RubyI have some trouble falling asleep due to the anxiety from everything, but when I finally do eventually drift off, I find myself in a peaceful dream.In my dream, the castle is quiet and bright. I’m walking through the corridors wearing a white dress that flows behind me; is this my wedding dress?Ahead of me, there is a familiar figure. It’s Atwood, dressed in a tuxedo with his hair down, turned away from me. As I approach, he turns around.“You look beautiful,” he says with a gentle smile, and holds his hand out. When I take his hand, he pulls me close. Suddenly we’re dancing again, just like we did at my birthday party, spinning around the corridor as he leads me like I’m a feather in his hands. At the end, he dips me and leans in for a kiss.I close my eyes to kiss him, parting my lips slightly as I await his kiss, but it never comes. When I open my eyes, the castle is dark and empty. Atwood is gone.“Atwood?” I call out.There is no answer. I start to panic as I realize that
AtwoodI’m awoken in the morning by the sound of screaming.“Lycan Atwood! Lycan Atwood!”The young maid, Polly, bursts into my study. I fell asleep sometime in the early morning on the couch after a sleepless night caused by worrying about the situation with my mother and wondering where Alice is.“Lycan Atwood!” Polly pants as I groggily sit up, rubbing my eyes. “I’m so sorry to wake you…”“It’s alright, Polly,” I respond. The mousey brown-haired young maid looks completely frazzled as though she just saw a ghost. “What’s wrong?” I ask.“It’s Miss Ruby,” she says breathlessly, pointing in the direction of Ruby’s room. “She’s fallen ill.”My mind suddenly begins to race with a million things. Did Alice return in the night? What did she do to my Ruby?I abruptly stand to go to Ruby, but am stopped by a sudden wave of nausea and dizziness. My brain feels foggy, as though I’m in a waking dream. Am I still asleep?“Sir?” Polly’s voice fades in and out of reality, her usual sweet and chip
RubyI feel like a prisoner in my own body.Is this how Vivian felt?Alone, helpless, and weak?No matter how hard I look for my wolf, she’s not there. It’s as though she never existed. Without her, I feel even weaker than I did before she emerged. The Bears will kill me and I won’t be able to stand a chance, not without my wolf.I want to kick and scream and claw and bite when the Bear rips me out of Atwood’s arms, but I can’t. My limbs feel like rope, as though all of the muscles have fallen limp and useless.I know what the Bear is going to do to me. I can see the glint of the blade in his hand, the droplets of red on the tip where he cut his finger. The snow falls on the blood, turning it from a bright red to a muddy pink color.He’s going to drive the blade into my heart. The pink blood drips on my chin as he holds the knife above me.“No!”Atwood’s screams echo through the blizzard like the distant howling of the wind. He’s close; I can still smell him. Using what little strengt
RubyIt all happens so fast. Time has continued moving; the wind has begun to blow again, the snow is falling, and the sound of Atwood’s screaming echoes in my ears like a siren. It all feels too quick now after spending what felt like an eternity in a state of limbo.The Bear brings his knife down, but misses my heart. The blade slices in between my lower ribs with a searing pain, but I feel stronger now. My wolf has returned, but something else is there, too. Something new.I kick the Bear off of me, taking him by surprise as he’s launched backwards. The other Bear simply looks on in astonishment as he stands over Atwood, still holding him down.“Get her!” screams the first Bear, scrambling back to his feet as I slowly stand and pull the knife out of my side.“Ruby, Run!” Atwood calls.The two Bears advance on me, shifting from their human forms into their Bear forms. I feel small beside them in my human form, but something in me tells me not to shift yet. Instead, I take Atwood’s a
Atwood“It’s the Queen and the others,” the guard says. “Sometime during the night, they escaped. They’re nowhere to be found.”Of course they did.“What happened to the guards posted at their doors?” I ask.“They were injected with some sort of sleeping potion,” he replies. “They were found sleeping on the floor when the new guards went to relieve them this morning.”My head throbs a bit at this information. Clearly, Alice was going around with all sorts of potions last night. I had always thought that she was loyal to the crown; just not my crown, I suppose.“So be it,” I respond, tightening my grip on Ruby’s small hand. “Send out a search party once the blizzard clears. For now, just make sure that they can’t get into the castle. If they’re found, arrest them immediately.“Yes, sir,” the guard replies with a bow.With a sigh, I open the parlor door and pull Ruby inside.Polly has already lit the fire and set up the blankets and hot drinks for us, so all Ruby and I have to do is sin
RubyAtwood thinks that I’ve fallen asleep, but the truth is that I can’t possibly sleep right now; not after what happened earlier today. When he shuts the door and I can no longer smell him, I flick on my lamp and jump out of bed, running over to the mirror.I’m still wearing the brooch, but it looks normal now. No bright light, no strange magical properties. It’s just a regular old brooch.Surely the brooch has something to do with my sudden ability to sprout wings, though. I’m not sure if Vivian’s touch awakened something in me, but I’m certain that the brooch is related somehow.Is it possible that my mother had this brooch as some sort of protection charm?If the brooch won’t activate its strange bright light again, then maybe I can force my wings to come out.As I stand in the mirror, trying all sorts of methods to make the wings appear, I’m sure I would look utterly ridiculous to anyone watching. I try different poses, different phrases, and I even try focusing my mind on the
AtwoodAs soon as Ruby says that she experienced the void, memories of my time there come rushing back. More than anything else, memories of what Vivian said to me there flood back into my mind.“Visit my room more... Turn on the lights and light the fire... Let both yourself and Ruby enjoy the room, rather than shutting it off from the world. Most importantly, uncover my painting; I like to watch from there.”Her words ring in my head as though she’s speaking them to me in this moment, but I know that’s not the case. Vivian has finally crossed over to an eternity of peace. From now on, she only exists in the snow that falls from the sky.I’m okay with that. I think Ruby is, too.I stand up and start getting dressed.“Get dressed,” I tell Ruby. “I want to show you something.She throws on her robe and follows me out of my hidden room, taking my hand as we exit the study into the cold, dark corridor. Everyone else in the castle, aside from the guards who are watching the entrances lik
RubyWhen I was first whisked away from my home to live in the castle and be Atwood’s bride, I thought I would hate it. And truthfully, I did hate it for a long time.But now, as I wake up in the warmth of his hidden bedroom, with his scent filling my senses and the feeling of his lips on my skin, I’m glad that I’m here. Fate has a strange way of making things happen.“Good morning, little bird,” Atwood whispers in between gentle kisses on my chest and neck.Last night, we made love for the first time. I thought that we would follow tradition and wait until marriage, but like so many other things that have happened over the past few months, the outcome was different from my expectations.For the first time in months, I feel peace. Alice, Edith, and the Queen are gone; I’ll be marrying Atwood in just a couple of days; and I’ll return to school in a few weeks as the Princess of the Lycan Kingdom.While the whereabouts of the Queen and her minions are still unknown and there is always th