Her Wolf King
Chapter 23: The Rescue

Everett raced across the rocky, ashen pathway, uncaring of the black rocks that had formed on the path as if a volcano had erupted instead of a faerie scorching the earth. All he could see was the flash of blonde hair, that man standing over her, a gun in his hand.

All he could see was his wife, about to be killed.

As the gun went off, he dove in front of the bullet, uncaring that he was still in his wolf form, uncaring that every step felt like more and more of a labour, uncaring that his breath came in shallow pants and that his pulse seemed to die down from a roaring thunder to a barely beating undulation.

Just as the blinding, white-hot pain burrowed into his side, the bullet digging into his flesh once–then twice–then a third time as the man emptied his gun into his body, Everett gasped. Blood covered him, hot and sticky and unreal. The man tossed the gun onto the scorched earth and stared down at him with an expression like a dying man.

Yet he was dying. Everett would doubtless not survive these injuries.

Lenore made a noise much like a sob. Then, she raised her arm, which until now he had not seen held a knife, and she sank the blade into the man’s chest.

The man thudded onto the path, his gray eyes vacant as they stared unseeingly up at the blue sky. That cursed blue sky.

He gave a shuddering breath and stared at the ivory handle sticking out of the man’s chest. Who was he? It didn’t matter. All that mattered now was that he had saved her.

If he lived to do nothing else, let her be alive.

“Everett!” Lenore gasped as she stared down at him. “You… you came.”

He realized that the ground beneath him became more and more painful, his skin more and more sensitive when it was no longer coated in thick fur, but mere linen and muslin clothes. The blood had that had coated his side and haunches now ran in rivulets across the hollows of his ribs, making his white shirt cling to his chest.

“For you…” He struggled to breathe. But why should he? He didn’t need breath. He only needed her.

She pressed her hands to his torso, where the bleeding was greatest. “No… NO, don’t speak… It’ll be alight. Please… You can tell me why you came, why you did such a foolish thing, later. When you are well.”

Tears made her eyes glassy as she stared down at him. He felt one drip onto his cheek, before rolling down into his beard.

“I may not… live that… long…” He gasped. “I love you, Lenore.”

“Don’t say it like that,” she snapped, and more tears slid down her cheeks. “I shan’t say it back. Not unless you promise you shall live. Please.”

“I didn’t… kill... Butterscotch,” he whispered. “Don’t worry.”

“You think I care about a horse?” she retorted, applying more pressure to his wounds. “I care about you! Damn it, Everett, I love you.”

“I didn’t promise to live.” He coughed.

“You will. You have no choice. I need you to live, Everett Dunstan. Live, and be my husband. I shan’t care if you are a wolf. I shan’t. I love you, and I need you, and you are all that–you are all that I want.” Her body shook with sobs and she fell onto his chest. “Please…”

He wanted to raise an arm, to stroke her hair, to cup her cheek to pull her into his side and kiss her. “I love you…”

Then, the blue sky above them went dark. The last thing he saw was a robin, flying overhead, veiled by the strands of Lenore’s hair falling softly over his face.

***

He could not be gone. Could not. Must not.

As Lenore lifted her cheek from her husband’s still-warm, bloody chest, she stared down at him. At his wound, wher eher hands swerve.

And she blinked. Once. Twice.

A golden glow suffused her fingers, her palms, as if the light of the sun itself radiated from her body.

As she gingerly pulled a finger away, unbuttoning his shirt with swift jerks, upaying no heed to the buttons that scattered every which way, she gasped.

His wounds were healing as she pressed her hands to them.

She pressed all the more firmly downwards, and stared at him, willing him to wake up. Willing him to see that she had performed a miracle by sheer wanting.

By sheer longing. By pure love.

The wounds knitted together and became like new, untouched flesh under her hands.

She pressed one palm to his cheek. “Everett,” she said, her voice shaking. “Everett, wake up!”

His eyes slowly fluttered open, revealing the most beautiful shade of green she had ever seen. “I… Lenore… You…”

“I saved your life,” she said. “And you saved mine.”

“We are even now,” he said.

“No,” she said softly. “I fear you shall be in my debt forever, for you have stolen my heart.”

“And you mine, but I assure you, I do not want it back.” He gazed up at her like she was the sun itself, a miracle rising over the hills and spreading a warm orange glow over all that it touched. “How did you do it? I thought I was dead… No, I felt for certain that I had crossed over.”

“Crossed over?”

He shook his head. “I knew that I was nearing the veil. My soul was drifting toward an abyss, and something just–pulled. And yanked me back, before I made it over the cliff.”

