here and now—a quick death—than set ablaze in the village square for the entertainment of her peers.
He reeled back as if struck.
“What?” He sounded…confused.
She saw the opening and took it.
“You shouldn’t make threats you don’t intend to follow through with,” Rey chastised. “Are you going to kill me or not? I only ask that you make it quick.”
Lord Solo looked ill.
Rey pressed her advantage, looking into those wide, golden eyes, her gaze unrelenting. “Don’t let me suffer My Lord.”
“I…” he replied, his voice wavering. He stepped back, then again, nearly stumbling into the mantle over the fireplace.
“Well?” Rey felt…strangely heady. Was this how lords felt all the time? No wonder they were all so bossy.
“Fine.”
Now it was Rey’s turn to startle. She blinked.
“Err…what?”
“I said fine.” Lord Solo bared his teeth in an animal grimace. As if the words were being forced from his throat. And then, almost to himself, “My advisors will be furious.”
Rey shrugged, too awash in relief to care what his advisors thought. “You’re lord of this land. You can do whatever you want.”
There was that condescending smile again, as if she had said something particularly ignorant.
“A peasant would say that.”
“A peasant you’re about to marry,” Rey smirked.
Lord Solo huffed, eyes drifting up toward the heavens.
“Lord save me.”
And Rey, still riding high on her victory, got in the last word.
“Not a Lord, but you’re most welcome.”
·☾·
They were married on a miserably rainy day the following week.
Lord Solo had no parents to attend his wedding—or that’s what Rey assumed when there was no sign of anyone other than a sneering ginger-haired steward to act as witness as the two bound themselves together in matrimony under the suspicious eyes of Father Luke.
Several times she caught the two men glancing at her waist. Clearly, Lord Solo had spun some tale about a secret pregnancy to hasten things along. Certainly there could be no other reason for a rich nobleman to marry a penniless peasant. Rey did nothing to dissuade either of them from their assumptions. Whatever helped draw attention away from any rumors of the real reason for their rushed nuptials.
There was no celebration for their wedding. No feasting or days of merriment. Nor, she found out quickly, would there be an official bedding. It seemed—what with Rey’s ‘condition’—that she would not be expected to perform her wifely duties just yet. After all, proof of the ‘consummation’ of their union was growing in her belly…or so she continued to allow everyone to believe.
She rarely saw her new husband in the days that followed. Lord Solo, it seemed, was desperate to continue living his life as he always had.
Alone.
Not that she was particularly aggrieved by this. She soon found herself busy enough to distract from her absent husband, Her new station bringing with it a whole new set of expectations and rules that she hadn’t thought to imagine when she’d come up with this hare-brained scheme.
Every day she was expected to consult with the cook over the menu, oversee the castle staff, and the overall running of the keep. It seemed, she thought, that noble ladies did a lot more than just sit around in their castles growing babies. Most such work she was happy to do, eager to fill her new leisurely life with purpose. But one duty, she discovered, was not so easily shouldered.
“What is this?” Rey asked curiously as she opened a large tome that had appeared quite suddenly on her desk one morning.
The steward, a young man with red hair and a perpetually pinched expression on his face, smiled with contempt.
“The castle finances my Lady.” He said those last two words with a sneer.
She ignored him.
“And why is it on my desk?”
His smile grew smug.
“Why, it’s the Lady’s duty to oversee the records of her domain. The running of the household. And one cannot run a household if she does not know how much money is being spent on such expenses.”
Rey realized what he meant immediately and blanched. She had never been taught how to manage a lordly household. Those were the skills expected of a noble-born woman. Not an orphaned peasant who didn’t know how to read or write. Even now, looking down upon the neat script written there, she could not fathom its meaning.
“I…see.”
“Of course, if my lady does not think herself up to the task…”
Rey heard the unspoken words there. A real wife would know these things.
Or , she thought vindictively, he just doesn’t want to continue doing ‘women’s work’.
She smiled at him. Serene and gracious.
“Perhaps I will leave such things to you for now, Armitage. After all, you’ve done such a wonderful job of it for my Lord Solo over these many years. I would hate to interfere with such great work.”
The steward scowled.
“As you wish…my Lady.”
And so it went.
But even household management couldn’t distract Rey from her most pressing issue. One which only grew more obvious with every passing glance out her window at night.
The full moon was drawing closer.
And with it, Lord Solo’s transformation.
It was impossible not to notice it now that she knew. He was more irritable. Snappish. Growling at some servant or advisor over the smallest of things. The fatter and rounder the moon grew, the more ill-tempered and grim he became.
