Virgin Outcast: Bred to the Beast (4 page)

Luther slammed a fist into the clapboard wall, and the whole cottage shook with his anger.  His voice was soft, but full of menace. 
"I don't give a squirrel's tail what that woman told you, girl.  When I come back,
I don't want to see you here."

"Where are you going?" Kara asked.

"Hunting." 
He stepped outside and slammed the door behind him.

Kara rocke
d back and forth in his chair.  Rela had predicted this. 
S
omeone will bring you food.  He will demand that you leave, but stay until I send for you, and Mykal shall be yours
.
  She curled her arms around her knees and tried to stay calm.  She wanted to flee, but if Rela spoke true, this was her only chance to be with Mykal. 
She went to the door and looked outside.  Luther was loping across the clearing
, empty-handed, without even a pack
.  She tried not to notice his graceful movements, or the way his tight leather pants stretched across hard muscle.

She turned back inside, then froze.  Luther hadn't been carrying a bow.  What man could hunt without one?  Why would he lie to her?

She slipped into her sandals and went outside. 
Countless beads of glistening morning dew coated the dead grass, and
Luther's footprints cut a clear path into the woods.  She followed, moving quietly as she hurried down the gentle slope.  The trees grew close together, and soon Kara could see less than a stone's throw ahead.  She heard water running, and soon she saw a narrow brook winding through the forest.

Luther made no effort to hide his trail; he'd followed the stream, and Kara kept her eyes down as she followed his long stride from one boot print to the next, each clear in the soft soil by the stream.

Intent
on his tracks
, with her ears full of the
constant babble of running water
, Kara barely heard the voices in time to avoid stumbling out into the open
.  If the horse hadn't whinnied,
she would have run right into Luther's back
.

She froze at the soft sound, followed by a stamping of hooves.  Slowly, she pressed herself against the nearest tree and peered around it.  Just a little ways off, she could see the stone bridge she'd crossed the night before.  Rela the Wise Woman sat astride a pale mare on the bridge, and Luther stood before her, arms crossed.

"...making her nervous," Rela said.

"Your horse wouldn't be nervous if you hadn't bothered to come out here.  Stop sending girls to me, woman.  I've told you before - your curse dies with me.
  I sent this one away as soon as I found her.
"

Rela's lips curled in a slow smile.  "I think not, Luther.  You'll sire a pup, and someday, he'll find you, as you did your own father."

"And why should some innocent
girl
suffer for the mistakes of a dead man?"  Luther stepped forward, but Rela pulled something from beneath her robes, the necklace of fangs Kara had seen in the dream.

"You should have asked your father," Rela said.  "A bit late for that now, isn't it?"
  She turned her horse so that it angled away from the woodsman, and the mare calmed somewhat, though still ready to bolt.  "This girl will be the one, Luther.  She cannot return home, and she has nowhere else to go."  Rela laughed suddenly.  "In fact, she's promised to stay where she is until I call for her, and I won't do that until you accept your fate."

"Damn you, woman.  I won't fall into this trap!"  His last word was a bitter growl, and Rela's pale mare reared.

"You already have, Luther," Rela said,
calming the skittish horse.  "You and yours, for generations to come.  Krall shall provide; I've seen to that."  She
laughed again as she put her heels into the mare's flanks and galloped away.

Luther stood watching her go, his chest rising and falling with quick, deep breaths.
  Then with shocking suddenness, he spun and sprinted off down the road, away from the bridge.

Kara let out a breath she hadn't realized she held, then slipped carefully behind the tree and tiptoed away.

Kara
returned to the cottage, disturbed by what she'd heard. 
She pulled the rocking chair out onto the cottage's porch and
gazed
at the woods
.  As she rocked, the exchange between Rela and Luther played
out in her head.  She knew that Rela wanted her here in this cottage, and that Luther didn't.  But why?

The cottage stood on the slopes of the mountain ridge west of Krall, and beyond the trees, she could see miles of rolling farmland, brown and gray now with winter so near.  Over the distant valley, dark clouds loomed, illuminated now and again by flashes of lightning.  Thunder rumbled, faint and distant.

She pushed the troubled thoughts aside and
tried to focus on the memory of
her
time
with Mykal
in the smithy, those precious moments of intense passion
before they'd been discovered, but even that pleasant memory was
tainte
d by
the intrusion of
Mayor Shen's torchlight
, by her banishment
, and by
the
dream
of Rela and Mykal
. 

She knew it had been real
, what she'd witnessed in her sleep
; the details had never faded from her mind, and she could still see Rela's smooth legs wrapped around her betrothed's waist, see him pumping her against the side of his cell while her fingernails raked
his
back.

Kara shook her head to banish the memory.  She hated Rela for seducing Mykal, but she was furious with him as well.  How could he let her?  She turned her thoughts to the present.  Would Rela
really
send for her
or had this all been a ruse to lure her to Luther's cottage
?  What would Luther do if he returned and found that she'd not departed?
  She wondered if her parents had been told of her exile yet.  Would they try to follow her?

Questions tumbled through her head, each more unsettling than the last, and none with answers. 
She knew she was being led into a trap like a lamb to slaughter, but she couldn't see the trap, much less the way out. 
Perhaps Luther was right.  Perhaps she should put Krall behind her
and run as far and as fast as possible
.
  But to walk away from her parents?  From Mykal?
 

