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The bruises and bumps fade in minutes, sometimes never showing up at all. The cracks and chips and cuts go away in hours. And once the tingling fires pass, her body mends as if nothing's ever happened. But, and the doctors tell her how rare it is, sometimes the injuries linger and a scar or two remains. Virginia's broken an arm and a leg, and she has three small scars etched in her skin.Her father wishes he knew who to blame. Virginia does too, but some time by the second scar, she's stopped hating her soulmate, whoever he is.Even before it really starts, Virginia's known she shares her body with someone else. There's no one in her, nobody who forces her to do this or that, but she knows there's a presence there, something that she can't live without, much like the blanket she loves so much. As a toddler, she's always wanted to walk, so when she crawls, she stands, and she falls. The bumps on her head are entirely her own. But the little pricks of pain she feels on her hands, on her knees, on her arms- those can't be hers. Scrapes appear left and right, as if scratched by wood, and as soon as they've come, they disappear.At first, her parents panic over every little hurt. They plaster the house in bubble wrap and make her wear mittens in the hot city summer. There are boxes of bandaids with Virginia's favorite princesses smiling down- Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel, and so on. She doesn't remember when her parents make the connection between her bruises and that someone else's, but she recalls her mother saying, "Tony, we should see a doctor."Virginia remembers the doctor giving her a lollipop and telling Tony not to worry. "It's her soulmate. Probably a rough little guy. I wouldn't worry- I scraped my knees all the time when I was a boy. I'm sure you did too.""Soulmate? But she's only three!" Christine replied."I know it's frustrating, but this isn't anything to worry about. Kid's older than your daughter, at least old enough to ride bikes and climb trees, that kind of stuff. They'll both grow out of it."Virginia goes home with a prescription of bandaids and some painkillers (just in case). She hears Tony tell her mother later, over a glass of beer, that he's never felt her pain. Christine admits the same. But not everyone has to have this bond to know they're soulmates. It's a medical condition and their daughter happens to have it. It doesn't make their love for each other any less or her love for her mate any more.But it doesn't get better. If possible, Virginia remembers it getting worse. She's four when she wakes up screaming in the middle of the night, feeling like she's been stabbed in the back many times over. Christine sobs along as she holds her and Tony keeps the thrashing at bay. The pain doesn't stop until a good few hours later. At the crack of dawn, Christine lifts her shirt- they take a photo for the doctor. There are burns on Virginia's back, high in degree and looking like a mess of charred skin, all the way from shoulder to waist. Her parents press ice to the wound as she whimpers, and by noon, the burns are gone.But a small patch of wrinkled skin remains, right on the small of her back.When she sees the doctor again, Virginia sniffles and whines as she remembers the pain. The hurt is gone, but she remembers so well. He pats her head, and in his most grown-up voice says, "I'm so sorry, Virginia. This just means that your soulmate's hurting very badly. But see? It leaves a little scar because now he's okay. You're going to be okay."But he's more worried when he talks to Tony and Christine. Maybe Virginia's soulmate was just a victim of an unfortunate accident that they'll laugh at in the future. Or maybe he's not. Maybe she's not. So Virginia's parents spend the next few weeks researching the news, all over the country and the world, for fires. It's a lot to take in. And of course, there are fires, but none of the victims (the ones that lived anyway) are little boys or girls. They'd wanted to find this child and berate its parents, or perhaps take it away from wherever it was altogether, and raise both children in peace.Virginia's parents fail. Her grandmother says her soulmate must be a good-for-nothing like Tony if he's this accident prone. But nothing like the so-called fire happens again. Even so, Virginia decides she never wants to meet her soulmate. She doesn't want to think about this child whose non-existent face reminds her of nothing but horrible pain.She starts hating her soulmate when she turns six. Whoever he is, he's ruined her birthday. There's a full moon out and the family was supposed to spend the night on the beach. But Virginia gets so sick that she can't do anything but cry into her mother's. And the fever lasts until the sun comes up.Tony thinks that the other child's come down with a bad flu. "Maybe bad sushi," he jokes.But it happens again, and again, and again, until the fevers become not so bad because Virginia's used