It was clear he was fearful of his coming change. She did not know what it was like, transforming into such a creature. Was it truly so terrible? Rey was a witch. Her magic and power came from the world around her. The earth beneath her feet and the plants that grew there. Nature had gifted her its magic, but Lord Solo’s…his magic came from within himself. Some secret place inside that Rey could only guess at.
Perhaps that was why she felt drawn to him. As different as they and their magic were, they were the only ones who truly understood one another. Understood the isolation the other felt from their fellow man.
It was that awareness that eventually drove her to him. Empathy and, yes, her own loneliness, propelling her from her bed on the night before the full moon in search of him.
She found him drinking before the fire in his chambers. A bottle of wine in one hand, his chin perched precariously upon the fist of the other. There was a hollow look in his eyes as she drew close. A fearful sort of expression set deep into the lines of his face. He seemed…old to her suddenly. Not in age, but in spirit.
“My Lord,” she said carefully. “How do you fare?”
He did not even look up at her arrival. Seemed, in fact, quite unsurprised by her appearance there. Instead, he laughed. A scornful, ugly sound.
“How do you think I’m faring Wife?”
“Not well, I imagine,” she said, not rising to the bait.
He glanced sidelong at her, lips pursed with irritation. “Is that why you came here? To mock me?”
Rey shuffled from foot to foot. “No, I only…is there nothing to be done to make things…easier for you?”
He scoffed.
“Can you cure me?”
Rey looked away uncomfortably.
“That’s what I thought,” he said uncharitably. “What use is a magic wife if she cannot even ease me of my magical burdens?”
“That’s…not how that works.”
“Oh? And, pray tell, how does it work? What does a witch-wife do ? I’ve not seen you cavorting with any devils lately. It seems to me that you are no different from any other wife.”
“My magic isn’t like that,” she insisted. Gods, this was awkward. “It’s… different.” She cringed.
“Better, you mean,” he spat bitterly. “Well. At least one of us does not carry these devilish gifts as a burden. I must say I’m rather envious.”
She frowned. “Surely it’s not all bad…”
“Tell me, my Lady, do you know what happened to my father? Do you know how he died?”
Rey was caught off guard.
“I…heard…a hunting accident…was it not?”
Lord Solo laughed. A dark sound. An ugly sound. Rey felt a queer twist in her stomach, unsure of where this was headed.
“I supposed there is a sort of truth in that.”
Rey shifted uncomfortably. “I…I don’t understand.”
“It was my mother who passed this curse to me,” he said off-handedly, as if this information weren’t rewriting Rey’s entire perception of his family. The…the princess? Really? “She never showed signs of course. Not my perfect mother—the daughter of a queen you know—but her father…my grandfather… he had the beast in him.”
She didn’t speak. Didn’t even think she could as he continued, only stood silent as the grave while a creeping chill grew over her.
“I think perhaps they believed the curse was dead when my mother and uncle were born. They were such perfect children I’ve been told. No one could’ve accused them of being monsters.” He laughed that bitter laugh again and the sound of it cut at her heart until it bled. “And then I was born.”
“My mother…I don’t think she knew what to do with me. She spent her summers in the capital. I hardly saw her. Father was…better. He tried his best. He was always trying to help. A lot like you.”
He glanced over at her. She could see the flicker of the flames in his eyes.
“But my father couldn’t help me. No one can. You ask how my magic works? Well here’s a secret: I am not the wolf. I am its jailor. A vessel. The wolf is inside of me. My father didn’t understand that. That night, he was in the woods when the moon was high in the sky…and the wolf came out. Burst from its cage inside of me to hunt.”
Rey swallowed, as she realized with rising horror where this story was going.
“So, yes, Wife. My father died in a hunting accident. But what you don’t understand is that it was not my father who was hunting that day. It was the wolf.”
“I am the monster they speak of in your village. I am the creature in the night who drags children from their beds and eats its own father’s heart, still hot and pulsing.”
He stared at her with those unfathomable golden predator’s eyes.
“You should fear me.”
“You’re no monster,” Rey insisted, even as she stared back into haunted eyes. The flicker of the flame reflected there. He had never felt like a monster to her. Only a broken and lonely man. Her instincts—her magic—wouldn’t have driven her to his side if he was a danger to her.
Lord Solo sighed and looked away, as if she were a child he had grown tired of indulging.
“A monster wouldn’t have married me.” She continued stubbornly.