“It must have been me,” she murmured.

“Lenore,” he sai. “I think I know what the treasure is.”

“What?” She blinked again, her brows furrowing in confusion. Had death given him some cliarty into what Marya’s motives and insights were, even if he had only tasted death but a moment?

“It is your ring. Look, it is glowing.”

They both stared down at the emerald rock on her ring finger. There was the haziest outline of gold limning it, so small that to blink was to miss it.

“Where did you get this ring?” Panic and joy and realization leapt through her heart all at once, stallions galloping around a racetrack. The treasure you seek is your very heart.

“From the castle,” he said. “Why–”

“I believe she will know that I used it somehow. She will know, and she will come–”

Before she could finish her sentence, a great roar filled her ears, as though the earth itself were splitting. A vast wind rushed in, shaking what was left of the trees and stirring dust into spirals that danced in the air with malevolent intent.

“I believe she has already arrived,” Everett murmured, gingerly getting to his feet and offering her a hand.

A ripple of foreboding slammed down her spine. “For once, I wish I was not right.”

As they stared in half-horror, half-shock, still, over the morning’s events–absurdly, she noted that it wasn’t even noon yet, as if the hour of day would make any difference in what that wicked witch chose to do–the ground split beneath their feet. Everett yanked her over to safety, pulling her into his side as the faultline appeared between them.

She yelped, giving him a nod of thanks, as they both watched the dry, barren, ashy ground split open and bring forth… Marya. She had brought an entourage with her, it appeared, curling shadows and dark horns framing her face. She might have been beautiful, once. Now she was simply as dead as the burnt village around them.

“I see you received my message,” Marya said. “Though I’m not sure how you are still alive.”

“Are you speaking to me, or to my husband?” Lenore arched an eyebrow, her pulse shaky as she tried to keep her voice steady. She would not be scared. She held the power here–or so that ring made it seem.

“My dear, you poor human child, really. I don’t know how you are wearing that ring anyway. When I threw it into that crumbling ruin of a chateau, I hardly expected Everett to eventually put it on your finger. After all, he has always been so… shy of commitment.” Marya’s face twisted into a snarl. “But here you are, such a happy couple. Who did you get to officiate your wedding? Oh, I suppose it doesn’t matter now, considering he’s dead.”

“What is your point, Marya? To punish me, for using what you put in the castle that you made to be my prison?” Everett snapped.

“Hardly,” she drawled. “But what I’d like to know is if there is more fairy than human in that girl, because she seems to have succeeded in using that ring when countless more skilled sorcerers have been burnt to a crisp simply by letting its light glance off of their skin.”

Lenore hardly understood the witch’s words. More fairy than human… Her mother’s stories and her endless dreams came back to her once more. Surely they could not be true. Surely, there must be something else that Marya was talking about. Because… Because…

“Perhaps it was not about the skill of the sorcerers,” Everett said, gripping her shoulder more tightly as though worried she would blow away in the sudden gust of wind. She turned her face into his side, not wanting to look at Marya–or at Kirk’s corpse, still staring blankly at the sky with that dagger sticking out of his torso.

“Oh? And what do you suggest it was about? That human hands could wield such magic–such magic as bringing someone back to life?” Marya scoffed.

“What I am suggesting is that it was not about the knowledge of your court, but their heart,” Everett said. “Perhaps this treasure can only be used by the pure of heart.”

Marya’s expression twisted into a scowl. “We’ll see about that.”

Before Lenore could react, the witch’s shadowy tendrils, like extensions of her ruby-nailed fingers, had slithered over and seized the ring off her hand. “No!”

She made to get it back, but Everett kept her to him. She stared in horror. If she could use a ring for such a powerful task as bringing her husband back to life, then what couldn’t Marya do with it?

Everett seized her all the more tightly. “Trust me. Do you trust me?”

Trust a wolf. “I do.” For some reason, she did.

Marya gave a laugh that could only be described as a cackle. “Ah, my pretty, I had kept you safe all those years in that castle, that bloody castle, but you are here now, are you not? At last, you are all mine…”

She slid the ring onto her finger.

Lenore’s breath snagged in her throat, refusing to let her gasp or shriek. But shriek Marya did as the ring touched her skin.

Smoke began rising again, but it wasn’t from the village this time.

No, this time it was from Marya herself, from her very flesh, which was disintegrating into ash as the ring made its way onto her knuckle. “Get it off!” she cried. “Get it off me!”

