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A knock at my bedroom door woke me, and I pulled my cold cheek away from the window. It was light outside and the dream I had lingered in my mind as I stretched my stiff legs, before getting up from the window seat. I felt cold and damp. Then I realised I was naked, which meant I never dreamt about the wolves. It was all real.
“Coming,” I called as I grabbed a nightgown from my wardrobe.
When I opened the door, Bradley was standing there and without a word, he held out his hand to me, as if he wanted me to go with him.
He dropped his hand when he saw the state of me, the dried mud caked between my fingers and toes, and a frown formed between his eyes. “Were you outside? Without me? It’s dangerous!”
“I need to get changed.” I ignored his questions. After closing the door, I had a quick, hot shower before I walked to my wardrobe and found something warm to wear. I pulled on a pair of jeans, a cream coloured Aran wool jersey and a pair of rugged walking boots over my thick wool socks. I already started to feel a little bit warmer.
Opening my bedroom door again, Bradley was still there waiting for me and I followed him along the corridor and down the stairs. Without a word, we walked out of the castle and followed the familiar trail toward our secret hide-away.
When we got there, he pulled me down to sit beside him among the roots of the trees on the periphery of the meadow. A shaft of golden light angled down through the tree limbs above us. I could hear the sea crash against the rocks in the distance.
I reclined against the tree trunk behind me, and noticed Bradley looking at me with a teasing glint in his eyes. “I think we should talk about it. It’s keeping me up nights and it’s the only thing I think about, even more than you being a shape-shifter.”
“About what?” I pretended not to know he was talking about our kiss. The kiss where I succumbed to him and he now knew, without a doubt, how I felt about him. The way I kissed him, there was no way he did not know he held my fragile heart, made of glass, in his hands. With one careless word or gesture, he could shatter it so easily. How did he not know?
“We should make a pact. In three days, we should meet here in this exact spot again and then we say what we really want to say, without fear.” He looked at me. “Agreed?”
“I don’t know, Bradley. Maybe we should just leave things as they are.”
He continued, as if I never said a word, “If one of us don’t show, it would mean the obvious.”
He did not have to explain the obvious to me. If one of us did not arrive, it would mean we did not want to be more than just friends.
I looked up at the sky. Clouds were starting to gather on the horizon. “Okay,” I agreed.
He said softly, “You are very pretty, with the light falling around your face like that?”
I laughed softly. “And if there was no light, would I still be as pretty?”
“You would,” he said even more softly.
“Flattery. If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you wanted to kiss me again.” I felt my cheeks heat up.
“And if I did?” he teased.
“And if Chloé was here, would the kissing stop?”
He did not answer my question, instead he said, “I want nothing more than for you to feel about me, the way I feel about you.”
“I already feel that way about you. Friends, right?” I arched my eyebrows as I looked back at him.
He smiled. “The truth will be revealed in three days’ time.”
The light around us changed as it became darker. There was a distant peal of thunder.
Bradley looked up at the sky, as he said, “It’s going to storm.”
I said, looking up at the sky as well, “Let it.” I wanted to tell him about the man I saw last night stalking around the castle and how I saw him shifting into the shape of a fox right in front of my eyes. I wondered if it was my grandfather because there had been foxes following us home from Edinburgh as well. I wondered why he could still change between a human and animal form, when my uncle told me at eighteen the choice was final. If he could change at will, my mother should be able to do it as well. I was not ready to tell Bradley I had changed into a wolf the night before.
He said, glancing at me, “I don’t think I can wait three days. Do you think we can ever be more than friends?”
I pulled my legs up to my chest and rested my chin on my knees. For a long moment I did not say anything as my eyes followed the golden eagle circling the meadow. It looked small against the dark clouds gathering in the sky.
“What if I answered yes?” I asked, with a mocking tone in my voice.
Slowly, the golden eagle drifted downward, tumbling in graceful, lazy spirals. A bolt of jagged lightning split the sky, barely missing the golden eagle and I gasped loudly.
The wind started howling, driving a fine, stinging rain through the protective tree branches above us. Overhead, the sky was dark and ominous.
Bradley stood up quickly, holding his hand out to me. “Come, we must hurry to get back.” His words got lost in the sound of the wind.
It became bitterly cold very quickly and we pushed against the wind toward a large rock formation and scrambled underneath.
A single tear started in my eye and dropped to my cheek. It was all so useless. Bradley was only into kissing me, he probably only wanted to steal my virtue, he was not really interested in me, but when he said things which included the words feeling and could we ever be more, it made hope take root in my heart. For hope to grow the ground needed to be watered and tended, and sadly that was something only love could accomplish.
He kept asking if we could be more than friends, but when I mentioned Chloé, he always steered the conversation in a different direction.
The sound of thunder came closer and it frightened me, and I felt my heart pound faster in my chest. Reaching up to wipe away the tear on my chin, I noticed my hand was horribly transformed. Coarse black hairs sprouted along my wrist and down to my fingers. In place of my nails there was now wickedly curved claws.
Panic engulfed me, and I wanted to run away and hide myself, before Bradley noticed what was happening to me.
Looking across my shoulder, I saw Bradley was turned away from me, huddling in the corner of the outcrop, brushing his hand over his head to wipe away the cobwebs and moss clinging to his hair.
My shadow casted shadows in all directions.
Bradley said, pointing to the ground, “Look. We’re right in the middle of a faerie ring.”
I was too afraid to say anything. I did not want to draw his attention to me and have him looking at me. I looked to where his finger was pointing and saw a ring of red toadstools.
My eyes caught a movement between the trunks of the trees where we were sitting not so long ago. There were several wolves peering at us from between the branches of the lush bushes beneath the trees.
“Amber?” His whispered question pulled my attention away from the group of wolves, and I looked back at him.
His face was a mask of agony as he reached for me.
I stepped away from him, into the pouring rain.
Then I let go.
I did not think about it.
I did not wonder if I should.
I just let go.
On four legs, I ran away from Bradley.