to it. She doesn't cry. She takes her medicine and it goes away, and even the doctor can't quite explain this pattern. He can only assume that wherever this boy (or maybe girl) is, flu seasons are sporadic. Christine wonders if it has anything to do with the weather- Virginia remembers these fevers striking under full moons. But it remains a mystery for Virginia until many years later.All she knows is that her soulmate's caused her more pain than he's worth, and she hates his stupid guts.The only good thing to come about from all this is that her parents don't fight. They don't yell or cry at each other when their attention's all on her. And for a while, even though she's afraid of whatever rotten thing her soulmate will do to her next, Virginia's okay with basking in her parents' love. But then they get to used her fevers and there are no more burns. And they start burning each other again.When Virginia turns seven, Christine gives her a bath. Her mother looks at her like she's the only thing in the world, the most precious and most rotten thing all at once. Then she holds her shoulders and pushes Virginia down, until her breaths are lost underwater and her hair floats up."You're a mistake!" Christine hisses, not quite herself and weeping as her daughter gasps.In the end, Tony yanks her away and Christine runs out. They never see her again. For the next few years, Virginia wakes up screaming in her father's arms. And this time, it has nothing to do with her soulmate. Because there are worse things than pain caused by strangers- pain caused by people you love.By the time she's ten, Virginia's grown used to little scratches appearing on her arm. They close up instantly, but not soon enough for her to avoid the pain. The scratches started when she was eight and to be honest, she doesn't really mind. She watches the cuts break open and bleed, imprints of claw marks and scabbing skin, and keeps them to herself. They fill her with a sort of morbid fascination and in some wrong way, they make her feel better. It's distracting and strange and wrong, she knows, but they don't scar and they tell her, if nothing else, that her soulmate feels the same.Then she breaks her arm when she's twelve, or rather, her soulmate does. She's in school when it happens, in the middle of eating her peanut butter sandwich. Her food falls with a splat and her arm snaps with a crunch. Tony leaves work without telling his boss that day. When Virginia's rushed to the hospital, trying not to sob and let the ugly snot run, they find out it's a compound fracture. The staff tells them the cause is blunt trauma, and because there's a pattern to the breaks, it's not an accident. Virginia hears Tony say "fuck" in front of her for the first time when an nurse asks him, quite harshly, if he has anything to do with it.They have the soulmate talk all over again, but quicker and heavier now that she's older. Even though it's her soulmate that's broken the arm, Virginia still has to have surgery for it, still has to lie in bed with a cast as she waits for the pain to pass. She thinks about the scratches and the burns and all that rumbling and tumbling. Maybe her soulmate's in some kind of gang, like those rakish boys at her school. Maybe he's always angry and fighting and yelling. That's why he's so rough and careless and- she starts crying, wondering why he couldn't stop a moment to think about everyone else.Eventually, her arm heals and the scratches start fading into nothing at all. Only the fevers remain, and the pattern never errs. Virginia stops thinking about her soulmate, now that his presence is less pronounced- maybe he's gotten less clumsy because she rarely feels his bumps and bruises, and maybe he's gotten less angry because there are no more broken bones. Maybe this soulmate mellowed into a safer, saner person, and all Virginia has to do is focus on her studies and her little odd jobs and living with her dad until they meet and marry and live the rest of their lives in quiet little peace.Her leg breaks before she turns fifteen. She'd been in the elevator and screaming when it opened. Tony and a neighbor, who moved away one year later, take her to the hospital. It's not quite as bad as the arm, but the fractures are still all over the place and the bones are pretty fucked. There are black and blue bruises dotting her ribs, and places on her torso that look the marks of a shoe. The bruises fade in the next couple days, but she's walking in crutches for the better part of the semester. It's not like she wanted to be a cheerleader anyway.At Homecoming, she leaves the boy she's kissing to go get punch. But what she really does is slip out of the gym and shiver in the evening air. She doesn't remember the boy's name- just that she's with him because she thought she had to be. It's not what she wants. And she whispers, wishing to nothing in particular, "Why wasn't it you?"She doesn't know who's 'you.' Why hadn't her mother come back? Why couldn't she make her father happy? Why