“Perhaps I pitied you.”
“Monsters don’t feel pity.”
The look he gave her was weary.
“Perhaps you are a monster on the full moon,” she mused. “And perhaps you do lose yourself entirely those nights…but,” her gaze turned inward. “What if you didn’t have to?”
The look he gave her was one of skepticism…and pain.
“It is not kind to say such things to a condemned man.”
“You’re not condemned...cursed, maybe.”
“Then this ‘curse’,” he spat it like an epithet. “Feels as if I die a little every time the wolf comes out. How many more until I’m truly lost to the monster?”
“Well that’s just it, what if you didn’t have to change at all?” Because that was the problem, she realized. Change. He didn’t need a cure. Just something to stop the change .
“That is the nature of a werewolf. To change.”
“But what if we could change that?” Rey repeated stubbornly. “What if I could help you retain your humanity?”
“No one can cure me.” His tone was dismissive.
“Not a cure,” she said. “But perhaps I can ease the change? Or…delay…maybe even stop it?”
He looked at her in that way she’d seen old men look sometimes. Tired and worn down by so many years of disappointment that they daren’t even hope for better. He thought she was spinning him a fairytale. A fanciful lie to distract him.
But he seemed to have forgotten that she has magic too.
“I appreciate the sentiment, my Lady, but you cannot help me. Not with this.” He sighed. “There is no delaying the wolf.”
“I can try.”
He waved his hand. “By all means my Lady, do as you like.” Those golden eyes held hers.“And know that I will not blame you when you fail,” he promised.
She raised her chin. Rey had never been one to back down from a challenge…even when Lizzie had asked for a love potion, poor thing.
“I’ll do it. You’ll see.”
She swept out of the room leaving him to his melancholy.
·☾·
Lord Solo disappeared from the castle the following night.
Rey did not know where he went when the moon was full—though she could certainly guess—likely back out into the shadowed woods. All she knew was that he appeared the next afternoon looking more haggard than she’d ever seen him.
The sight spurred her into action.
Every night, after the cook and servants had gone to bed, Rey would sneak down to the kitchens to work her magic in secret. She had always had a talent for brewing, her grandmother told her. Knowing exactly the right mixture of herbs to use, the right feelings to imbue into her concoctions to give them power.
But this was the most important brew she’d ever created…this one had to be perfect.
Love charms and tonics to prevent pregnancy were easy. Simple even. Rey could brew those in her sleep. A potion for a werewolf was a much more difficult task. It took her almost the entire month of trial and error to create what she hoped was the correct recipe.
Her magic guided her to use ingredients she never would’ve with any other potion. A flower that only bloomed by the light of the moon. The sap of a tree that had never lost its leaves. And, most embarrassing to obtain, a lock of her husband’s sable hair.
“You need…my hair?” He asked, baffled. “Why ever for?”
“Just one lock. You won’t even miss it,” Rey insisted, face red as the skin of an apple.
His own face, she noted, was nearly the same shade as hers.
“Is this for…” his voice lowered, as if afraid someone would hear him—though they were very much alone in his chambers. “A love token?”
Rey startled.
He thought…
Oh .
It was on the tip of her tongue to correct him. Tell him of what she truly needed it for…but his expression was so nakedly… hopeful. As if…he wanted her to want his hair as a love token. Something to sew into her dress to forever keep a piece of him by her heart.
The way a real lover would.
“I…err…yes.” Somehow, it didn’t even feel like a lie, though she knew it was.
He cut a few strands with his own dagger right then and there. Had laid them in her palm with a strange sort of reverence. Looking back, she should’ve known it was this moment which led to what happened later. She felt the magic radiating from those strands, searing into her skin as her fingers closed over them. She was suddenly drunk on the possibility of her success.
When Rey dropped those hairs into the bubbling cauldron that same evening, she was ecstatic. It seemed that she would finally be able to repay her husband for his protection with a bit of her own. She imagined his gratitude when she came to him with her potion. His joy at being able to walk under the moonlight in his own skin. Perhaps he might even reward her with a kiss…
It was with those thoughts in mind that she finished her work and stood triumphantly before her husband the next day.
“What is this?” Lord Solo asked, sniffing the contents of the bottle suspiciously.
“A balm to your ills,” she assured him with a knowing smile.
He gave her a look that told her exactly what he thought of her incessant optimism. But Rey was riding high on magic now. She knew her formula was the right mixture to help him. She wouldn’t be able to cure him. But she may have created a potion to help at least to ease his suffering.
