Page 21

Chapter 20

Rolf

W hen he dug the tunnel, he made it too narrow and too tight for his wolf to squeeze through. He wanted it as uncomfortable as possible for his wolf to try and get out, so he lined the uppermost parts with molten silver and had a special door made that could only be opened by human hands. Pride swelled in his chest at how he had managed it, saving funds from fur trapping for several years, commissioning an old miner who could have easily been a descendant of a dwarf. He hadn’t thought, however, that he’d ever be coming down here to show it off.

Rolf led the way, the lantern on a stick illuminating the musty tunnel a few feet ahead of them. They were both quiet, lost in their thoughts as they moved down the winding corridor. Adeline fit comfortably through the tunnel, but for Rolf, the ceiling wasn’t nearly as tall as he needed it to be, so he walked awkwardly with his head tilted to the side. Water dripped down the walls of the tunnel, littering the ground with water, and he was glad he insisted they both wear shoes.

He swallowed a few times, trying to move the knot in his throat down, down, down into his stomach. He cursed as he stepped into a sizable puddle. He hadn’t been down here in his fully human form in decades, always partially shifting as he opened the trapdoor. Showing this place to Adeline was like letting her in on some of his darkest hours, and though he knew she was the woman he had fallen in love with, there was a hundred-year gap that stood between them.

“What is this place?” Adeline whispered as the tunnel opened up into a small chamber.

Wooden beams framed the small space, and her hands drifted over deep claw marks slashed across the face of the cavern walls. Everywhere Adeline looked, there was evidence of his wolf. Deep gashes in the walls, tufts of hair caught in the joining of the beams. The animalistic fury of being trapped, unable to leave the underground jail. He was thankful the cave was dark, as shame flushed his cheeks a bright red.

“This is where I spend one night a month,” he said. Even though it was a cavern, and his voice should have reverberated off the walls, the atmosphere pressed down around him, choking off the volume. He felt smothered being in the cavern in his unshifted form, knowing that he would be down here once the full moon crested the snowy peaks outside.

He swallowed tightly, wishing she would say something. Anything to quell the incessant chattering of insecurity in his head.

Adeline’s hands touched the deep claw marks in the cave walls; her fingers were swallowed up by the depth of the gouges he had left behind. Was it awe that painted her features just now, or disgust? She turned before he could study her expression in the torchlight. He wouldn’t be surprised if she had doubts—after all, one could say that he was a hopeless case.

“I have only ever known were-shifters as our enemies, the only creatures who can kill us with their claws. I never thought I’d be in love with one of them.” Her voice swelled between them, filling the stifling quiet. He let her words wash over him.

Love? What on earth could possess her to love a creature like me?

Parts of his life had been so marred with memory loss that he had gotten used to the idea that he was a monster, that he had committed heinous acts of violence toward innocent people. Each time he had woken after the full moon, in his human form, covered in blood, he was reminded of how he had woken up the first time with no memory. He had always assumed that it was because he had shifted and killed someone the very first time.

What a cruel twist of fate for him to relive that feeling of dread every month. It was the driving force behind why he created this prison down here. He was tired of constantly wondering, waking up covered in sweat and blood, the fear that gripped his heart as he realized he never knew who or what he killed.

Adeline moved over to the beams and grabbed a tuft of werewolf fur, rolling it between her fingers. “Do you remember anything from your time during the full moon?”

There was one time he had woken up in a pasture, surrounded by dozens of carcasses of cattle. He fled as soon as he had his wits about him, but the screams of the woman who discovered the scene traveled on the wind. In one night, he had decimated her family’s livelihood, almost certainly committing them to a life of poverty.

It hung heavy on his heart still eighty decades later.

She tucked the fur into an interior coat pocket and looked at him, a slight frown wrinkling her brow. What could he say so she wouldn’t judge him for what he did—or didn’t—do?

“No, but it’s probably better that way.” Rolf shook his head, toeing a link in one of the several large chains scattered on the floor. He swung his lantern over them, and they glinted in the soft golden light.

“Silver chains?” Adeline’s voice sounded pained as she stepped up next to him. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her for fear of the shame she would see written on his face and the pity he would see in her eyes. “Why, Rolf?”

“Because…I am a beast. A monster,” he said simply. It was something he had finally come to terms with. After, of course, he had pieced together what he was when he went through the stones.

During the first years he spent roaming the woods, he picked up the odd transient jobs, living in makeshift shelters, and worried he would kill innocent people whenever he shifted. With no memory of his life from before, he picked up as many trade skills as possible. He was best at fur trapping since he inhabited places where the other wild creatures of the forests lived, and with the money he earned from it, he bought tools to learn the woodworking trades of the other humans in the area. He learned how to fell dead trees, chopping into the trunks like an artist sculpting marble. Rolf honed his skills quickly and soon became a master woodworker. And when winter blew in, he’d return to fur trapping to make ends meet during the colder months.

