Betsy sat on the bed and patted the spot next to her. He tried not to look too pathetic as he eagerly accepted her invitation and joined her. They were still too far apart, but anything short of deeply pressed inside of her was going to feel too separate at that point. He’d have to deal with it for the moment.
“There was a woman named Lily, and she was human. Lily was beautiful. More beautiful than the other women in the town, but not wealthy or well connected, and the other women were jealous of her because of her beauty and didn’t include her in their circles.”
Betsy rolled her eyes. “Some things never change I guess. I never went to high school, but they’re always talking about this stuff on the news.”
“You’re right. Some nastiness is universal.” He tried to remember where he was in the story. It was hard when he was so close to Betsy that all he wanted to do was reach out and hold her. “Um. Right, okay. The men all desired her, but none understood her. She was creative, strong, and brilliant. Not necessarily qualities they wanted in a docile wife.”
“This feels ominous to me.” Betsy scooted back on the bed until she leaned against the headboard. He followed her back, positioning himself on his side to look at her. There were dark circles under her eyes, but the tension around her mouth had lessened. She was relaxing, and it was a beautiful thing to witness.
“It should. Lily went out into the woods to get water from the stream, and a group of villagers watched her go. Some of the men decided to follow. They didn’t have good intentions, and while her back was turned, they jumped her.”
Betsy gasped. “No.”
He wished he could tell her differently. “They raped her, and when she resisted, they beat her and left her to die, alone in the woods, with only the moon for company.”
A tear slipped down her face, and he brushed it away. “Or so she thought. Lily was actually not alone. There was a pack of wolves nearby. Three male wolves came across her as the men were leaving. They attacked and killed her assailants.”
“Good.” There was a growl to her voice that made him grin internally. The wolf wasn’t far from the surface with Betsy. She hadn’t yet learned to conceal it. Eventually she would have to, but, for now, he loved seeing it develop. There was nothing wrong with craving a little violence when appropriate.
“And then they turned back to her. She touched something in them, something that wasn’t purely animal. The need to have her, to help her, and to possess her overwhelmed them. The Alpha wolf prayed to the god of the moon to hear them, to save her, to let them be with her.”
“The moon listened?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“He did.” Cyrus smiled. Somehow, in the midst of telling the story, he’d discovered he could see it again as he had when he’d been able to believe. The cold night. The light from the moon. Lily’s beautiful face marred —she would always appear as Betsy to him now in his imagination—and the wolves that wanted her more than anything. Cyrus could understand them now. He’d beg any power in the universe to give him Betsy.
“And he changed the wolves to men, well, animals and men, and he changed Lily too. They were the first werewolves. The other two wolves would eventually find worthy women to love, and, through all of them, we became as we are now.”
“And Lily was the Alpha’s?”
He stroked a side of her face with his fingers. “That’s right, princess. Lily belonged to only her Alpha. Forever.”
Chapter Eight
Betsy fingered the beautiful necklace Cyrus had given her, the one of Lily, the first female werewolf. It felt old, and beyond that, it felt…powerful, which was ridiculous because she wasn’t two years old and she knew that objects only held the power assigned to them by people. She gently tapped the blue eyes of the representation of Lily. Someone had assigned this totem power, and even though it hadn’t been she who had done it, she could still feel it resonate from within.
Cyrus hadn’t said anything for a minute, and she found him regarding her with an unreadable expression. She preferred the open intimacy he’d shared when he told her the story earlier. The sound of his voice, coupled with the way his gaze had bored into her as though the story belonged to only the two of them in the universe, had given her the shivers.
Sheer force of will alone kept her from begging him to rip off his clothes and take her hard right then and there. But she had to live with herself in the morning. Besides, he smelled…tired. His cinnamon scent had dulled since that afternoon.
“Are you okay?”
He nodded. “Thanks for asking.”