Tales of Arilland Read Online Free PDF Page B

implored. “Make the dreams stop.”
    She stretched out a hand to caress his bare foot, where it dangled down from the rock on which he sat. Her mate growled low in his throat. Her long, narrow palm was warm and rough, the nails that tipped her fingers dark and thick. It would be nothing for her to thrust those nails into his chest, tear out his traitorous golden heart, and replace it with moss and tree sap. “These dreams you dismiss so easily,” she said, “they are my dreams.”
    “I am sorry,” he said, and again the words dripped with regret.
    “It is not a decision to make lightly,” she said. “If I take the dreams from you, any part of you that was ever wolf will be gone forever.” No more seeing in the dark. No more singing to the moon. No more smelling his way home. But he could not return to his wife and family-to-be as he was, so dangerous to their well-being and so much less than a man.
    “Come run with us, cousin,” she asked again. “Be sure that the choice you make is the right one.”
    He set his fiddle on the rock, hopped down into the swarm of giant, hungry wolves, and slipped his hand into that strange and deadly palm.

    H arvest didn’t tell her parents about her husband’s mad journey for fear they would come and take her away. Her home was the one thing that kept her tethered to sanity. Bane’s family was very supportive: During the days, Rose helped her in the garden and her husband built a crib for the nursery. In the evenings, Aurelia and the fiddler played and sang for their supper, lullabying their daughter-in-law and soon-to-be grandchild into bed. For all the well-meaning company, it was the dead of night Harvest lived for most. She would stare out the window, wish on the stars, and blow kisses to the bone-colored moon. She would listen for the creaks and whispers that echoed in the empty corners of the dark world. They had the timber of Bane’s voice and they promised her they would return home before their baby was born. They promised.
    The night there was no moon Harvest felt the loneliest she’d ever been in her life. But were it not for the absence of her celestial companion, she never would have noticed the yellow eyes watching her from the far side of the garden. At the same moment there was a kick in her belly—she gasped, and in a flash the wolf was gone.
    Harvest looked for the wolf every night, and every night it was there. It never approached the house, simply watched the house from the same spot at the opposite edge of the garden. Harvest felt an irrational kinship with the wolf. She imagined that they were both lonely, both burdened by responsibility, both waiting for something they weren’t exactly sure of, and both wanting something they knew they only had a slim chance of obtaining. But the hope was there.
    Harvest began leaving food out for the wolf, sometimes not finishing her evening meal on purpose so that there would be scraps left. She walked them as far as she dared, to the near edge of the garden. She never saw the wolf’s eyes in the daylight and she never saw it eat, but come dawn the bowl was always empty.
    The first night of the full moon, Harvest walked the bowl of scraps out to the garden and saw an old man standing where her wolf had been. Short, dark gray hair covered his skin evenly, barring shocks of pure white on his forehead and temples. He was darkness, but for his sharp teeth and those piercing yellow eyes. Harvest dropped the bowl and squeaked out a tiny shriek, immediately wishing she was a braver woman.
    “I liked you better as a wolf,” she said.
    The wolf-man laughed hoarsely at her statement, baring his mouthful of deadly teeth in the process. Harvest froze, ordering herself to remain calm and show no fear. This was one of the last times her baby would be able to feel her every emotion, and she refused to let cowardice be one of them. See, baby, your mother is strong. One day, you will grow up and be this strong.
    “You must come