She could not answer in words. She bowed her head, finished her task, and set the skin aside. Then, as though wishing to pretend the man did not exist, she turned to go about her next task. But the Beast stepped forward and blocked her way.
“I look forward to this time,” he said, his voice low. The dog near the girl’s feet growled, but he ignored it. “I look forward to your visits at my house. Do you know, I asked that you be sent to fetch my water and prepare my meals. I could have had any girl in the village. I asked for you.”
She would not look at him but stared at her feet. Her dog pressed against her thigh, still growling. What a pitiful creature it looked, so old and decrepit standing in the presence of ageless power. But it growled in the face of that power and did not back down. The Beast bared his teeth at the dog. “Brute animal,” he snarled and raised his hand to strike.
The girl, however, threw herself on her knees and wrapped her arms around the dog’s neck. Eanrin was surprised. He hadn’t thought the little maid capable of demonstrating such passion. But she clung to the dog, burying her face in its gray fur, waiting as though she expected the Beast’s blow to fall on her instead.
But the Faerie stepped back, a smooth mask hiding the anger on his face. “Fairbird, Fairbird,” he crooned. “Sometimes I fear that you are little more than a mouse. But you have some spark in you after all! Not as she did, though. Not as she did . . .”
He said no more. The girl got to her feet and, still without looking at him, motioned her dog to follow and fairly fled down the hill. Whatever tasks she had meant to complete were forgotten now in her desire to get away. And the Beast did not stop her. He watched her instead, and the look on his face was hungry indeed, but also frustrated.
As lovely as Fairbird was, she was not her sister.
Eanrin, his body flattened to the ground just out of sight, watched the scene and trembled at what he saw. Imraldera had made him promise to do as she asked. First, he was to find the child with the dog. He had done that.
Then he was to tell the Beast that she waited for him at the Place of the Teeth.
But how could he do that? He saw the look on that monster’s face, and he knew what it meant. He knew what fate awaited Imraldera should the Beast set on her trail again. He would run her down for sure! His was the nature from which the Black Dogs inherited their hunting instincts. And if those mindless beasts were lethal, surely their father was worse by far!
“She travels the Paths of the Lumil Eliasul,” Eanrin whispered to himself. But would it be enough? Perhaps if he gave the Beast his message and then fled with all speed across the Land. If he reached Imraldera first and gave her fair warning. Her plan was suicidal. But what other choice did they have?
He didn’t have to tell her.
His tail lashed at the thought. He could return to her up in the mountains and tell her the child was dead. He could tell her there was no point in continuing this madness because it was too late. Then they could run away together, back into the Wood! She need never revisit this dreadful land, never face that monster again.
Eanrin felt sick inside. He hated himself in that moment, he who had never before thought of himself without love and self-satisfaction.
“It would be useless anyway,” he muttered. “The Black Dogs would get her. Hri Sora wants to see this creature destroyed even more than Imraldera does. She will have given them orders to kill the girl should she fail her task.”
As soon as he said it, he knew it was true. There was no going back. Forward was the only option, forward into an uncertain future. They had trod the Path of Death already. They would tread it again together.
The Beast had vanished inside the hut. Eanrin, still a cat, crept to the doorway and crouched there, listening to the breathing of the wolf shaped like a man. Suddenly that breathing caught short.
“I smell you,” said Wolf Tongue. “I smell you, Faerie man.”
Eanrin swallowed hard. Then he spoke in his brightest, merriest voice. “What-ho, my wolfish friend! Well met, I say, in these odd mortal lands! How came a chap like you to be among this riffraff?”
The answering growl was thunderous. “This is my demesne,” said the Beast. “How dare you come here? This is my land and has been these many centuries now! How did you pass the rivers?”
“Oh, you know, I have my ways,” said Eanrin. His cat’s eyes could just discern the creature’s shadowy form moving toward him in the darkness. He backed away, ready to bolt, feeling safer in the open sunshine. “Secret ways to and fro. I’m known for my guile, even as you, my lord, are known for your thievery.”
“Cat.” The Beast spat the word like a curse. He appeared in the doorway, still a man, and stared down at Eanrin where he crouched. “You are not welcome here.”