Bisclavret

Chapter 2

Early August 1793,

Morcenx, South Western France

I come to in darkness, fear squeezing its villainous fingers around my heart. The bedsheets are drenched in sweat and tangled around my legs. In my panic, they feel like the grasping fingers of the newly dead. I struggle free from them and fall to the floor, scrambling away on hands and knees until it hits me. The floor. Of my bedroom. I'm not in the forest. Some huge, hulking creature doesn't have hold of me.

It was only a dream.

I stop crawling and flop over onto my back, trying to get my traitorous pulse under control. Sweat Heavens, it seemed so real. The smell of fur and musk still fills my nose, the cloying scent of wolves thick enough to choke on. My ribs burn where that creature held me, and when I reach up and tentatively touch them, they feel bruised.

What the hell?

The stone floor at my back is at least ten degrees cooler than the air, and I decide to stay where I am, relearning how to breathe as the sweat dries on my skin. What a bizarre dream. That will teach me not to sneak a second glass of wine before bed again.

What dark corner of my mind conjured that demon? Half man and half wolf, like a creature birthed from hell and spat onto earth to put the fear of God into sinners. It's silly to dwell on it, but I can't help but wonder why it chased me. Where did that stray thought about it haunting me come from? As if I've been running from it for years? Is this a recurring nightmare that only my sleeping self remembers?

Speaking of my sleeping self, that woman is a force to be reckoned with. I barely know how to ride a horse, but in my dream, I sat my saddle like I was born in it. My God, I fired a gun at full gallop and actually managed to hit my target.

It's only when the roaring in my ears subsides and I can think past the lingering terror that other things penetrate my mind. An orange glow undulates over the cracked plaster of my ceiling. Men's voices echo through the open window. I cringe when a loud screech rends the air like someone ground a metal tool over the stone exterior of the castle – what a godawful racket.

Frowning, I get up from the floor. My knees wobble ominously, and I have to steady myself against the wall until my legs solidify beneath me. Stupid dream. I must have been thrashing in my sleep because I feel utterly spent, like I'd really been on that hellish road. I stagger over to the window and grip the wooden frame carefully, wary of splinters as I lean forward into the night. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the blazing light of so many torches, but when they finally do, my confusion only deepens.

A strange tableau fills the courtyard below. The three coaches owned by the family I serve have been pulled from the stables, and men are stripping them of their finery. Each carriage once proudly displayed a coat of arms in the middle of its door, but now they're missing. Mud is smeared in their places. The once-gleaming black lacquer is pockmarked and dented. As I watch, a large man scratches an iron tool down the front of the smallest carriage, and the shriek of protesting wood splits the night air as he mars it further.

My fear comes roaring back. It looks as though we're under attack, but I can't understand why these men are targeting the carriages of all things. The chateau is filled with priceless antiques and treasures. Shouldn't they be storming the doors instead?

Just as I'm about to raise an alarm, one of the figures turns towards the light, and I recognize the unmistakable features of my mistress's older brother, Jacques, the future Marquis de la Beauchene. The air I gulped in to scream with whooshes out of my lungs deflatedly.

What on earth are they doing? I wonder, catching sight of his two younger brothers, Emanuel and Antoine, alongside him.

I need to find out what's happening. In a year of bizarre events, this is almost too much to fathom. I turn from the scene and snatch my dressing gown from the back of a chair. After pulling it on, I slide my feet into my slippers and open the door that separates my room from my mistress's. Her name is Olivia, and she's the only daughter and youngest child of the current Marquis de la Beauchene, one of France's most revered generals. Well, at least he was before the revolutionists overthrew the monarchy. Now he's a fugitive.