Hunted(50)

As Yeva’s consciousness slipped away, she heard the voice again, murmuring, Hold on.





BEAST


We are not afraid. We are never afraid. It has been centuries since we knew fear, even longer since there was any being, beast or man, strong enough to harm us.

And yet our heart pounds like thunder in our ears, echoing like a voice shouting at us to run harder, move faster. Our paws feel clumsy, and half the time we sink into snow that we long ago learned to cross without leaving a trace. Though we always know exactly how far we are from the castle it feels twice, three times as far as it ought to be.

The body against our back is cold. She is no longer moving. Only that she has not fallen, that her hands still grip our fur, tells us that she is still alive.

Hold on, Beauty.

Hold on.





FIFTEEN


YEVA WOKE BECAUSE HER skin was on fire. Her voice was cracked and she found she could barely move, and that when she did, it made her body burn all the more.

“Go slowly,” said a low voice. She knew that voice. The Beast.

She opened her eyes to find him crouched several paces from her, his eyes narrowed onto her face. The tip of his tail twitched as she met his gaze, then twitched back as though he wished to hide that tiny hint of reaction.

Yeva was lying on the floor before the hearth in her room, on top of several layers of blankets, the uppermost of which was of soft fleece—and yet it scratched against her skin like burlap. Some detail prickled at her mind sluggishly, and it wasn’t until she looked away from the Beast that she realized what it was.

She was naked.

Yeva gave a low, horrified cry and snatched up the blankets to gather them around her body. Her fingers felt clumsy and swollen, but she forced them to grip the blankets.

The Beast’s eyes narrowed all the more, lips curling back. Yeva could not tell if he was snarling or smiling. “You are improved,” he said.

“Did you undress me?” Yeva demanded, starting to shiver—the fire in the hearth had been warming her far more than the blankets around her were doing now.

“If I had not you would likely have died.” The Beast’s tail lashed once. “Would you have preferred death over preservation of your modesty?”

Fragments of memory were coming back now: the shocking cold of the icy water; the flood of terror when she turned to find not the Firebird, but a haunted wraith before her eyes; the smell of the Beast’s fur as he carried her on his back. She gulped for air, remembering the burning in her lungs as she began to drown. Doe-Eyes was at her side, and crept in close—Yeva opened the blanket enough for the dog to crawl in alongside her, giving off heat like a furnace.

When Yeva didn’t answer, the Beast gave a low growl and sat up, leaning back on his haunches so that he once more loomed over Yeva, prone on the floor. “What should it matter? I am a beast no different from the hound at your side.”

Yeva clenched her jaw a moment, gathering Doe-Eyes in against her body and then glaring up at the Beast. “We both know that’s not true,” she snapped.

The Beast’s hair lifted along the ridge of his spine, a crest of irritation Yeva had come to recognize as plainly as the furrow in a man’s brow or the thinning of his lips. He turned toward the door.

“Wait.” Yeva’s breath caught as the Beast halted. She knew she ought to thank him for saving her, but the words stuck in her throat. To thank her father’s murderer? Her captor? He had only saved her because of his need for a hunter, and yet she’d felt the urgency in the Beast’s gait as he ran, the raggedness of his breath as he pushed himself harder, faster, to get her back into the shelter of the castle.

Thank you.

But when Yeva opened her mouth again, she said only, “What was it? The thing in that pool?”

The Beast turned back, eyeing her before settling onto his haunches again. “The pool belongs to one of the Rusalka, a girl killed long ago by a lover or a father or brother. She appears to men as their heart’s desire to lure them to their deaths.”

Not just men, Yeva thought bitterly. “And what of Borovoi?”

“Borovoi?” The Beast’s brows lifted in that expression so like surprise that it almost made Yeva forget about the teeth, the eyes like a wolf’s, the ears that pricked toward her when she spoke. “You met him? He rarely shows himself.”

“He brought me to the Rusalka’s pool.”

“Borovoi is one of the leshy, the forest spirits. He grants answers, though the answers he gives often lead travelers astray. What did you ask?”

Yeva’s lips pressed together. She’d asked him how to destroy the Beast, but if she was to have any hope of lulling the Beast into lowering his guard, she certainly could not tell him that. “I . . . I cannot remember.”

The Beast was silent for a time, long enough that Yeva wondered if he might know she was holding back the truth. But then he bowed his head and took a step backward. “I will let you recover. You will not have to train tomorrow.”

Yeva, still shivering despite Doe-Eyes’s trembling warmth, watched as the Beast padded softly toward the door, tail sweeping gently behind him. She’d asked the leshy how to destroy the Beast, and it had brought her to a place that, had it not been for the Beast, would have been her death. She knew that the Beast needed her skills as a hunter, that he hoped she’d play some part in unlocking his curse. But her death would hardly destroy him, only delay his freedom until he found some other hunter to use.