One of her minions indeed did attempt to tug it off, but hissing, crying out in agony, it dissolved into a puddle of acid.

With a jerk of her stomach, and a flip of her heart in her chest, she realized that was the same reaction that creature had had all those weeks ago. When it had sent her the message from Marya.

Was that because of the ring?

Or because of her?

Now, she was uncertain. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the carnage as Marya, once Dunstan, slowly dissolved into a heap of ashes.

“How fitting,” Everett murmured. At last, the ashes blew away in the wind, and all that was left at the bottom, practically untouched and unstained… was the ring that she had tore from Lenore’s hand.

“I told you to trust me, didn’t I?” Everett murmured, looking down at her with the flicker of a smile on his mouth.

“That, you did.” The two of them stared down at the ground, which seemed to now be yanking Marya’s remains back into itself, before slowly closing and knitting itself back together, as if it had never appeared at all. The gash closed over, leaving in its place only greenery, only pure, lush forests and springtime trees.

“Spring,” Lenore breathed. “I wonder what the weather is at the castle now.”

“Much of the same, I think.”

“No…” she whispered. “The castle. It was her creation. What will happen to all of those ghosts, you think?”

“I hope they’ve been given eternal rest. God knows they need it after all that Marya has done to them.”

As they looked around them, both with questions in their eyes and no answers at all, hardly able to breathe their wonderment and awe into words, the village began to heal.

By magic, the burnt shacks became cozy cottages, gleaming sandstone and thatched roofs replacing the charred rubble. Quaint gardens replaced the barren yards, and as she looked in the direction of her father’s house, bright red and green apples gleamed in the distance, rows and rows of them planted in the orchard behind their residence. Burnished gold fields of wheat and corn and barley replaced the dry and dusty acres that had been left to rot. The townspeople began trailing out of the one building that had remained–their house–and staring around in awe, blinking as though they had been awoken from a dream.

Lenore didn’t quite believe what she was seeing, either. She turned to Everett. “The village, it’s coming alive again.”

“After her death, all the curses she laid must have been broken.”

“No, it’s not only that… Surely, she never cursed my family’s orchard to be unfruitful, or… Wait.” She turned to him with an excited, giddy feeling bubbling up in her chest. “All her curses have been broken? Then that means…”

He shook his head. You broke my curse, Lenore. When you brought me back, I could feel that something was different. It was… Like I had lost a part of myself. A rotting limb with gangrene, perhaps. Something that had once been a piece of me, but a piece that had never been healthy. I can’t… I am not a wolf anymore, but only a man.”

“I assure you, whatever you are, man or wolf, you are more than perfect for me.” She rested her head on his chest as Timothy came bounding out of the house.

“Lenore! Lenore! Come quickly, our father is awake!” He glanced at Everett, confusion filling his eyes. Then he looked around at the village. “You’re… not a wolf anymore, are you?”

“I never will be again,” he confirmed.

“Good,” Timothy said. “I don’t know how you did it, but good.”

He nodded, then the sunlight glinted off of the ring in the heap of ashes, and caught his eye. “What’s this?”

Lenore reached out her hand for it; she had somehow nearly forgotten about the ring in all the bustle of the village coming back to life. “It’s mine. I dropped it. Isn’t that right, Everett?”

“Yes, it’s the wedding ring I gave her.”

Timothy muttered something about wolves and weddings as he passed the ring to her. “Well, Everett, I guess you can come inside as well. As long as you’re sure you won’t turn into a wolf again and scare our father to death.”

They followed him into the little cottage. Inside, absent of all the villagers that had crowded the space before, the house felt warm. Homey.

It didn’t feel entirely like home, however. The castle would always hold that magic to her. SHe wondered if it still stood there now.

“Lenore!” Papa got up from his rocking chair and embraced her. “Where were you this morning? TImothy said he woke up and you were gone. And who’s this young man?”

The notion of Everett being called a young man when he’d lived half a century longer than his appearance suggested made her almost snort. “One question at a time, please.”

“Very well,” he said, ambling over to their small kitchen. “Could I get our guest a cup of tea?”

“I’d like that.” Everett took her hand.

“You never told me you drank tea,” Lenore said, looking up at him accusingly. He looked less rough around the edges, fewer lines beside his green eyes and unshaven jaw.

“You never asked… wife.”

“Wife?” Her father nearly dropped the teapot. “Lenore, how did you get married without my permission? I thought… After Kirk… Your brother and I were worried sick about you…”

She took the teapot from him and poured Evertt some tea into a chipped china cup. “It’s a long story.”