She heated the stew at midday, then again for her evening meal, taking water from the stream that ran along the clearing's edge.  As the sun fell behind the mountains, she felt clearer of mind.  She had decided to wait
another
day to see if Rela would bring Mykal to her. 
Luther didn't want her here, but s
urely
he would
shelter her for one more night.

The thunderclouds grew closer as the shadow of the mountains stretched across the valley, and brown and yellow faded to a mottled gray.  The towering clouds promised rain, the kind of storm that could beat down crops and wash away fields in muddy torrents.  She shuddered at the thought of being caught out in that.

Luther didn't return, even as darkness fell.  When the last of the sun's light faded, the trees suddenly seemed much closer.  With a wary eye on the darkness, Kara pulled the rocking chair back inside and bolted the door behind her. 
Glowing yellow eyes still lingered fresh in her memory. 
If Luther returned, he could knock.

A soft rain began to fall, and a rising wind made branches
clatter against one another
in the darkness like rolling bones.  Kara built up the fire until the roaring blaze warmed the cottage and banished the shadows from the darkest corners, then huddled beneath the bearskin on the feather mattress. 
S
l
eep took her as she worked over the puzzle of Rela and Luther.

"Rise and come,"
a voice said, a command that Kara could not ignore.  Her eyes jerked open at the same time a peal of thunder split the night.  Rain roared on the cottage roof, and wind howled through the trees outside.

Rise and come.
  The words echoed in Kara's mind.  Rela's words.  The Wise Woman had called for her as promised.  She slid off the bed, but kept the bearskin wrapped around her shoulders.  The fire had dwindled to glowing embers, and a chill had settled on the cottage.

As if in a trance, Kara went to the door and threw back the crossbar.  Driving rain pelted the ground
in sheets
, but she
stepped out into the night without hesitation.

The rain quickly soaked her hair and the bearskin that she wore like a shawl
until both were plastered to her skin
.  She let
the bearskin
fall behind her
and walked across the clearing wearing only her shift, which quickly grew sodden and clung to her curves. 
The wet grass softened her steps and tingled between her toes. 
Rise and come.
  Mykal waited ahead.

She was almost to the trees when a bolt of lightning exploded overhead, bathing the entire clearing in stark white light.  Every tree and branch stood out clearly, and between the trunks, Kara saw something else, a darker shape against the gray bark.  It was shaped like a man, but its head lay low on its huge, rounded shoulders, and the legs seemed to bend in the wrong places.  A
pair of sharp eyes
leered at Kara, gleaming like burnished
gold.

Thunder boomed, a deafening explosion directly overhead, and it shattered Kara's trance like glass.  Had she really followed Rela's voice out into the storm?  Her fear crashed back down like the crossbar slamming into place, that terrified sprint through the night, the yellow-eyed beast close behind.
  Yet somehow she'd let herself be drawn out into the night, far from safety.

Trembling, she backpedaled toward the cottage, watching the spot where those eyes had been.  Another bolt of lightning seared the sky, bringing a moment of daylight to the clearing and the forest beyond.

Where the beast had been, Kara saw nothing.  Where had it gone?

She turned and ran.

The cottage seemed impossibly far away.  The door stood open, a rectangle of faint orange light from the dying embers in the fireplace.  The rain and wind drove at her, seeming to push her back.  Why had she come out into this?  Her feet slipped on the wet grass, and she fell to her knees.

Something dark moved in front of the doorway, blocking what little light remained.  Kara froze.

"
You were told
to leave," a voice said.  The words were the deep rumble of a growling mastiff
.
  The creature's bulk was a darker shadow on the black night, but its eyes glowed yellow, as though they drank the light.

Kara had seen those eyes before, in the instant before she slammed the cottage
door last night.  But she'd seen them again in daylight, when they were softer and the brown of polished wood.  Luther's eyes. 
You'll sire a pup someday,
Rela had told him.  She understood now why Rela had sent her here.  She was to be this creature's broodmare.

Another lightning flash showed her Luther's full form.  His head stood low on his thick, round shoulders, and his face had elongated into a muzzle full of sharp teeth.  Still, now that she knew, she could see Luther's features in that face, wilder and more savage, but the man was there. 
C
oarse hair covered most of his
powerful torso
, the same black she remembered in his beard.  He stood naked, with a long, thick cock hanging
like a rope between l
ong, well-muscled legs
that were
built to run,
to kill.  The lightning faded, and the beast roared as thunder exploded almost overhead. 
With him between her and the cottage, she had no chance.

That thought brought calm, somehow.  Whatever happened here was beyond her control.  She could as easily move a mountain as fight this beast.  Her body screamed to turn and run, but she stood her ground, meeting that baleful yellow gaze.

He cocked his head to one side as though surprised she hadn't moved. 
"Won't you run, girl?
It's hardly sporting if you just stand there."  Luther began pacing back and forth in front of the cottage.  As he moved aside, she could see a clear path to the door, but the tension in his posture told her he was ready to pounce.

As cold rain slid down her skin, Kara realized that he wanted her to run.  Luther the man was still in that creature, but the beast's instincts were strong.  If she ran, the beast could take over, and Luther couldn't blame himself for what happened.

She shook her head.  "I won't run from you, Luther.  I can't escape.  If you must take me, let it be the man who decides, not the beast.
"