Friends, I cannot believe I am saying this after two years of development hell, but I finished Bound Beauty today… Countless drafts and rewrites and I am both relieved and ecstatic to begin the next phase! Namely, one final proof and then putting out arc copies for those of you interested. We’re almost exactly a month out from the official release, so I also plan on ramping up my online presence. You know… from the usual 20% to at least a 75% 😉 Wish me luck, and I sincerely hope you’ll come along for the ride!
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IN A COTTAGE IN WYLDERLAND…
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Thea shrieked and Grandmother wrapped her arms around the girl as Balos and Vynasha rose and turned to the door.
“Balos! Come out!” Gira’s deep voice commanded from the other side. “We know you are in here!”
“Why that foshimmeny strumpet! How dare she come here,” Soraya snapped, golden wings bristling. “If I had the might of my power I would have turned her into the toad she is.”
“Watch over Thea, Mother,” Balos said with a gesture. Vynasha grimaced as his gaze briefly cut to hers. “I know why she is here.”
BANG! BANG!
“Balos!” Gira called again, and this time Balos rose to meet her.
Vynasha followed a half step behind, ignoring his quick glare. The hand he’d held tingled still and despite her exhaustion—the feral taint in her blood craved violence.
Before Gira could finish pounding their door once more, Balos lifted the latch and pushed the door open. Torchlight spilled into the entry with a dusting of fresh snow and flower petals.
Vynasha slipped into Balos’s shadow and wrapped her fingers over the hilt of her dagger. For Asa’s aunt had not come alone.
“Gira, what brings you and half the elder council to my door?” Balos placed a casual hand on either side of the doorframe, creating a solid wall of muscle and menace.
“Did you really think we would accept the word of your brother’s sons, Balos? You may rule the pack, but we keep watch on the village and the runes that have protected us an age.” Asa’s aunt was not a tall woman, but she carried herself like the queen Grandmother had been. Indeed, her white-gold hair was braided and pinned around her head like a coronet. She wore an embroidered shawl around her shoulders and carried a rune-etched torch in her white-knuckle grip. Her gold gaze flashed as Balos chuckled.
“You believe your pathetic magicks would have been enough to keep our enemies from our borders? Have you forgotten who taught you runes in the first place?”
Grandmother’s power pulsed with growing heat behind Vynasha. Even in her diminished state, she remained formidable. Since Vynasha had restored her failing body, she had recovered what she could. But it was a waning strength.
“I will not bring my full might to bear until it is absolutely necessary,” she once warned both Erythea and Vynasha.
We can’t allow them to push her over the edge now.
“—of a long tradition stretching far beyond the old queen’s reign,” Gira was spouting, to the murmured agreement of the elders at her back. “But that is not why we have come, Alpha. Our Asa would not tell us what happened today, but he has not stopped looking for demons beyond our windows. We know the children were gone all day, but why do you refuse to tell us where? Why do you shelter your pet witches but allow our young to wander into danger!”
“Yes! Tell us the truth!” someone in the crowd echoed.
“No more lies!” another crowed.
“Why do the trees move but refuse to speak with us?”
“The forest has turned against us,” a woman hissed.
“The old ones are stirring,” a man growled.
“Give us the witch and let her tell us what happened!”
“Gira,” Balos suddenly growled. “If you do not collar your kin, I shall have no choice but to silence them my own way!”
“Silence us now and be done with it, then, if you dare,” Gira snarled, lifting her sharp chin to Balos.
Hidden within the shadows, Vynasha carefully reached for her magick. The day’s trials had weakened her, but Grandmother had taught her to pace herself, and with every moon her endurance grew. The flowers lining the door frame began to shed more violet petals as they gradually wilted.
Balos stiffened slightly at the sight, then relaxed when she placed a hand against his back.
I’m with you, she silently vowed.
“Blood-letting fools,” Soraya cursed somewhere behind her and Erythea whimpered faintly.
“Peace!” Galtis interrupted, pushing his way from the back of the crowd to his sister’s side. “Peace, all of you!” Onya had been his daughter, and yet unlike Gira, he had never looked at Vynasha with hateful eyes for what Ceddrych had done. “This bickering will accomplish nothing!”
