Page 21 of The Howling (Monsters of the Yeavering #2)

I ’m not sure what wakes me, but I feel much better for a short nap. I still only have the stupid wedding dress to wear, so I pull it on, and it tightens around me like some weird snake skin. Given this is the Yeavering, I try not to be too creeped out.

Dressed, I head down the stairs to the great hall, where I hear voices. Not voices I recognise.

Has Lord Guyzance tracked us down? My stomach drops to the ground. Would Reavely give me up, having brought me all this way?

Then the low rumbling is interspersed by a higher, feminine voice. Not a female Faerie, who generally sound like foghorns. This is a human voice.

“Kaitlyn?” I burst into the hall to be presented with, not my friend, but another woman.

And the sight of Reavely with his huge clawed hand around the throat of another vast monster, a dragon man with scales, a tail, and wings, one who is looking at Reavely as if being held by the throat is not only nothing new but not bothering him in the slightest.

“Oh, hi!” the lady says to me. “You must be Wynter. What a pretty name. I’m Alice and this is Fenrother.” She gestures to the monster.

I open and close my mouth like a carp.

Fenrother looks at me, and despite Reavely growling, lifting him higher and pushing his claws further into his neck, he lifts a hand where he has a steak speared on a single claw and puts it in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully.

“Don’t…eat…at my mate,” Reavely says through enormous fangs.

I look at Alice. She shrugs. “Looks like yours is as possessive as mine,” she says.

“Reavely isn’t my mate,” I say swiftly.

“Oh, really?” Alice raises her eyebrows, looking over her shoulder at the pair. Fenrother is glaring at Reavely now but making no attempt to get out of his grip. “Could have fooled me.”

She walks away from the pair towards the end of the hall where a huge fire is burning and there is a massive table which wasn’t there before.

A table covered in food.

My stomach growls. The hunger pangs, I think, have a life of their own, and I nearly double up with the pain.

Despite this, I run, I don’t walk, to the table itself.

“Where did this…?” I stare at the spread, not even knowing where to start.

“Your Duegars have outdone themselves,” Alice says, picking up a sticky bun and taking a delicate bite. “But you didn’t need to go to any trouble,” she adds.

I stare at her, blinking as if I’m in a dream.

“Who are you?”

“I told you,” she says merrily. “I’m Alice and that’s Fenrother, the Lambton Wyrm.”

“I don’t…” I shake my head and sink down into a nearby chair, which along with the table, was definitely not here the last time I was in this vast room. “I don’t understand any of this.”

“Fenrother got a message”—she looks over at where the two huge beasts are still locked in a growling match—“to come here.”

She sits next to me, and it’s then I see it—her baby bump, as clear as day in the long green gown she wears. I do another fish impression, shutting my mouth with a snap when I realise she’s looking at me.

“Yes, it’s his.” Alice smiles, smoothing her dress over the bump. “We couldn’t be happier.”

So many things run through my head, most of them entirely inappropriate in terms of questions to ask her or even statements to make.

She curls her hand around mine. “I was lost when I came here, so very lost. I knew I could never go back beyond the veil, and Fenrother…” She looks over at him fondly.

He’s currently attempting to bite Reavely’s elbow as the pair of them wrestle.

“Well, once he got used to the idea we were destined to be together, and I didn’t want to kill him, he’s the sweetest, kindest Wyrm you could ever meet.”

Reavely now has Fenrother’s tail between his huge jaws and is chewing on it like a piece of steak.

“I think they’re always like that,” Alice says with a chuckle.

“So, you…”

Alice nods enthusiastically. “Once you’ve had a piece of the Yeavering, you won’t ever want to go back,” she says conspiratorially.

“I haven’t!” I gasp. “I mean, Reavely and me, we’re not…”

“Interesting choice of dress for someone who is…not.” Alice says, finishing the last of her bun and licking her fingers.

My appetite has deserted me completely. Reavely and Fenrother roll into view.

“Why not eat something if you’ve finished playing?” Alice says at the two monsters who are at our feet.

“Not…playing…” Reavely says, attempting to get Fenrother’s foot out of his mouth.

“He started it,” Fenrother says jovially.

I get the impression he’s enjoying himself as they roll away from us, towards the fire.

“Feign an illness,” Alice hisses at me.

“What?”

“Pretend you’re ill.” She pokes me in the leg.

“Ow!” I exclaim, grabbing at the area she stabbed with what was a surprisingly strong and pointy finger.

Instantly there is a huge Barghest towering over me.

“Wynter?” he rumbles, dropping to his knees in front of me.

He’s still huge, and I’m already getting flashbacks to when he shoved his nose right where it shouldn’t have been.

And I didn’t hate it.

I feel like my entire body blushes even though these thoughts are entirely internal. Reavely makes a deep rasping sound in his chest, and his eyes blaze.

“I’m fine.” I shoot a look at Alice, who feigns innocence. “I’m hungry though. Where did all this come from?”

“Your friend, the Hedley Kow, invited the Duegar. They did it,” Reavely says.

“You let a Hedley Kow into your castle?” Fenrother throws himself into a chair next to Alice and picks up an entire chicken.

Reavely glares at him, mirroring his behaviour and also picking up a chicken, which he eats in one enormous bite.

“I want to keep my mate happy,” he says, “so her friend gets to stay.”