The Wolf & The Witch

It was more a village than a city they were led through- definitely not the place to shop for clothes, and probably no extra food to be had if the men milling about were any indication. Tents, and lean-to shacks, made up half the village, and the other half was squatty wooden houses, and a portion of the wooden houses had been burned recently. Mud and excrement and trash made up the streets. Fires burned in a few barrels, and a few horses huddled together for warmth in the distance. There were two larger houses on one end of the village, and a well in the center. Old water tanks stood on logs, and piles of wood for burning made a half-fence around the small village.

“Who knew there was a city this close?” the witch said, her right forearm across her breasts. “You couldn’t smell this, or hear this? Useless wolf.” This was bad and she knew it- men, skinny, hungry, standing at doors, in the mud, bundled up in ragged coats, watched her pass. Claire saw only a few women, and they didn’t look healthy.

“Who knew there was a city here, huh? If only we’d had a map to study. Wouldn’t that be something?” Lestat knew this was bad- they would cut his arm off and take her for themselves, and either eat him or kill him, and he wasn’t sure how to survive this without being able to fully shift.

They were led to a small lot at the edge of the village and shoved inside. They ducked their heads under a board and stumbled forward to a covered shack.

Lestat looked around- this wasn’t a jail- it was a fenced-in muddy lot with holes in the ground. The holes were about fifteen feet deep, with slick red clay walls and wooden grates laid over top. The sun was high and he could see shadows- frail, narrow thin shadows, in some of the pits. Probably women.

A guard watched them come from the shadow of a crumbling shack. “You two are fools to come back.” He took a deep breath through his nose- it was three-hundred miles of dust in every direction, with only little pockets of life here and there, and on top of that, this land was controlled by a very dangerous witch, aptly named: the Witch of Dust. No one escaped this land. “Steal everything there is to steal, and how far will that take you? A hundred miles?” He stood and spat at Lestat. The man wasn’t a wolf, but he was armed, and strong, nevertheless. He wore solid leather boots, heavy pants and layers of button-up wool and flannel shirts. A coat hung on a wire behind him. He walked forward and looked at the cuff- same as before. “You should’ve just died out there.” He looked from the wolf, to the witch, and traced her body with his eyes. “The Alpha was curious what you looked like.” He reached to grab Claire’s jaw and she jerked her head back.

“We’ve never been here before,” Claire said, honestly, proudly. “You couldn’t pay me enough to walk barefoot through this shithole village, but if we’re prisoners, fine- give us food and clothes.” She felt Lestat put his right hand around her left, and squeeze. Was that a warning?

“Food and clothes? After what you two did? Freezing to death is probably your kindest fate.” The man stepped forward, pulled his right fist back, and punched the witch with the intent to remove her head. Lestat pushed her to the side and took the punch and went down on his knee. The guard kicked Lestat in the side, then raised his foot and stomped him into the cold dirt, which pulled the witch down as well, and then he stomped them both a few times. He reached down for the chain, dragged them through the mud to the nearest pit, and kicked them in the ribs and legs and head until they fell, fifteen feet down into the hard clay mud. The chain followed and hit Claire in the back of the head, knocking her out.

Lestat was alive, and unbroken, but it was better to pretend not to be. He looked over- the witch was alive. He kept his body still, and stopped his breathing, and watched as the shadow of wooden beams were slid across the top of the pit, and waited till he heard the man walk away before sitting up. He pulled the witch up, out of the mud, against the wall of the pit, in a narrow beam of pale light, and she woke, gasping, shaking, disoriented, and cold.

She took deep breaths and scooted back against the clay wall with him. She had been afraid many times since she woke in the cell- her first fear was this wolf she was cuffed to- taking advantage of her, forcing himself on her, stealing her virginity, then she was afraid of falling to her death, she was afraid of being crushed to death by falling stones, then she was afraid of dying of thirst, then hunger, then freezing to death. All those fears remained except the first one- fearing this wolf. She didn’t like him, but she was no longer afraid of him. “You know something?” She scooted closer to him, shivering, aching, breathing heavy, and looked at his face- an ugly bruise was blooming over his right eye. “I don’t even know your name.”

Lestat almost gouged her, dug at her- it’s none of your damn business, as she had said. It was the first damn thing he had asked her. But he didn’t dig at her. “Lestat,” he said, looking at the walls of the pit. “Yours?”

“Claire.”

“That sounds like the name of a woman who milks goats for a living.” He had to dig, a little.

For the first time in over a week Claire smiled, and with the smile came a tear, and then she sniffled more tears, trying to hold them back. She had milked goats many times, and so badly wished there was one in front of her now. “And… yours sounds like the name of a prissy vampire.”

Lestat grinned at that. He had always hated his name. He looked down at her, past her eyes, past her breasts, to her waist, and she glared up at him.

“So now’s the time you decide to look at me, huh? When I’m crying? You truly are an ass.”

