He shook his head. “I’ve already given you everything I can.”
Except for one thing. But he hadn’t told her that he could infect her, make her like him, that she too could live forever and never see a sunrise. And he wouldn’t.
“It’s enough,” she said, hugging him. “At least for now, it’s enough.”
The Island of Beasts
SHE WAS A BUNDLE on the bottom of the skiff, tossed in with her skirt and petticoat tangled around her legs, hands bound behind her with a thin chain that also wrapped around her neck.
She didn’t struggle; the silver in the chain burned her skin. The more she moved, the more she burned, so she lay still because the only way to stop this would be to make them kill her. They wanted to kill her. So why didn’t they? Why go through the trouble of rowing this wave-rocked skiff out to this hideous island just to throw her to her likely death? To save themselves the taint of murder? To keep themselves clean of whatever small sin her death would engender on their souls? Surely her life was not so large that her death would be such a burden.
“Why? Why not just kill me and be done with it?” she growled.
Her captors—the two rough men on the oars and the gentleman with the tailored frock coat and fine manners who sat at the prow—were wolves, like her. They smelled of musk and wild and moorland, of the beasts that hid inside their flesh. But they were civilized. They followed orders and bowed to their betters. Not like her. They also smelled of hearth fires and smugness. She smelled of fury.
The gentleman, Mr. Edgerton, laughed sourly. “You are not worth the cost of the silver ball it would take to kill you.”
She was not valuable enough to keep and not dangerous enough to kill. There was a pretty fate. Too dangerous to keep and not valuable enough to bother taming. And so here she was, dumped on the edge of the world, off the coast of Scotland. She could laugh and cry both, but her throat was too locked up with stifled screams. Edgerton would like it if she screamed. He’d tell his master, the Lord of Wolves in London, that she screamed. He’d likely tell the Lord that anyway, but it wouldn’t be true, and that would be something. She’d make the fine gentleman a liar.
Edgerton drew out a spyglass and used it to search the island’s shore.
“See anything, sir?” one of the oarsmen asked. The men at the oars were servants, lower wolves who bowed and scraped and thus got their meat thrown to them. They wouldn’t save her.
“Not a thing. They’re hiding from us. Biding their time.”
“Maybe they’re all dead,” said the other. “Maybe they all killed each other.”
“Perhaps they did. You’ll have the island to yourself,” Edgerton said to the woman and grinned. The bottom of the skiff hit sand. “That’s enough, no need to go all the way up.”
“Sir?”
“Let her walk the rest of the way.” He would never say it, but he was afraid.
Her hands jerked; the silver chain seared her neck. Her bonds were suddenly loose, but in the next moment she was rolled over the side of the boat and into the freezing North Atlantic water, wool skirt instantly sodden and pulling her down. She flailed, reached out. Put her feet down on the sand, stood. Was only knee deep in the churning surf, watching the skiff row away, the men laughing. Edgerton held up the silver chain in a gloved hand. It was worth more than she ever was.
“Damn you all! Damn you all for cowards and bastards! You could have just killed me, but you’re cowards, aren’t you just!” She screamed after them, and their laughter carried to her in reply. They, all of them who condemned her to this exile, need never think of her again.
She stood with the waves pushing back and forth around her legs, shoving ’round her skirt, freezing water pulling at her. The sand reached from the lapping surf to a stretch of sea grass and crumbling gray rock. The sky was gray, the water was gray, dark slate, pushing up the thick stretch of pale sand. Beyond, the land was green and spare, grass kept short by wind and whatever gnawed at it. Sheep had been here days ago, and oddly the scent of their droppings gave her hope. There was food here, if she could get it.
Past the beach, up a slope, was a craggy outcrop, stones tumbled down from some exposed hillside. Wasn’t as good as a fort or a tower, but maybe she could defend the spot. She needed a place. She needed weapons. She needed time. Soaking wet, she wanted a fire. A fury had built up in her heart to the breaking point. She would snap and strip and the wolf would burst through her skin and run wild, and if that happened she was done for, she’d have nothing.
No matter. It was finished. She was here, and she knew that she was not alone on this island.
She got to work.
By the time the cold rain started, she had something resembling shelter. She’d piled driftwood and rushes over a cleft in the jagged rocks and made a little cave for herself. With the rain, well, she had fresh water. Though she was hungry, food could wait until tomorrow. The gray sky was turning dark, the sun setting, the slate ocean turning black, and the rush and crash of the waves went on and on. Survive the night, that was all she had to do. Then the next night, and the next.
God damn them who put her here, but she would live. If for no other reason than to spite them.
Wasn’t time for the full moon—breaking clouds revealed a threequarters waxing moon. Wolves howled anyway. Five, six of them, calling out with high, sharp territory songs. We know you are here, we sense you, we smell you, we are coming for you. Curled up in her cave, huddled in her skirts, hugging her knees, she listened to them.
Weapons. She would need to find weapons tomorrow. Build a palisade around her cave and hold them off as long as she could. There would be no silver on the island she could use to kill them. Or herself.
They would be wild. They had been exiled to the island because they could not control themselves, because they were dangerous. Likely, they spent more time in their wolf shapes than as men. Why would they need to walk upright, why would they need hands and voices and manners here? And they would all be men. Wolf women were rare, and she was the only one to ever be exiled to the Island of Beasts. The men, the wolves already here—they would tear her apart.
She would not let them.
Morning, she tried to keep sleeping, curled up tight and shivering. If she slept, this might be a dream, she might wake up in her attic servant’s room. She imagined a bushy tail pulled up against her face like a blanket to keep her warm. A whole coat of thick fur, sharp claws and fierce teeth to catch rats and vermin to eat. She was already wild, they said. Was why they exiled her here. She could be wild. And lose her clothing, her shelter, her wits, her dignity. The ability to stand with her chin up. As a wolf, she could murder them all.
Come full moon she wouldn’t have a choice.
No, she would have a plan by then. She would make a plan, she would survive as her own self and not the beast inside her. She would keep herself, and what was left of her soul. Everything was damp: the rock, the ground she slept on, her clothes, bodice, and petticoats. Her tangled hair she shook out and pinned back up. Brushed out her skirt, stamped feeling back into her booted feet, and went out into the bleak morning.
Along the shore she found a couple of crabs, dug for clams and ate them raw, gnawed on seaweed. She collected more driftwood and thought about how to sharpen pieces without so much as a penknife. Found a stand of heather on the far side of the hill and hauled an armload of it to her little hovel to dry.