“Please try it, my Lord,” she urged. “It won’t hurt.”
Making it clear that he was only doing it to humor her, he downed the entire bottle in one noisy gulp.
“Ugh,” he complained with a grimace. “That’s terrible.”
“It’s not meant for pleasure,” Rey shrugged, unrepentant. “Should this work, you’ll be begging me to feed it to you every month.”
His lips twisted with skeptical disgust.
“I don’t know which I prefer less.”
Rey smiled, serenely.
“You’ll see.”
And they did.
They stayed together in Lord Solo’s chambers that night, watching the moon rise and arc across the sky, first in anxious anticipation, then with wonder, and then finally with…hope. Even as she glanced between the moon—full and fat and round—and Lord Solo—still pale and speckled and grim as ever—she almost couldn’t believe it. There would be no transformation on this night, she thought with giddy relief, as she gazed out at the moonlit garden below. No murderous monster erupting from the flesh of its captor.
It had worked.
While Rey had been sure of her abilities there was always a small chance of failure. Nothing was perfect after all. But, seeing her husband remain hale and whole and human , she felt that sliver of anxiety bleed away. Smiling, she turned away from the window. Perhaps now her husband would share a celebratory drink with her and…
She knew immediately that something was wrong.
Oh no.
Lord Solo stared past her with glazed eyes.
“My Lord?” Rey said, noting the way his throat bobbed and his fevered expression. This was not the look of a man relieved and grateful for her assistance. Instead he looked…unwell. Not as if he were about to transform into a beast, but instead as if he had taken ill with fever.
“Benjamin?” She tried again hesitantly. She’d never used his Christian name before. Had never dared.
He turned to stare at her then, and she noticed that his pupils were blown wide. His jaw slack with…something.
“You need to leave,” he moaned, grabbing his hair in his fists.
Rey blinked at him. “What?”
But…it had worked …hadn’t it?
“It’s…I’m not changing but I still feel…” he shook his head from side to side and seemed wholly not himself. Uncomfortable. Twitchy. His golden eyes shifted from place to place, as if trying to focus on anything that wasn’t her.
“I…don’t understand,” she said, doubt creeping into her mind. Had she been too arrogant? Had something gone wrong after all? Had she made a mistake with the potion? Added too much moonflower? Not enough sage? Not enough…sympathetic magic?
He didn’t seem to hear her. He looked right through her, mumbling to himself as if he’d forgotten she was there.
“I want…” Lord Solo squirmed in his seat. Sweat gathering at his temples and darkening his already night-dark hair.
“What do you want, my Lord?”
“Your potion…” he gasped, turned away from her and clutched his waist. “I think it…is it supposed to do this?”
“Do what?” Rey asked, flummoxed by his reaction.
“Make me feel…” He grimaced as if in pain and turned to face her once again.
And then she saw it.
The bulge underneath his tunic. The restless way he shifted and moved about.
He was… oh.
Rey realized then what had gone wrong. When she had stirred in those hairs and thought of how he would be so gracious for her help. So happy that he might…
Oh.
Her potion had been a success. Just… too successful it seemed. And now he was in desperate need of attention.
Her attentions.
It was strange to think that in all of Rey’s years working as a midwife, tending to the results of the unions between man and wife she had never actually partaken in such… activities herself. Never truly known the touch of a man. Yet here was a man, her husband, ravenous with need. Desperate for the touch of a woman. Of his wife.
She shuffled forward then, reaching out towards him, fingers shaking. Her magic drawing her in, pulling her to him and he to her like a moth to a flame. She was suddenly desperate to touch that pale skin. That glossy dark hair. The moment her hand met the warm skin of his cheek he leaned into the touch. Just as desperate for it as she. Like a hound anxious for a single scrap of affection from its master.
It was…heady.
“Forgive me,” she whispered. “I think…I think this is my fault.”
Gold eyes glanced up at her underneath dark lashes. Have his eyes always been so lovely? She thought.
“I…” he rasped, his voice deeper than usual. The sound of it alone raising gooseflesh along her arms. “What do you mean?”
Rey swallowed noisily. She couldn’t stop staring at his lips.
“I…when I made your potion I…added to it. Something I mayhap shouldn’t have.”
“Added what?”
“My…” She swallowed again. Affection, she wanted to say. But would he be flattered by such an admission? Or would he be furious?
“Tell me,” he begged. It was such a strange thing to see. Lord Benjamin Solo begging for anything. It made her feel…hot. Flushed with… something.
