Hunted(75)

The hour was late on a chilly, windy night when Yeva crept into the attic storage space to sort through the dust-covered piles of belongings. She’d found that if she wore herself out, it was easier to go back to sleep after dismissing one of the Beast’s nightmares, so she was awake long past the time the rest of the house had gone to sleep. She was rummaging through the trunks of clothes when she found a dusty roll of burlap tucked behind one of the chests. She tugged it free, choking on the dust and trying to stifle her coughs.

She unwrapped the cloth and discovered that it was concealing her father’s bow.

It rested unstrung in her hands, feeling heavier than she remembered, and unfamiliar. And yet as she closed her eyes and curled her fingers around the grip, she found that her hands remembered its shape well, and found the touch of its smooth wood to be a comfort.

Beauty.

A shiver ran down Yeva’s spine. The word had come to her mind so abruptly, and in the Beast’s voice, that for an instant she thought he was behind her and speaking her name aloud.

Startled, her hands let go of the bow. Before it hit the ground, Yeva opened her eyes and found herself standing in a snowy wood. It was the clearing where the Beast had first laid his trap for her, and he lay with his back to her where he’d been before, side rising and falling with each breath, the snow around him churned up and trampled.

Yeva shivered, for she was wearing only a thin wool dress, and the snow was soaking through her stockings. “Beast?” The breathing caught and halted, and Yeva knew he’d heard her. “Beast, did you call for me?”

He didn’t answer, and Yeva crept closer. The familiar sense that all this had happened before kept tingling at the back of her mind, along with alarm. It’s a trap, her memory told her. He’s hunting you. Run away.

But she knew the Beast now. And he knew her. She knew he wouldn’t harm her. She reached out until she could bury her hand up to the wrist in his fur, the soft gray fur that smelled like spices.

The instant she touched him, the Beast leaped. He whirled, snarling with rage and bloodlust, and his eyes locked on Yeva. She scrambled back but then stopped herself, fighting the instinct to flee. “Beast, it’s me!” she cried. “It’s Beauty. You know me.”

There was no response, not the tiniest flicker of recognition in the red, empty eyes. He took a step closer, his body moving like that of a predator stalking its prey. His lips curled back to bare his teeth in a wet, slavering growl.

Beauty felt a sudden stab of fear. This was not her Beast. This . . . this was a monster.

The Beast’s muscles bunched, rippling under his long coat as he crouched. He launched himself and Yeva screamed, clasping her arms over her head and dropping into the snow.

Her knees struck wood and her eyes flew open. She was in the attic again. A heartbeat later, the bow she’d dropped clattered to the floor. Her stockings were dry, and though her body shivered with the memory of cold, she found she had no gooseflesh, no reddened fingers, nothing to suggest she’d left the warmth of the attic at all.

Her breath came like a sob as she staggered to her feet. The attic had no windows, only a vent at either end of the house to allow the air to circulate in summer. Yeva stumbled to one of the vents and tore the shutters loose, too rattled to work the clasp. The night air poured in, wrapping Yeva in cold and leaving her shivering in her autumn dress. Her nose tingled with the bite of frost, the first frost.

It was only after she’d been standing there for some time that her eyes adjusted to the darkness outside, and she saw that it had begun to snow.

Yeva threw the necessities she’d chosen all those weeks ago into her pack, hands trembling with urgency. Doe-Eyes jumped down from the foot of Yeva’s bed, where she’d been waiting hopefully for her mistress, pretending to sleep while listening as she moved from room to room. More than ever, Yeva could read the dog’s heart in her movements, and Yeva paused to grasp at Doe-Eyes’s chin. “Yes,” she whispered. “We’re going.” Doe-Eyes gave a sideways prance and then stuck her nose into the pack, smelling dried meat.

Yeva considered leaving a note for her sisters, but told herself she couldn’t waste those few precious moments. In truth, she had no idea what to write. That she’d had a vision of the Beast, showing him as the monster they feared him to be, and for that reason she had to return? That finding him and breaking his curse was what she’d been born for, what she’d been yearning for all her life? That she’d never feel content here, in the home full of people who loved her?

No. Better to slip out now. They would wake to discover her room empty, and Lena would run to the attic where she’d hidden their father’s bow. She’d find it missing, and see that Doe-Eyes was missing too, and she’d know Yeva was gone.

She put on her old leather leggings that Asenka had made for her at the hunting cabin, and then two woolen dresses overtop, and then her cloak for warmth. She strung the bow, bracing it across her leg and trying not to flinch at how her muscles shook at the effort. She strapped her supplies to her back and slipped the bow over one shoulder.

Yeva paused, bracing against the inside of the door as she stared down the entry hall into the sitting room. She could see her father there, in the claw-footed stuffed chair by the hearth that still bore the worn indentation he’d made over so many long years of sitting in the same spot. She could see him doubled over, his head in his hands. She heard his voice the night he learned of his caravan’s fate, the voice that had become so sad, so broken. “Oh, Beauty.”