Piling up wood and brush, she built what she could of a wall to protect the sheltered room. Dragged some stones up to anchor it, grateful for her wolf’s strength. It wouldn’t hold against attack, but she had high ground here. She would see whatever approached. She chose a couple of good sturdy lengths of driftwood she could use as clubs, and commenced to shaving another down into a rough spear. Even through the heart, a wooden spear wouldn’t kill the wolves. But she could give them pause.
Some distance out from her fort, she squatted and pissed in an attempt to mark some territory. She smelled other piss marks, at least two different wolf men farther out on the field. She didn’t piss on them directly—it would be taken as a challenge, and they would come for her even sooner, to meet the challenge. This way she only meant to carve out a little space for herself, to send a message: leave me alone, I am no threat.
Still, it didn’t take long for the residents of the Island of Beasts to find her.
She smelled him well in advance of his arrival, had time to climb up one of the craggy rocks to use as a vantage, carrying one of her makeshift, inadequate spears. He was a rangy thing, black fur and golden eyes. He trotted around the hill, down the slope toward the beach and then back again, head low and scenting, tail out like a rudder. Tightened his circle on each lap, coming closer. He was big, more than two hundred pounds. As a man, he would be a solid brute.
“Get away, you! Go on!” she hollered, as if he were just a dog and she were just a woman, a housekeeper protecting a flock of chickens. She threw a stone at him, missed.
He danced away but instantly spun back, mouth open and tongue lolling. Laughing at her. She screamed a howl of warning, not that it would do any good. If he charged, she was done for. If he had friends, she was done for. But she would deliver as much damage as she could before then. The wolf circled again, giving her a good look-over, then turned to the field beyond her hill and ran, loping off without a care. She slumped against the rock, leaning on her spear. She had survived her first encounter with one of the exiled wolf men of the Island.
More wolves came, but these walked on two legs. She awoke next morning with their scent on the air from upwind, like they wanted to be sure she smelled them. Heart racing, she left her little fort to see how they would attack and how she might hold them off.
But it wasn’t like that at all. Two of them waited halfway up the hill. One was muscular, bearded, a hard-looking man with a glare like stone. He wore boots, breeches, linen shirt, and the red coat of a soldier, all the worse for wear, but he stood straight, a thumb hitched into his waistband. The other was tall, lean, and clean-shaven. Imagine, keeping a smooth face here in this place. His shirt was well tailored, and he wore a waistcoat that must have been silk, the way it shone and fit so smooth. His breeches and boots were also fine, and he had a smirk of confidence. A bit of lordly swagger. He must have been a gentleman, once upon a time.
They were wolves. Not just wolves—they had a power to them, a certain bearing. The assumption that they would be listened to and obeyed. They led packs. She had been told that the island was chaos. That there were no packs, that the law of beasts ruled, which meant there was no law, only violence and blood, and she would be at their mercy. She had not thought to expect . . . this.
The gentleman held up a stick with what looked like a worn-out cravat tied to it. Though a little grubby now, it had once been white. A flag of truce, then. Staring, she leaned out from behind her rock, unwilling to reveal herself further.
“Hallo! You there!” the gentleman called. “Might we have a word?”
She didn’t have to come out, she could pretend she wasn’t here, but they knew she was. They’d crossed the scent she’d marked.
“I promise, we mean you no harm. We wish to speak with you.”
She came out far enough to sit on the rock and laid her spear across her lap. This was as far as she would go, let them do with that what they would.
The gentleman nodded in understanding, even as he frowned.
“I am Mr. Brandon and this is Sergeant Cox. First, however trying the circumstances of your arrival to our Island, may I offer welcome and hope that you are settling in as well as can be expected.” His speech was very proper, almost laughably so, given the landscape. He ought to be in a fine drawing room with a matched tea set and ancient portraits on the wall. How had he come to be exiled? Did he know Edgerton?
The soldier, Cox, glared at him a moment, then rolled his eyes. Brandon huffed a little. “Yes, well. To explain the rest to you, then . . . each of us commands one of the Island’s two packs. We are here to . . . invite you, I think is not too strong a word. That is, we’d each like to make an offer, so that you may choose which of us to ally yourself with.”
“You’ll be safer with one of us.” Cox’s accent was rougher, his manner straightforward. Not a gentleman. She caught his scent, studied the hint of gold in his eyes—he was the rangy black wolf who’d visited her yesterday. A scouting mission.
“And so we do you the courtesy of offering a choice, rather than resorting to . . . more direct persuasion.” The gentleman showed his teeth, a flash of a smile, and her stomach clenched. As laughably proper as he was, she should not underestimate him. His fine manner disguised a monstrous bearing. Others had likely underestimated him. He likely counted on it.
She could not find words. The beast trapped inside her wanted to howl, her hands clenched on her spear, and she could very nearly feel the claws about to rip through her fingertips, bent on slaughter. She would not choose, she would not, and if she tried to speak, the words would come out all at once in a roar.
They must have taken her for a simpleton. They looked at one another, uncertain.
Cox licked his lips and said, “Full moon’s in five days. You’ll have to come out then. Then we’ll have you.”
Her lips curled, a snarl. “You will not. I’ll drown myself first.”
Brandon smiled. “Ah, she speaks.”
She stood and shook the hopeless spear at them. “I won’t choose! I won’t! That’s what got me booted to this bloody place. They told me I must choose, I must be some wolf’s mate, but I said no, and I fought, and so they sent me here to be torn apart by brutes. And now you tell me that I must choose? No, a thousand times no!”
“It isn’t . . . you misunderstand us,” Brandon said patiently. “You needn’t be anyone’s mate. But as the sergeant says, you cannot be alone during the full moon, you must have the protection of one of us. So we—or at least I—propose a more conventional domestic arrangement. More suited to your . . . um.” He gestured at her simple clothing, as if that explained everything. This choice actually boded worse than the other. Brandon continued, matter-of-factly. “You see, you are a woman.”
She looked skyward and laughed. “And what of that?”
“We have been without women’s company for some time. And, well—”
“How dare you, how dare you come here and think you can . . . use me so!”
Brandon said, “It isn’t that, our motives are entirely upstanding. We’ve no wish to use you in that manner at all.”
The rough-looking man said, “What he means to say is he wants someone to wash his shirts.”
“And cook for us. We’ve had no one to do the mending, either, and—”