Only several years into his life as a were-shifter, he became terrified that he would keep waking up covered in blood. Rolf never knew if those he killed on his full-moon rampages were people who deserved it, or if they were innocent. The guilt of his blackout kills finally got the better of him. Which is when he decided to turn the abandoned cave he had been living in into his permanent jail.

Her hand cupped his cheek as if she knew the shame he held. He leaned into her palm, his free hand reaching up to cover hers.

“You are not a monster,” she whispered. “I would know.”

“My darkness,” he whispered back.

Her pupils flared at the nickname he had chosen for her, and though he didn’t want to say it out loud, for fear of pushing her away, she was his. Something blossomed in his chest, and he wondered what it meant.

Protectiveness .

A part of him knew that he would never love after her, that Adeline was all he would ever need. They were perfectly matched, as they had been back when he was Colin. And as foreign as that person felt to him now, he knew that from here and into eternity, there would be no one else for him. How he could feel this way toward her, so soon, still felt too good to be true. So he would cling to these small moments as much as he could—after tonight, he might not get another chance to feel this way.

She will be my downfall.

He would go down fighting for her. With her. Always.

He cupped her face and said, “You are not a monster to me. You never will be.”

Adeline scoffed, almost as if she didn’t believe she was lovable. How wrong she was.

“You have no idea the things I have done, Rolf,” she said.

“You have no idea the things I have done, Adeline,” Rolf replied, wishing he could convince her that she was worthy. But he knew what that felt like. The unworthiness, the shame. It didn’t matter to him if she felt unlovable; his place on this earth was to make sure she knew his love, in any form, forever. Because to Rolf, they were the perfect pair—both broken, both monstrous, both finding a way to survive in a world that didn’t want them. The vampires were hunted just as much as the were-shifters—if not by each other, then by humans who knew no different.

“I need to show you the rest of the tunnels.” He took her hand, letting the subject drop. Once they survived tonight, he would make sure she knew how much she meant to him.

Once she saw what he was going to show her, perhaps they could make it out alive after all. He let himself fantasize about how many of the vampires he could kill once he was a wolf. One? Five? Twenty? And would the vampire who glamoured him be there tonight?

Gods, he hoped so. He smiled smugly to himself, a renewed sense of justice pushing out the fear he had of losing her.

He stopped when they arrived at the point where two tunnels connected, the darkness swallowing the light from the lantern as he pointed it to the left.

“This was the first cave I found while I was washing in the stream below. A white falcon kept swooping around a ledge, landing every so often to perch and scan the water for fish. It wasn’t until I was drying on the opposite bank that I realized the bird was perched on the ledge of the cave entrance. It is small enough that I figured I could use it for shelter for the night. But while I was trying to find a way to get to it, I stumbled upon the cave to the right.”

“A sign of good luck,” Adeline mused.

He looked at her in confusion.

“White birds of prey are a sign from the goddess,” Adeline said, her tone soft, almost reverent.

“Yes, I have often felt it was a sign of divine providence,” Rolf replied.

He wanted to ask her more, but she squared her shoulders and pointed toward the tunnel on the right, asking, “Was this the other cave?”

Certain things felt fated to Rolf. Finding these caves was one of them. However, at first it never felt like it. He needed a place to sleep that night, there was a cave. But the more time he spent in these ancient woods, the more he realized certain things were out of his control. Nature had a way of forcing herself on you, and the best you could do was adapt. So that was what he did.

“Yes. I used to use it when I lived down here. It’s easier for me to get in and out in human form without the possibility of falling to my death.” Rolf swung the lantern light down the tunnel, memories returning from when he was a newly turned wolf. “It was full of old mining debris, and a small cave-in had blocked off access to this space. It wasn’t until I started clearing it out that I realized the two tunnels were connected.”

They walked down the tunnel to the right, their footfalls echoing in the small puddles. He held out his arm for her, and she took it, her hand resting comfortably in the crook of his elbow.

Adeline squeezed his arm. “You used to live down here?”

“Yes, when I was still trying to understand what was happening to me.” In the months that followed his change, he had been so lonely and out of his depth. When he had stepped out of the stone circle, he shifted back into his human form almost instantly, still covered in blood. He fell to his knees, dripping with sweat, still coated in someone else’s blood. He tore off the regiment coat and ran downhill until he came to a stream. The water was frigid, but he scrubbed himself raw with sand, eager to get all evidence of the last day behind him. He washed his clothes next, trying to get rid of the fact that he wore someone else’s blood. That tiny detail would always confuse him. Why would they have covered him in someone else’s blood?

The answer now hit him like a slap to the face. “I was never supposed to make it this far.”

Adeline stiffened at his side, but she remained thoughtfully quiet as they reached the end of the tunnel.

Rolf stared at the snow beyond the gate. “It was all a part of their plan, wasn’t it? Separate us, kill me, make it look like an accident.”

“I think they had even more nefarious plans, Rolf,” Adeline whispered, looking up at him, revenge burning in her eyes.