Her Wolf King

After Everett and Lenore had both chimed in to tell the story of how, exactly, they had not only met but also gotten spontaneously married (with a few alterations; he’d said that she’d nursed him back to health when he’d been injured while hunting, and had stayed with him in his cabin). Afterwards, he had apparently been so taken with her that he had whisked her away from her engagement to Kirk and had taken her to his humble cottage in the woods (this made her have to hide a snicker, since they both knew his castle was far from some humble hunter’s dwelling). Her father seemed to readily accept this explanation, though he was distraught over the fact that she had not called and argued that it didn’t explain why the wolf had shown up at the door of the church.

Before Lenore or Everett could come up with an explanation for that—or decide whether to tell her father the truth, if he would even accept that—a knocking rang at the door.

They all jumped, Lenore nearly dropping her teacup and splashing now-cold tea onto the cuff of her already-soiled gown.

“Everett Dunstan?” A vaguely familiar feminine voice called. “Lenore Abrahams—though, I suppose your surname would be Dunstan as well, considering you are married. Does either of these souls reside here?”

Startled, Lenore got up to peer through the curtains, but Everett grabbed her sleeve. “What if it is one of Marya’s minions, come to claim revenge for our, well, murder of her?”

“Where is your sense of adventure?”

“I assure you, there is a difference between having an adventurous spirit and being a foolhardy, reckless, headstrong, and—“

Before he could finish his sentence, she had wrenched herself from his grip and pulled back the lacy curtains—ones she had embroidered herself, with little patterns of wolves and roses, something she now found amusing—and saw only a familiar face.

“It’s the fairy who helped us when we went into the cellar,” she exclaimed. “Nyx!”

Both her father and brother looked aghast at this message. Her father’s jaw dropped. “The two of you are in contact with fairies? What is next, will a ghoul or a siren come to our door?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Papa, sirens can’t walk on dry ground.”

“That’s hardly the point,” Everett groused as Lenore dropped the corner of the drapes and went to unlock the door and let the fairy in. “What if it had been one of her minions?”

“Then we would have handled it together. Or are you scared?” She arched an eyebrow as she unlatched the door.

“I have a healthy respect for things that can kill me,” he remarked drily. “You seem to have been born without any sense of self-preservation, however.”

“That must be why I married you,” she said, giving a light laugh. “Nyx, how lovely to see you! And how unexpected as well. Please, come in. This is my father’s cottage, so I shall introduce you to him and my brother, Timothy.”

Timothy blinked three times, the room so quiet she could hear each instance. “A pleasure to meet you, Miss… Nyx.”

“Oh, just Nyx is fine. I certainly don’t stand on formality. I brought sandwiches!”

“Sandwiches?” Everett stared at the basket in Nyx’s hands.

“Yes, for tea. I’ve heard that’s a popular custom among mortals. I even managed to make cucumber sandwiches, and I believe there’s also watercress and egg, oh, and some ham ones, too…”

As the fairy began unpacking the basket, every male inhabitant of the cottage merely stared, open-mouthed, as a spread of food was strewn across the already-groaning table, which could barely support the pot of tea and four cups. Magically, the table managed to remain upright and in one piece as more and more victuals covered it.

“How delightful, Nyx. Thank you so much for your kind offering.” Lenore beamed. “Please, have a seat. I’ll brew another pot of tea for you.”

“That would be wonderful. If I am quite honest, I have grown tired of dandelion tea and would much enjoy anything you have in your cupboards,” the fairy said.

A fifth chair was fetched for her, a rickety stool that she pointed at, before twirling her finger and magically evanescing her own cushion to match it.

They all resumed their seats at the round table, with considerably more confusion and awkwardness. Her brother, seemingly uncharacteristically shy and quiet, ventured to ask how Nyx had first encountered Lenore and Everett, to which she responded that she had met the married couple when they entered through a portal in their enchanted castle that led to the Court of Curses.

“The Court of Curses?” Timothy repeated, his cup pausing halfway to his lips. “What sort of place is that?”

“Cursed,” Everett responded before taking a bite of his cress and egg sandwich. “This sandwich is quite good, Nyx.”

“Thank you,” the fairy responded. She shifted on her cushion before snapping her fingers, magically transforming the stool into a high-backed chair with ornate wood carvings. The rest of the table’s guests stared open-mouthed for a moment (well, her father and brother did) before continuing with the conversation and tea. “And thank you again for allowing me into your home. I understand it is quite rude to show up uninvited, but I only wanted to express my gratitude toward the two of you.”

“Whatever for?” Lenore leaned forward on one elbow, setting down her cucumber sandwich and nearly misplacing it in her cup of tea.

“Why, for killing Marya, of course,” Nyx said. “That ring that she had planned to be her salvation turned out to be her downfall.”

“What ring? What is she talking about? Who is this Marya woman?” Her father asked, a flurry of questions erupting from his mouth as he nearly spewed his mouthful of tea.

“Why, she is Everett’s former wife,” Nyx explained.

Her father turned to Everett with a frown. “You had better do some explaining, or else I shall think you a bigamist and chase you out of my house for marrying my daughter with an invalid license.”

“Out of all the things, Papa, that is what you choose to care about?”

“I will not have my daughter dishonoured under my roof.” He sniffed.

“Marya is dead now,” Nyx said. “So it matters not anyway.”

“Marya is… was my former wife. However, she cursed me and turned me into a wolf, exiled me to a castle, and vowed to make the rest of my life a living hell, so safe to say, we were hardly on the best of terms.” Everett shrugged, though she thought she saw a shred of hurt in his expression. “After she cursed me and turned me into a wolf, I spent the next fifty years—“

“Fifty years?” Timothy exclaimed. “How old are you? That’s practically robbing the cradle.”

“Technically, I am closer to a hundred than I appear,” Everett said. “However, my curse froze me in time, and I have not aged since I was turned, when I was twenty-eight.”

Her father and Timothy relaxed some. Timothy cleared his throat. “So your former wife cursed you to become a wolf? But you are clearly human now, yes?”

“Well, it is all thanks to Lenore, who broke my curse, and saved my life,” he said, looking at her with something she could describe as nothing but pure wonder.

Nyx sighed. “The power of true love.”

Her father was still shaking his head. “I can hardly believe it. If I had not seen what the village was like only this morning… and how restored it all is now… I would not have accepted a word of it. It sounds like nothing more than a tale out of one of your mother’s old fairytales that she used to tell you.”

“I assure you, it is far more real than that.” Yet, in some way, those stories were true, too. Perhaps not in their specifics, but in their message, in the whisper of the dreams that they inspired… There was some spark of honesty in them.

As she gazed at the man she now called her husband, she knew that all too well.