“I’m not looking at your body. I’m surprised they didn’t take that off you.” The thirty feet of rope tied to her side.

Claire covered her breasts with her right arm and pulled her knees up, but didn’t fuss- she didn’t think he was gay- not and wake up harder than normal after wedging his face in her cleavage, but she still didn’t think he was normal. He kept her warm at night, he walked in silence, and he glared at her, but he didn’t look at her body- when he did look at her it was her eyes. But she had avoided him, too, at every step, so maybe she wasn’t normal, either. “That rope’s not going to do much against s-s-swords.”

“No, and it won’t h-hold our weight.”

Their voices were low, whispering, and starting to shiver. They might not survive the night in this pit- not naked.

“Lestat?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for… not being mad that-that I m-messed up t-the map, and for taking that punch, and c-c-covering me from the guards.” She meant the way she woke up this morning- he was shielding her nakedness, which meant a lot to her. She was dirty and filthy, she hadn’t bathed in a week, her arms and legs were cut up from thorn bushes, red clay and brown mud ran with the purple bruises across her body, but still… that act meant a lot to her.

“You’re welcome.” He sighed, remembering her words- I don’t want to die; he didn’t want to die, either. “I would’ve died without you, a few times over. Somehow you managed to lead us to the one house that had a wooden table to burn, and tapestries. We would’ve died that first night, without you.” He raised their locked hands up, and then let them fall; he looked at their cuffed wrists- solid metal, a half inch thick, with no keyhole and no seam, as if it had been melted around their wrists. This cuff did not look like it was made by a witch, or a wolf. When wolves kept prisoners, they locked them up, chained, in cages. Or pits. But the cuffs could be removed with keys. Cuffs weren’t the same as slave bangles. This cuff looked like a collar put around the neck of a slave, using magic. And it was the magic in a slave bangle that controlled the slave. Was this controlling them, somehow? Obviously, it was- if nothing else it was limiting their abilities. “Hey, Claire?”

“Yeah?”

“We messed up the map. Not just you. I… apologize for slapping you. I’m sorry.”

Claire had never in her life heard a wolf apologize. For anything. Witches gossip; many times she had heard other witches talk about the horrible things wolves did to them, yet they stayed with the same wolves. Did they ever get an apology? No. Did they ever say sorry? No. She sighed- he was still a wolf even with apologies. “It’s ok.”

“Tell me about the other three witches who drank water.”

She scooted closer, cold and shivering. “They were all our age. One of them worked... worked directly under the priestess, and has for years, as her pp-personal assistant. Another one w-was in a relationship the coven didn’t like- she was seeing a member of the church in Leiga. And the o-o-other was…” as Lestat had said recently, of all witches, “A whore.”

He shifted, and fur ran down his arm, and body, and she scooted closer. Then he pulled her closer- he tugged her right hand behind her back and pulled her against him and put his arms around her. She was shivering and her teeth starting to chatter. And the wolf, much like the witch, was growing colder the longer he sat, and it was starting to hurt. “There were four wolves w-w-who drank water, including me. One w-was Elba’s son-” Elba, and his brother, were both alphas of their own packs. “The other was packless, like me. And I didn’t recognize th-the other.”

“Four c-couples?” she whispered. And the alpha’s son, and the priestess’s assistant? That was interesting. And a whore, a witch who had come to the lord- or on him, two packless mutts, and some random wolf. Fine company. “What the fuck. Why?” Claire shut her eyes. There was only enough water for four glasses. There were only four glasses. She could not wrap her head around the purpose of drugging four witches, and four wolves, cuffing them, and sending them thousands of miles away. Naked. Even if they wanted specific couples to mate, cuffing them together in such a barren land was not the fastest way to accomplish that goal. It was actually a horrible idea if their goal was mating- any of the four wolves were just as likely to rape and kill their witch, break their arms off and go free. And the Alpha’s son? That was very odd- he could die just as easily as- wait. “Hold on- they recognize this cuff, not us.”

“Yeah.”

“Why? Because the other couple was dressed. Hoods? Blankets wrapped over their shoulders? Oh goddamnit.” That goddamn priestess- she probably sent her assistant and the Alpha’s son to some castle, dressed, warm, probably with the finest foods.

“Yeah. But they had to be sent somewhere close to get to this village that fast. We need to look for the other couples.”

“We need to get out of this hole and find clothes,” she whispered. But then she was curious why he said that, so asked.

“If one of the wolves was the alpha’s son, and one of the witches was the priestess’s assistant, they’ll know something.”

“We still need to get out of this hole and find clothes.”

“Yes we do.”

Claire lowered her eyes to the hard clay. There was still an impression in the floor where they had landed, filling with water. Just another way of torturing the poor people thrown in these pits- they could never sleep- a few hours in one spot and the clay would sink and fill with water. Her ribs still ached from the impact. She snuggled herself into him as close as she could, and felt the rope shift on her hip. She looked down at the rope, then at the pooling water. “I have an idea,” she whispered.