This chapter contains scenes of a sexual nature that may be disturbing to some readers.
By the time they made it home that night, Bianca was exhausted. Tate had offered her a ride in his cart, but she had only shook her head, a weariness dulling the orange of her eyes into a more pedestrian brown. She didn't argue when he told her to sit, flopping into the rocking chair like she had no bones or muscles. He stoked the fire, carefully placing four eggs in the pot.
Bianca’s head was forward, her eyes closed. Realizing he was alone, he allowed himself to experience the sorrow that had been building in his chest all day. It rose into his throat, a lump that refused to go either up or down his esophagus. Part of his curse was an inability to cry. There was no cathartic release of tears, no sobs, just the pain pushing against the insides of his body, trying to find a way out. He picked up his fiddle and tuned it. The least he could do was to play one last song for Amber; about the way she made him feel, about that cunning smile and boundless energy, that hidden gentleness and visible strength. She had loved for who he was now, not for some memory of a comely young man or some hope that he might transform, no, Amber had loved Tate the wolf man.
His fiddle tuned, Tate began playing a song he had composed the first time he and Amber broke up. He was never sure if the tune was entirely his, but out here it didn’t matter if a particular series of notes was borrowed. He always thought of it as Amber’s Song, and he played it passionately. He was unaware of the passage of time until Bianca spoke, “Do you know Beggars Can Ride?” She stretched her arms above her head, “It sounds kind of similar to that.” She started humming, slightly off-key, closing her eyes as she reached the chorus, the one part of the song she knew the words to:
“Beggars can ride whatever they choose,
You see it’s possession that owns the man,
Beggars can ride as far as the road goes,
Free as the emptiness in an open hand.”
Remembering the eggs, Tate fished them out with the ladle placing two in each bowl. As he worried over them, Bianca continued talking.
“I never really liked that song. It always sounded like it was encouraging people to just forget about the people they loved and run away,” she paused watching him blow on the eggs, “No offense.”
He cracked one of the eggs, burning his fingers.
“Then I realized that maybe that wasn’t what they meant at all. Maybe they just meant that people should be open, you know? Open to new ideas and experience. Open to each other. Open to forgive,” she rubbed her eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m talking nonsense right now,” she shifted her weight forward in the chair, “I’m just so tired.”
What happened next seemed to happen all at once. Bianca tried to stand, but her legs refused to support her. Instead she pitched forward towards the hearth. Frightened, he blocked her way with his body. If he had been thinking clearly, he would have dropped the eggs and grabbed her. As it was, he did little to arrest her fall and only succeeded in falling with her, still trying to protect his eggs. He landed so close to the hearth that he could feel sparks hitting his tail. Bianca landed not far from the chair itself, banging the back of her head against the seat of the chair. She curled into a ball, moaning with pain.
Unsure of how to comfort her, he peeled the eggs and placed the bowl in front of her. “Are you hungry, Bee?” he scooted away from the fire. “Are you okay?” he held a hand over her back, then closed it and put it against his chest as if it was injured.
“Oh, Holy Circle it hurts,” she sat up slightly wiping her eyes, “What is that smell?”
He smelled it the same time as she did, the acrid smell of burning fur. Bianca grabbed his tail, running her hands down it to smoother the budding flames. Her reaction was so quick that he could tell she hadn’t thought of her own safety until the fire was out and she looked at her palms. She froze, staring into her own hands, a look of sadness on her face. Unnerved, he grabbed her by the wrists, expecting to see red skin or angry welts. The skin of her palms was undamaged, and he released her with a sigh, “It’s been a long day, Bee. Let’s go to bed.”
“Okay, but I’m eating my eggs and there might be crumbs,” she crawled onto the mattress, then reached for her bowl.
He followed suit, stopping to inspect his tail. The smell of burnt fur still hung in the air, turning his stomach. Knowing he needed to eat, he bit into the egg. It was overboiled, a blue ring around the yellow yolk. He forced himself to swallow, then discreetly placed the remainder back in his bowl. Next to him Bianca was munching away contentedly. He doubted her eggs were any better, but a clear conscious and a weary body wet her hunger to the point that taste didn’t matter. She lay closer to him than she had in the past, and he found himself thinking about the previous night. The coldness of her touch took a bit of getting used to, but it didn’t hamper his enjoyment of her. Then there was that scent. He could smell it underneath the burnt smell. She no longer smelled of blood, but it was just as complex. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. She smelled earthy with the salty notes of sweat, a sourness that came from a diet heavy in eggs and milk. Underneath that was the curious smell of citrus. He wanted to bury his nose in her and lick her.
He opened his eyes wide then screwed them shut. How could he even think something like that when his heart was hurting over another? “It's spring,” he reminded himself, “You two grew up together. It's just unfinished business, unsated lust.” He took a breath out of his mouth, then covered his face with a blanket. That at least smelled like him and wood smoke, nothing else. Breathing through the blanket, he fell asleep.
In his dream he was fully human. When Bianca saw him, she was so glad that she fell into his arms. They were suddenly wearing no clothes, and he pressed himself to her, mating himself to her in that way peculiar to humans, belly to belly. For a few blissful moments, their bodies moved synchronously. He could feel himself swell inside of her, and he looked down at his hands to discover they were covered in fur. Bianca’s eyes widened in terror, but he could not pull himself out of her.
He sat up in bed, dripping in sweat, his heart racing as if he had been the one being violated. Bianca lay beside him, her body turned towards him. Her face was relaxed, eyes closed, mouth slightly ajar. Unable to shake the horror of the dream, Tate unlatched the door and slipped out into the rain. Turning his face to the sky, he howled. He waited for a few moments, straining to hear a reply. When he and Amber had first started dating, she would howl back at him if she was awake. He howled again, praying that she still loved him just enough to answer. The only sound was the pitter of the rain on the trees and the skitter of a smaller creature on the ground. Even with Bianca near by, he felt more alone than he had ever been.
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