wasn't she anything more than this broken mess? Why was her soulmate doing everything but helping? She doesn't know.She's seventeen when Tony finds her bleeding out in bed. This time, the ambulance comes to them. There's a puncture beneath her ribs, as if broken by a knife, rope burns around her wrists, splashes of purple all over her aching form, blood gushing under her skin, and one look in the paramedic's glasses tells her she has a crooked nose and an eye so swollen it almost burst. The injuries on her face go away by the end of the day and the rope burns fade along. The bruises go next. But the stab wound stays, and so do the other hemorrhages she'd been lucky enough to gain.So Virginia doesn't go to prom because she's cooped up in the I.C.U. Which is a bit of a relief because she never really liked her date and wasn't quite so ready to let him have his way with her. She spends her time at the hospital watching cooking shows on T.V, vaguely thinking to herself, "I'd like to that too" when the contestants talk about their restaurants across the nation. She thinks up a menu in her spare time and jots down recipes on pieces of notepaper. When Tony's off work, he passes the time by her side, trying to act like nothing's wrong."I'll kill him," Tony tells her, "whoever this guy is, he's dead.""Dad, that'd kill me too. Literally."That's not quite true. She knows that if a soulmate dies, the other can live on. And from what she's heard, the living party doesn't even feel pain, just a weird sad dread that tells them their other half is gone. Which, in her opinion, sounds infinitely worse. Then, looking out the window and at the lights of New York, Virginia thinks about her soulmate again. She doesn't want this thought, but somewhere deep down, she's always wondered- maybe he isn't an angry young man, maybe he's not clumsy or violent or suicidal. Maybe all this time, someone's been hurting her soulmate, digging blades in his skin, crushing his bones, burning his back.Her hands clench. This was the love of her life, the person she was supposed to love with the whole of her heart. And someone out there was trying to break him apart bit by bit. Virginia decides that she's not going to let anything kill her or her soulmate. She's going to live out of pure spite- for her mother who left her, for all the teachers and students who looked at her like a speck of dirt, for every bad boss she's ever had- and she's going to meet the man of her dreams, and she's never going to let anything harm him again.When she leaves the hospital, there's a scar under her ribs, a thin sliver of white against her skin.Virginia gets her third scar when she's twenty. She's serving cocktails in a skimpy uniform that she dearly hates when the glass slips from her hand. The pain comes at her like a bullet. She passes out and when she wakes up, she finds out she's fired and that her medical bills have gone up again. There's a bandage over her shoulder, and according to Tony, who's sitting at her bedside again, it's covering a nasty infected wound. When the nurse changes her dressings, Virginia winces- it looks like a bite mark, the imprints of canine teeth, left raw and red against her skin. Her shoulder had almost been torn off, or rather, her soulmate's shoulder.Thankfully, the wound fades within a month, until nothing's left but a jagged scar almost small enough to be a birthmark. Virginia cares for it even after it's healed- she takes her antibiotics accordingly and spends a minute each night applying neosporin. It's silly, she knows, but if she can somehow help her soulmate heal with a little medicine and cream, then nothing's silly at all.Virginia never finishes college and doesn't plan to go back. She's pretty good at working though, much better at keeping a job than a guy, and she begins saving for her restaurant, which is a grand total of twenty bucks, since everything else goes into helping Tony pay their rent and debts. Sometimes she still feels bumps on her head, sees scratches on her arm, feels blood on her lip, winces from heat on her legs, and on more than one occasion, wakes up with bleeding lashes on her back or a crack in each rib. The fevers still come and her soulmate loves scraping her hands. But she's grown used to these intervals of pain, and they always fade within the hour, no scars left.It still annoys her, angers her, that her soulmate's hurting, but the injuries tell her he's alive, that he's out there, heart beating, chest heaving, and that's enough. She doesn't think about her soulmate as flesh-and-blood often; she knows he's real, but she's never bothered putting a face to him. She used to think of a greaser with bandaged knuckles and a mouth smelling of tobacco, a boy fifteen who acts eighteen. Then she thinks of a softspoken ginger with big, round glasses, who's always tripping over untied shoes and breaking his nose. And then, this one she hates but always comes back to, a wounded little boy hiding in the dark, his knees always bruised, blood