“Your presence has accomplished nothing, brother,” Gira cackled. “You can silence us no longer. We will hear the truth or we will rip it from them with our pathetic runes as he called them.”
“You have invaded my home to throw baseless accusations upon my family!” Balos bellowed, silencing the crowd. “Your children crossed the border to check their lines because they are chaffing against the rules, as pups do.”
The feathers on Galtis’s head ruffled as he bristled. “My sister has acted rashly, but she has also raised questions you have yet to answer. What is happening to the forest beyond our village? Why has the pack been silent on the war against the beasts? Are we any closer to seeking an end to this conflict?”
Balos chuckled, a deep and dangerous sound which made the villagers instinctively sink lower in their skins. “An end to this conflict…”
Vynasha squeezed her eyes shut. “Balos.” She barely breathed his name, but the muscles against her palm bunch and his cruel laughter faded. The stench of fear rippled through the crowd.
“Your children wandering beyond the border was not mine nor the pack’s failing. It is yours. The forest is no longer safe. No one should step beyond our runes alone, not without one of the pack. And we continue to do all we can to keep you and your loved ones safe. As I have… as we all have since before the spell upon you weakened enough you became aware of time once more. So you will accept my word as I give it, and you will leave my home and my family alone. Or the protection of the pack you deem unworthy will cease. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Alpha,” a villager murmured.
“Yes, Alpha,” another said, and the agreement echoed before, one-by-one, the villagers slowly returned to the village.
Vynasha dared to peek around Balos’s side to find only Gira and Galtis remained on their stoop.
Galtis eyed his sister warily and placed a trembling hand on her shoulder. “Sister, please. Asa needs us.”
Gira batted her brother’s hand aside with a hiss. “We wish no war with you, Balos, but we will not sit idly by when our lives are threatened any longer. Harbor the witches if you must but think of your daughter, if you care no longer for your kin. You would be wise to give Bitterhelm what he wants… while we yet live.”
“Gira… Gira, please come,” Galtis whispered against her ear and the old woman’s stiff shoulders sagged as she finally allowed her brother to guide her away from Grandmother Soraya’s home.
Vynasha closed her eyes briefly as she released the magick she had been gathering from the flowers and slowly straightened. Her palm ached where she had kept it wrapped around the dagger’s pommel. She flinched as Balos’s warm hand grazed hers but couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze.
Gira was right.
Balos squeezed her trembling hand and inclined his head to Soraya. “Still believe we can convince the other folk to give us their hidden magick, Mother?”
“Fools and cowards to the last,” Grandmother muttered while attempting to soothe Erythea. The scent of her anger lingered, but the troubling threat of her magick had abated. “That woman has always been a troublemaker, just like her fool niece was. Onya was never right after Aslov’s murder.”
Balos grimaced at the mention of his former second and turned back to the open door. The pinpricks of the villagers’ torches floated in the inky black of the forest. “I should inform the pack of what happened. We should keep a closer watch on the village until the forest is safe again, at least.”
Vynasha crossed her arms over her chest before she did something stupid like catch his hand and beg her friend not to leave. “You’re not serious,” she hissed. “After all that you’re just going to leave us again?”
Balos glanced back at Vynasha over his shoulder. “Try and get some sleep, Beauty. Remember, we leave at first light.”
to be continued…
Forgotten gods haunt her steps, and the cursed prince she left behind isn’t done fighting for her soul.
Vynasha is bound to the prince of Bitterhelm. Even if she were to die, her spirit will remain trapped with him in the castle forever. But she won’t give in to Grendel without a fight. With the aid of an oracle, a witchling, and the wolf that claims her heart, Vynasha plans to claim her power as the curse breaker.
A war is about to begin between the forgotten people of Wylderland and the cruel might of Bitterhelm. Beings of prophecy and legend unite in the epic third chapter of the Wylder Tales Series, a romantic gothic re-telling of Beauty and the Beast.
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