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Chapter 36

When Rossa woke the next morning, she was still simmering over the prince. He didn't even deserve a name, for he was no one to her. That she'd very nearly given him her maidenhead last night…was a kind of foolishness she didn't dare contemplate now in the light of the morning.

He was a monster who deserved to die. And, without her father here to dispatch him, she would do the deed. With relish.

Thick, woollen hose encased her legs, rough against her skin, in contrast to his soft caresses. A thick linen tunic, topped by one of wool, before she buckled a leather breastplate over the breasts she'd let him kiss last night. Never again.

Her warmest cloak had vanished from the riverbank yesterday, likely stolen by the boy he'd slaughtered, but in its place hung a far superior one in unblemished, snowy white. She reached out to stroke the fur – as soft as she remembered it last night, for he'd laid her down upon it before making love to her. As a man, and not a bear, yet he'd been a bear again in the clearing with the body, so this fur had not been taken from him.

Maybe she should skin his corpse, and make a cloak from it, if only to remind herself of how close she'd come to disaster…

Or keep this one, so finely made, with fur on one side and thick lambswool on the other, for it would remind her of last night as well.

She would wear it while she hunted him, and while she killed him, so that she would remember his end as well as why he deserved it, she told herself, as she fastened the fur with the ruby brooch he'd given her on the day they first met.

The thick leather belt she slung around her hips would not cut as easily as the one she'd sliced off that poor beggar boy…was it only yesterday? Better for him to have drowned than the violent end he'd met at the end of Boris's claws.

Bloody bear. She'd seen him kill, but she'd wilfully forgotten how brutal he could be when he was with her. When he'd sat at her hearth, in her home. All so he could lull her into a false sense of security so…what? He could seduce her? She'd been so stupid…

But she'd found wisdom at last, even if it was too late for that boy. It was a lesson the bear would pay for with his lifeblood, she swore.

She pulled on her heavy boots, so that he would hear her coming and know he could not avoid her. That she would bring him down, place her boot on his neck, and list his crimes before delivering his death blow. Justice.

Her sword and her bow she left behind. If she found she needed them, magic would take the place of blade or arrow. She was a witch, born of a line of powerful magic users who were more than a match for any monster, magical or otherwise.

She dragged a comb through her hair, braiding it back tightly before coiling it on the back of her head. There would be no free curls for him to wrap around his finger as he kissed her, looking for all the world like he loved her, telling her she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen…

Enough! She screamed it silently at herself, for the traitorous thoughts invading her own head. Yes, the prince had made a tolerable lover for a night. That didn't change the fact that he was a murderer, and that he deserved to die.

She marched down the spiral stair, ignoring the grumble of her belly as the aroma of baking bread wafted up from the kitchens. She could break her fast when the deed was done, and not before. Lest she vomit up her breakfast on the snow, beside the bear's severed head.

Out the side door, through the gates, out to the…

Oh.

Outside the castle gate stood the monstrous white bear, carrying the corpse, the boy's head cradled in its lap.

He threw the body at her feet, then knelt down beside it to seize the head. He set it on top of the corpse's neck, as if the body were a puzzle that would come back to life, if he but pieced it together correctly.

"Have you come to turn yourself in? To confess your crime, so that my mother's guards will execute you, instead of me?" she demanded. Her heart ached as she hardened it against him, but she had no choice. She would not let him kill anyone else.

The bear shook its head violently, pointing at the corpse.

"Bringing him for a decent burial is the least you could do. They will not be lenient because of it. I shall see to that," she said. "You will still hang for – "

That's when she felt it. A whisper of magic, like the slightest breath of a breeze, between them. It wasn't the bear, and it wasn't her, which meant it had to come from the boy.

No. Corpses couldn't cast spells.

And yet…

She'd seen the ruin where the boy's throat had been last night. A dark hole, black in the moonlight, that appeared whole and healed now. If his head hadn't been severed, she might think…

The boy blinked. Then blinked again.

No. She'd imagined it. Surely.

"Where are the jewels? Give them back!" the boy demanded, staring at the bear. He tried to scramble to his feet, arms and legs flailing in the snow as the bear shoved him down with one massive paw, pinning him in place.