When he finished playing, he noticed Bianca was leaning against the leg of the chair, her head partially in his lap. For a second he was filled with panic. Steadying himself, he moved his leg so that her head fell off his lap. She jolted awake, banging her head on the leg of the chair.
“Tate Harper, you did that on purpose,” she rubbed her forehead.
“Yeah,” he carefully placed his fiddle in the corner behind the chair, “I did.”
Her face twisted and she scooted away from him, “I don't know why you act like you hate me.”
“Don't know, hm, maybe because you cursed me?” he stood and crossed the room to add another log to the fire.
“I-I’m sorry,” she paused, then took a deep breath, “I was young and I didn't know . . . I still don't really know, Tate, why you did what you did. Not really.”
“The foolishness of youth,” he pointed at the mattress, “You can sleep over there. I’ll stay up and mind the fire.”
“Thank you,” she stood rubbing her right leg and wincing, “Pins and needles.”
“Go unnoticed after the sewing,” he poked the fire with a stick.
“I never really liked that proverb,” she limped a few steps, then sank into his bed, “I like to think the fabric remembers even if we don't, and Tate, it's silly of you to not use your own bed.” She rubbed her right foot again, wrapping the blankets around herself, “I’ll sleep on this side, you can have the other.”
He showed her his teeth, intentionally trying to spook her. She glared at him, her eyes glowing orange. “If you try anything I will take you out of this world so fast, you won't even manage a howl,” her own lips curled back as if in imitation.
He snorted at her, then approached his bed. He sat down, then turned around in place until he was comfortable. Even with his back turned to her, he had the eerie sensation that she was watching him. His fur standing on end, he glanced in her direction. Her back was turned towards him, her body rigid. “She’s still afraid of me,” he thought, “or maybe more so now that I’m more beast than man.”
No sooner had he laid his head down, he felt the movement of his cart rolling behind him, the wheels rumbling in the ruts. The dream was relaxing in its tedium, there was no Bianca, just the vibration of the cart and an endless stretch of road.
He stirred from his sleep midway through the night, adding another log to the fire. Settling back down into bed, he circled, sniffing his blankets and trying to get comfortable. The scent of Bianca hung in the air, and tickled the inside of his nose. “She smells,” he sniffed again, ”like blood.” A sweat broke out across his chest, and he jumped up from the bed. Pacing the room nervously, he grabbed his fiddle. He could sit outside in his wagon and play. It would be dark and cold, but he had a wolf’s eyes to see and a wolf’s coat to keep him warm.
Once outside, he could feel his body relax. The smell of the forest was always the same, the sharpness of pine, the more subtle hints of plants, the richness of the soil. Climbing into the bed of his cart, he reflected on his dream. He had ended the days of simplicity when he had stopped to pick up a body.
Bianca had stolen his life from him before, and he couldn’t shake the thought that she was back to take it again. “If,” he whispered, “If I don't accidentally kill her first.” He pressed the strings on the fingerboard without bowing, humming the melody to himself. Feeling the tug of song in his chest, he allowed his right hand to bow the strings. Though it was his hands that did the work of playing, he felt as though the music poured straight out of his center, each note filled with a longing he had no other way to express. When he finished the song, he felt a sense of relief followed closely by exhaustion. He lay down in the wagon, placing the fiddle and bow above his head where he wouldn't accidentally bump it.
His sleep was so deep, it seemed as if only a moment had passed when he felt the cold hand on his shoulder. Before he could even think, he jumped out of the cart, pinning Bianca to the ground, his jaw open, ready to bite. He could see clearly it was her, the sun had risen while he slept and its rays sparkled off the dew on the grass and the whites of her eyes.
Bianca squirmed underneath him, then kicked upward sharply. Her knee landed square on his groin, the stomach-turning pain spreading through his body. Incensed, he snapped his fangs in her face.
“Get off me, or I’ll kick you again,” Bianca twisted her arms in his grip, searching for a weakness.
“I should bite you and put you in your place,” he snarled.
Bianca let loose a string of profanities. It was something he’d never heard her do before, and his anger turned to curiosity. Her body relaxed as she swore, the fight draining out of her. She raised her chin, exposing her throat to him. He sniffed her neck. Unable to get enough of her scent, he continued sniffing down her body. She was trembling, her body quivering under his. The scent of blood was stronger on her, and he was suddenly certain of two things; she was not injured and he had no desire to kill her. Disgusted with himself, he moved away from her, retrieving his fiddle from the cart.
“I don't suppose you have any other place to go,” he offered her a hand up.
She shook her head and stood, ignoring his hand.
“Then you will tend my hearth while I work?” he blushed as soon as he said it. “The hearth, I mean. If it goes out I have to waste a match. I try to bank it, but sometimes it goes out anyways. I’m not saying that you have to, it was a question-”
“Tate.”
“-I know you don't want to be here and I don't want you to be here. That came out wrong-”
“Tate.”
“-If you did have something else you liked to do, you could do it as well. I’m not saying you have to stay in the house. I’m not, you know what, I’m rambling.”
“Tate,” Bianca’s expression hovered between amusement and concern, “I understand the importance of fire.”
She walked past him into the cabin, and he followed her, puzzled. “Was that a ‘yes’?”
“I will take the job of Hearth Tender. My terms are that you feed me,” she put a log on the fire, “Now would be good.”
He reached into his sack, handing her the remainder of the loaf of bread. “Here’s lunch,” he handed her two eggs. “I’ll be gone until just before dusk. I’ll bring more food then.” Feeling a pang of guilt, he took the bottle of milk from the sack and thrust it at her. Turning on his heel, he left the cabin and tossed his sack into the cart. He grabbed the handles and pulled the cart part way up the hill, before realizing he was forgetting his axe. Running back to the house, he retrieved it from the wood pile and placed it in the back of the cart. He continued his upward course to where he had seen a fallen tree two days prior.
The trees and plants he passed were budding, a sure sign of spring. “Spring,” he laughed out loud, “of course.” The urges he was feeling had nothing to do with Bianca. They were just a natural instinct, one he had occasionally indulged with some awkwardness. There were some women who liked the human/animal hybrids in Egregia, even preferred them; but he never fully trusted his own desires.
Ignoring the tightness in his lower body, he focused on the forest around him. A squirrel chattered in a tree and he stopped his cart, hunching over and holding himself as still as possible. He cleared his mind of everything but the chirping of birds in the trees and the flick of the squirrel’s tail. It ran down the tree and stared at him. His nose tickled and he fought the urge to scratch it. The squirrel was getting closer, working its way towards the cart. It skittered over the cart handle, its fur twitching. Unable to remain still for even a moment longer, Tate pinned the squirrel between his paws, his jaw closing over it while it frantically scratched him. He shook it until it stopped moving, then tore into it, licking the blood dripping down his chin.
“If Bianca saw me now,” he thought. It would, in a way, solve his problem. She would run away from him as fast as she could, and he wouldn’t have to think about her for another ten years or whenever his mind felt like reminding him of her. He ripped the last bits of meat off the bones, then cracked them to suck out the marrow. It wasn’t much of a meal, but it would tide him over until he found something better.
Licking his chops, he lifted the cart handles and continued on. The tree was where he remembered it, and he went to work cutting it into smaller pieces. It was hard work, and he stripped his shirt off his sweating pelt. Each piece of wood weighed about 50 lbs, and he managed to load seven of them in his cart. Grunting, he lifted the cart handles and headed towards the market.
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