“When I make a charm or a potion I have to think about what I need it to do. It’s…intention. And when I was making yours I…I, oh! I only thought it for a moment but…I thought of you…kissing me.”
He didn’t react with fury. Nor did he seem especially upset by this admission. Instead he gasped in surprise.
Rey chanced a look into his eyes and was startled by the need she saw there.
The hunger.
“Is that…” he began, face flushed and chest heaving with heavy, hot breaths. “Is that something you…want?”
“I…I am your wife.” She said, as if that answered his question.
“But…is it what you want?” Lord Solo asked, desperate to know the answer. As if it mattered to him.
She stared at his lips again. His red, red mouth. With more effort than she thought possible, she lifted her gaze to meet his.
“Yes.”
His response was swift. With a squeak of surprise, Rey was pulled bodily onto his lap, her skirts rumpled around her thighs and her knees planted on either side of his hips. She felt his hands curl into her hair, pulling until the pins fell to the floor with a soft clatter.
“Kiss me,” he begged.
Rey felt her body flush. With shock. With excitement. And with…pleasure. Heat raced through her veins as sure as the magic that pulled them together. Rey felt…overwhelmed. Hot and fevered in a way she never had before. She didn’t think she could have denied him even if she wanted to. She leaned forward, lips grazing his open mouth.
That was all it took.
His kiss was fierce. Hungry. A hurried meeting of mouths and shared breaths. Rey felt his hands petting at her hair, her waist, her thigh, and gasped. This only emboldened him though, and she felt the hot, slippery muscle of his tongue lick against her own.
She pulled back in surprise and saw the fevered gaze of her husband staring back at her.
Rey had seen kissing before. Both the sweet pecks of married couples in the market and the passionate embraces of young lovers in the field, away from their minders. But never before had she been on the receiving end of such affections…and certainly not with one’s tongue!
“Do you…is that how you always kiss?” She asked, face hot.
He looked as if he wanted to eat her alive.
“And how is that my Lady?”
“With…with your tongue.”
Amazingly, he smiled. A true smile full of humor—and heat.
“Oh yes. And that is not the only place I wish to use my tongue.”
Heat bloomed—hot and syrupy sweet—between her legs.
“Where else?” She couldn’t help but ask, breathless.
“Here,” he said, brushing his lips and—yes—his tongue along the soft skin under her ear,
Rey gasped as shivers raced down her spine and she found herself rocking atop the warm, sturdy thighs of the man underneath her. Chasing a feeling she couldn’t even name.
“I can smell you,” he hissed as he buried his face in the crook of her neck. “Your sweet cunt.”
His words rattled between her ears and made the restless, pulsing heat between her legs grow and grow and grow. His big hands cupped her bottom, urging her to rock faster as hers clutched the front of his tunic, crushing the delicate silk.
“I…” she panted. “I…feel…”
“Yes,” he growled, his voice taking on a wolfish tone. And then, yes, that was definitely a growl as he held her firmly against his unyielding flesh, “ Yes.”
She felt possessed. As if she had truly become what everyone believed her to be. One of those wanton creatures who danced around a fire and writhed in the laps of demons. Perhaps she was. Or perhaps it was only with her husband, a devilish creature himself, that she was able to allow herself such freedoms.
Her peak hit her like a swooping, rushing sensation in her belly that had her clutching at the man in front of her as she cried out.
Before she’d even come down from that feeling, Lord Solo rose up, arms locked around her, and she found herself being whisked across the room, and then dropped onto the soft mattress of her husband’s bed.
“I need…” he grunted impatiently, fingers tearing at the hem of his tunic. “I want…”
Rey sat up, still breathless.
“What do you need?” She asked softly. “What do you want ?”
“All of it,” he said.
She opened her arms.
“You can have it.”
His only response was a moan. Long and tortured. And then, shockingly, he fell to his knees before her, face level with her open thighs. Her breath hitched as he pushed her skirts up to her waist and then she felt the heat of his breath though the fine linen of her shift.
“I’ve often wondered,” he hummed sweetly, “What you taste like.”
“What—” Her voice choked off into a gasp as he mouthed at her clothed cunt before shucking her shift aside. That throbbing, pulsing feeling returned. Roaring through her veins and making her grasp the coverlet beneath her.
They locked eyes and she felt frozen, like a rabbit caught in the gaze of a predator as he lowered his head…and finally tasted the wet place between her legs.
