Wolves at Bay: A Tale of Beauty and the Beast (HighTower Beauty and the Beast Book 4) by Jacque Stevens

Author:Jacque Stevens [Stevens, Jacque]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: sjacquebooks
Published: 2020-06-24T16:00:00+00:00

14

Belle

Weeks passed, and the monster didn’t reappear. We still decided to move into the castle. Our family of wolves and sheep was growing, and we needed the space.

A few rooms still had yet to be finished, but the main hall was done. Lighted candles filled the room, the dust was swept from the tile, and the clock showed the proper time. Everyone in the surrounding villages had been invited to celebrate the children’s baptism—a production we couldn’t seem to avoid with Howl being the count. We would face them all together. He had the two boys. I had Esmé and the silver. We sat on the dais behind the priest, and I thought we would be fine as long as none of the children changed forms before the ceremony.

But before anything could start, I looked out on the crowd and saw the monster. He sat on the front row and smiled, like he had been invited.

My breath caught, but then I quickly reached over and squeezed Howl’s arm.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Do you see him?”

I nodded and took a breath. That helped. Just admitting it helped. “I think I’m just nervous.”

Howl cocked his head. “Why are you nervous? Do you not want them to be baptized?”

I hadn’t said that, but Howl looked so hopeful, I had to ask, “Do you? Really?”

“I . . .” He closed his eyes and ducked his head. He didn’t want to tell me.

“Howl, if I have to tell you why I’m upset, whenever I’m upset, so do you,” I pressed.

He didn’t look up, but he nodded. He spoke. “I want you to be happy. I don’t want you to be scared, but when I was baptized, I said yes.” He peered at me through his hair. “I want our pups to learn about the forest, the church, and the village, and then I want them to say if they want one or both like we did.”

I wanted that too. Really, I had only asked for the baptism because I had been scared.

I never made the best decisions when I was scared and asking Howl to hide his form before his baptism was probably the worst of it. He had forgiven me for that, but I didn’t want him to have to forgive me for this. Things had seemed so hopeless before but telling Howl had helped. Letting the Dupuises and other girls from the villages assist with the babies had helped. And several nights of rest had helped most of all.

There were still so many options we hadn’t yet tried.

Howl had killed Jean. He would do anything to protect me. But the monster was now in my mind, not on a couch or in a farmhouse. As long as I was still scared, he would always be with me.

Howl killed Jean, but I would have to be the one to banish his ghost from this place.

I stood, facing the monster and the rest of the crowd. Murmurs faded as they all stopped their own conversations to look at me.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.