The Freya Mikaelson Stories

Those We Left Behind

–The 1500s–

The embers in the fireplace were close to dying, their warmth rapidly fading and allowing for a chill to run up my bare arms. I rubbed them absentmindedly, leaning against the windowsill to peer down at the activity in the village below, a distraction from the cold while I waited for the innkeeper's daughter, Louisa, to come bearing more firewood.

The sun had set an hour ago, and what had earlier been a crowded marketplace brimming with merchants and housewives shopping for their husbands' dinners, was now a den of iniquity with prostitutes flaunting their wares to their increasingly drunken and inebriated clientele. I didn't mind. Though I rarely indulged in the company of these creatures, their town's reputation for lewd and criminal behaviour was the very reason I had chosen to purchase a room for the night. It was not a place anyone would associate with me and it would likely offer me the concealment I needed until I could leave the following morning.

Though I loathed having to run and hide, it was not a new experience for me. In fact, it had become my whole life ever since I made the decision to leave Dahlia, fully aware she would never cease to hunt me down. But for once, it was not the ever-looming threat of my aunt that had swayed my decision to hole up in this rowdy inn, nor my sudden need to leave the continent all together once the opportunity came.

It was a man.

A man by the name of Marcus Lowe.

We had met a few months prior when I resided in the forest a few towns over. I'd been setting snares for rabbits one morning when I came across a wounded animal. A wolf.

The people of Britain, both common folk and nobility alike, had made it their mission to rid the isles of the wolf population that attacked their livestock and threatened human life. So aggressively, in fact, the canine species was now a rarity. It did not stop the villagers from occasionally gathering hunting parties and setting vicious traps for the animals, however, and it seemed this time they had succeeded in catching one.

The wolf was huge, his fur a charcoal black, his eyes dark. His left front paw was trapped between two iron clamps with jagged edges that cut into his flesh, and though he was still fighting to free himself, even from a distance I could tell he would soon exhaust himself and submit to a slow, agonizing death.

I could also tell that this beast was not entirely animal. The energy that swirled around him, unseen to everyone who did not possess magic of their own, informed me this was a shifter. A werewolf.

It took a long time before he allowed me to near him, and even longer for him to accept my touch. When he finally let his guard down enough for me to pry the trap apart with magic, he collapsed onto his side, the wolf retreating and giving way to the man. Marcus.

He howled in pain as he clutched his mangled hand, a few of his fingers barely held on by strips of flesh and sinew. The pain proved too intense and he passed out shortly after.

At this point in time, grand shows of magic like teleportation were not something I allowed myself to make use of, unless absolutely necessary. The more magic I used, the easier it would be for Dahlia to sense and track me. And so even if I would have felt more comfortable transporting us back to the abandoned hovel I was inhabiting, I was unable to move Marcus and stayed by his side to heal him in slow, steady bursts. It took time and effort to restore his hand and ensure he would still retain the use of his fingers, but luckily he did not wake during my sessions of healing. and we were not disturbed.

He came to when night had fallen, his naked body draped in my cloak, and as soon as I was certain he would be able to make it home without further assistance, I rose to leave. But he caught me by the arm and held me back, a move that was both gentle and insistent at the same time.