Rose, Wilted: Book 1

Chapter 13 - Who Are You?

"You idiot! They were both in your hands! How could you miss? How could you possibly miss when he was ten feet from you? You-,"

"It was a blizzard! You expect me to shoot straight in that?" Avoln spat.

"I expect you to do the job I'm paying you to do!" the Enchantress shrieked.

"Well a little backup would have been helpful!"

"You shouldn't need backup!" she shot back, getting in the hunter's face. She looked about ready to breathe fire. She didn't look pretty when she was angry. In fact, she looked more monstrous than the Beast.

"Coward!" Avoln bellowed. He saw the tiniest change in her steely eyes that was quickly concealed, but for him it was enough.

"You're just as scared as everyone else of that monster," Avoln continued with a grin. "That's why you won't do it yourself, isn't it?"

"How dare you! I should add you to my pack for that insult! I should-,"

"But you won't," Avoln said, calm now. "You know there's no one else crazy enough to hunt the Beast in the middle of winter. Or hunt it at all for that matter. And you're too scared to do it yourself."

"You-,"

Avoln raised a hand and waved away the rest of her sentence.

"Come find me when you've finished your temper tantrum, Enchantress. Our deal is still on, so long as I don't end up as a wolf. I'll be waiting."

* * *

I groaned. The noise hurt my head. My eyelids felt heavy and I wanted to slip away into unconsciousness again. I forced my head to turn and I squirmed in place a little to keep myself awake. It was important that I woke up. I needed to wake up.

I moved my shoulder and winced. I lay still again and groaned.

"Come on Annalise, get up," I muttered, "come on girl." I sounded like I was calling to a puppy in my sleep. I forced my uninjured shoulder up with an enormous heave and toppled off the couch, smashing my injured shoulder and ankle into the black marble. I shrieked and my eyes snapped open wide at the intense pain. I rolled off my injured side of my body and onto my back, wide awake now, and panting like a bloodhound. My chest heaved and the pain in my shoulder blazed to new life. Stabbing pains ran up my ankle. I gritted my teeth and tensed.

After a few more moments I felt my shoulder. My hand came back bloodless, and I sighed in relief. I twisted my head slightly to look and my shoulder and saw that the sleeve of my earth colored dress had been cut off so my shoulder was exposed to the open air. A white bandage had been bound tightly around it with a dry, brown splotch staining the middle. My ankle had been wrapped up as well. Had one of the servants done it? Rowena maybe?

I looked around from my position on the floor but saw no one. The ceiling was high and dark, lined with wooden buttresses, but there was cold, white marble beneath me as well. At this point I could have been anywhere in the castle, but as soon as I turned my head I realized that I was in a place I'd never visited before. A furry mound lay before a giant hearth, which had a strong fire blazing in its belly. On the wall above it was a massive engraving of a coat of arms, which proudly displayed a male lion's regal head, mid-roar, with two crossed swords just behind it. Heads of animals, hunting trophies I presumed, bordered the insignia.

I closed my eyes and thought of the tavern back in the village. It was similar in the way of hunting trophies and large fire, but not the coat of arms. This scene was more similar to the inside of Avoln's hunting lodge, which I had once had the displeasure of being given an extensive tour of. This was warm though, unlike Avoln's cabin. The animals on the wall seemed regal and majestic instead of dull and lifeless.