Wolf's Path (Monstrous Hearts: The Short Stories)

Truly A Wolf's Wife

A/N: I've had many requests for this over the years and finally buckled down and wrote it! It's a short story about Alice and Colton's wedding day (and night). If you haven't read Wolf's Wife, Wolf's Bane, and Wolf's Kin, this one won't make much sense. For those who have, I hope you enjoy  it!

Alice ran fingers down the shimmering, white fabric of her wedding dress with a sense of wonder. The crushed velvet clung to her skin and then fell from her hips in simple folds, but she hadn't wanted anything opulent. Even her hair was loose, spilling past her bare shoulders. Her one indulgence was a veil embroidered with flowers of white and gold, which Gretchen now carefully set in place with several bobby pins, deft despite having only one hand to work with. Her other arm expertly cradled her youngest daughter, Mia.

"You look nervous," commented Gretchen. She sounded teasing yet quiet; only a few yards of redwoods stood between them and the small clearing where the others waited. Then she offered the bouquet of delicate wildflowers. "Are you ready for this?"

"I am." Somehow, Alice's heart fluttered against her ribs, light and eager and shy, as though she were a simple girl.

Perhaps that shouldn't have surprised her. Today, the past pressed on her as vividly as the present, and as she started the path through the trees, she felt lighter with each step, both reliving and casting aside what had shaped her life to this point.

The brief sight of a black wolf beneath the bone-colored light of the moon—this was her beginning. True, before this moment, she had been born and had struggled with loss and love. Marked with enough scars for a lifetime, she hadn't thought herself innocent in any way.

Then the wolf had returned and opened her world to the supernatural. How could the strangeness of a beast transforming into a man frighten her? It meant she had a chance to experience more than the preening and pettiness of people. He gave her the honesty of teeth and the comfort of lying with the fiercest monster in the dark. Even when he shifted into his skin and looked at her with clear, green eyes, their wildness infused her with a promise that he never trusted to words: I will never let you be leashed again.

And he didn't, even after her fear thwarted chances at freedom. The frustration he must have felt over her refusal to leave with him, over the blind obedience to her first lover despite receiving constant cruelty... his terse way of speaking always tightened further if he had to mention 'the woman.' The three brief syllables contained the violence of frothing jaws. A warning that became a reality.

Perhaps that was the first time Alice realized he could never frighten her, when he killed so viciously and she merely clung to him in bed that night, finding peace each time he nuzzled her with that dangerous mouth. One conviction soothed her raw heart like a balm, brilliant and golden like the color of his eyes as a wolf: she hadn't lived before... she had simply waited to find him.

Sunlight sparkled through the redwoods. The delicate scent of the bouquet in her hands filled Alice's senses while she drew in a deep breath, brought back into the present by the sight of her family seated and waiting. From the corner of her eye, she saw the arched, white trellis where the reverend waited beside the figure that made every fiber of her being shiver in exhilaration—Colton—but forced herself to stay patient beneath everyone's attention.

Her father appeared accepting of the situation, which was more than she had ever expected. Her stepmother already dabbed at her eyes, and her sister looked relieved to be in a hoodie and shorts despite the formal tuxedos and dresses everyone else wore. Only a handful of loved ones shared this day with her, but it was enough. Her past self hadn't believed severed connections could be repaired—that she must either remain alone with her decisions or return and follow the expectations she had grown up with. It had been difficult to not only find her wildness but learn how to let it guide her, in some ways as agonizing as bones twisting into new shapes and skin sprouting a thick pelt.