“Oh!” She cried, legs jerking, hips arching away quite without her consent, before those big hands reached up, grasped her hips, and held her in place.
He huffed, his lungs working like a bellows as he buried his nose at the center of her, inhaling deeply. He closed his eyes, euphoric, as a flush appeared high on his cheeks.
He’s enjoying this, Rey thought wildly. He likes this.
He dove back in, tongue laving up the length of her and she couldn’t help but sob, overwhelmed.
“I was wrong,” he muttered to himself as if drunk. “You’re much sweeter than I imagined.”
“Ah!” Rey couldn’t help but cry as his tongue made another swipe up to the little bead of flesh at the top of her cunt that made her eyes cross.
“Divine.”
Rey moaned—a tormented sound that vibrated from deep in her chest—as hot, syrupy pleasure grew and drove her to restlessness. It felt like there was a drum beating in her cunt. Pounding away all thoughts except the feeling of sensitive, swollen flesh and pulsing heat. Idly, she wondered if one could expire from such a feeling.
“Please!” She said, not knowing what she was begging for.
Lord Solo grunted and attended to his task with even more fervor.
Her second peak was… more. More sensation. More heat. More shivery aftershocks as his warm, wet tongue lapped at her cunt a few more times, dragging her pleasure out like one would soak up the last few moments of sunshine on a warm summer evening.
She glanced down at her husband through heavy-lidded eyes and shivered as he licked his lips, mouth red and swollen and glossy with… her. His eyes glowed gold in the shadowed canopy of his bed.
He shrugged his clothes off as if they were a cumbersome second skin and stood before her, as naked as the day she saw his true self in the moonlight, wild and beautiful. He grasped a hold of the heavy member between his legs, long and thick and pointed straight at her. His own personal sword that he would use to stab her where she was softest.
“It aches,” he moaned.
Rey reached out for him—her intentions clear—and that was all the permission her husband needed to climb onto the bed and kneel between her legs.
“Let me in,” he rasped, breath hot and hungry.
All she could do was nod. Yes. Yes, of course. Of course she would let him inside. To not do so was…unthinkable.
She felt the hot press of him as she helped guide him to the mouth of her cunt. Rey quivered, her eyes never leaving his. Nerves and emotions and magic all jumbling together into a heady rush that scrambled her senses.
Oh please, she thought. Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease—
He groaned as he slid inside. A forceful, needful stretch that left them shaking and panting against each other’s skin.
“Christ Almighty!” He choked.
Rey was…so full. Full of her husband, yes, but also filled to the brim with that shimmering, vital pulse of magic. That belonging and contentment that she only ever felt when she was brewing potions or growing herbs in her garden. It felt…right. She felt…like she was home. Truly home. As if she had been searching all her life for this without ever realizing it.
Oh, she thought deliriously. Of course.
She made a soft sound at the back of her throat and Lord Solo nuzzled into the hair at her temple, snuffling like some great beast searching for comfort.
Rey arched her back, rubbing her breasts against his chest, eager for more. For more of that heady, sunshiny feeling her husband drew out of her when he’d joined his body to hers.
She licked her lips. “More.”
Lord Solo was more than happy to oblige.
She felt the magic binding them together rise with the heat between her legs as they coupled—her husband growing ever more frantic.
“I—” he grunted. “I think…I feel…”
“I feel it too,” Rey gasped.
Her husband cried out, a great heaving moan as he shuddered and then…and then—
Something swelled within her. It grew and grew until she could feel his heartbeat thrumming away in her cunt. Pulsing and throbbing and stretching her until she saw stars.
She felt it with his release. A curious meeting of souls. The taste of sunshine and growing things entwining with the cool light of the moon.
I see you, she thought dizzily. I know you.
And deep inside of herself she felt his reply.
And I see you.
Lord Solo clutched her tighter, as if trying to absorb her into himself—bury her right next to his heart.
“It seems I could not leave all of the wolf behind,” he said, still trembling.
“I like it my Lord,” Rey whispered. And it was true. Though the stretch was considerable and almost overwhelming she felt…strangely at peace.
“Please,” he said softly into her hair. “I liked it when you called me Benjamin. Or you could call me…Ben. It…has been some time since anyone called me Ben.”
Rey snuggled closer.
“Ben.” She agreed with a soft sigh.
They stayed like that, entwined in a warm glow of hope and contentment, until the sun rose. Perhaps, Rey thought sleepily as she watched the first rays of sunshine bleed through the window. This arrangement may work out well after all.