on his clothes, and nobody ever coming to save him from the storm ahead.And then, Virginia meets Wolf.She's twenty-five, almost six, looking twenty-two, when she hits a dog with her bike. Her soulmate must have felt that. What she expects is the dog's owner to come forward, either thank her or yell at her, and leave. She does not expect to be hunted by a group of trolls who like the offspring of MTV and Tolkein's orcs. She does not expect the dog to write, write at her, she does not expect him to be a prince, does not expect fairy tales to be real, does not expect her father to make a series of cursed wishes, does not expect to follow said prince through an interdimensional mirror. It's all too much to question and her head never stops spinning.But before all that, she does not expect the man- who'd she'd seen try to cook her grandmother, with her own two eyes no less- to declare his undying love and lust for her on sight. His jacket's too big and his eyes are too bright and his hair's too black, too mussed, and he's too much. Just too much. And it only gets worse, as she soon finds out. But the worst part is-"Get away from me!"When she smashes the vase over his grinning head, she feels it smash over her skull too. And she runs away, gasping so he doesn't see the dizziness in her eyes. Nothing's knocked her in the crown, and she prays it's a side effect of her crash with the dog, because if not, if not- then that means-Virginia denies that her soulmate is a wolf, or half-wolf as he claimed, for as long as she can. She ignores his cries of passion and that look halfway between adoring puppy and drooling villain, and the worst part is, she knows he's sincere. Somehow, that makes his decrees of love all the worse. She doesn't tell him about the vase, and when he falls ill, she hides her fever, but she knows now that it's the full moon. And sitting by him in a barn, soothing his burning brow, she knows- without a doubt, her soulmate is him, had always been him.She thinks about all she's suffered because of him, all the wounds that marked her body and his, and she wonders, shuddering, if he'd deserved it after all. He's wild, unkempt- half human, but only half human- and what he's done before, she doesn't know. Maybe he was every bit as cruel and wicked as the wolves of lore, and she'd just been unlucky enough to be stuck with him. But 'why me'? is a question she's asked all her life and she wants to stop. And still-When the people of Little Lamb Village pull him away, when she feels the ropes against her (his) skin and the fire licking her feet, she almost cries. Or maybe she did cry with him. She knows it's stupid, that all she really has is her own belief that he didn't kill that girl (and it's not like he hasn't tried to eat anyone in front of her before), but in the few seconds that she thought (for sure) before he would die, she knows it wasn't him. She just knows, in her heart, in her blood. And then nothing else matters because she doesn't care about the pain to come. And if she's even more honest, she doesn't care if it was him.Because she-Wolf doesn't die that day and nobody's flesh is burned. And before Virginia can even process what it was that she thought, Kissingtown happens. She hates that town. Its magic makes her forget and makes her want. For a moment, it tells her she wants him (because she really does), but for what? And then the magic breaks apart. Everything comes crashing down and her ticket home is gone. In the end, Wolf's not like the villains in her stories. He's much, much worse. Because the big, bad wolf doesn't think he loves you. He doesn't act like you're the world and then steal it from under your feet. He doesn't blow away your chance to go home for food you won't even eat. And he doesn't make you think you love him.Because she did love him.Maybe she loved him when he told her about the badgers in the forest, or the night he sat with her by the firelight. Maybe she'd been taken by his odd charm, the mask of the man he wore. And he's unlike any guy she's ever had. Any breakup hurts, but whatever it was she had with Wolf, it hurts more than anything else.And that's why it feels so good when he comes back, when she sees the apology in his eyes, when they hold each other and she says, "I think I love you."A delight sparks through her when those words come out, an unspoken euphoria that she knows must have come from him. And then she admits that with him, she's happy. As they roll over one another in the grass, she thinks back to when she was seventeen, when she told herself that she'd meet the love of her life and live happily ever after with him. Her clothes fly off and Virginia takes Wolf's hand. She puts his fingers over the scar on her shoulder, the one beneath her ribs, the one on the small of her back. She guides his head as he kisses each one, puts her hands under his shirt and roams.She feels the same mark on his shoulder, stretching from collarbone down, the little scars along his ribs and the bumpy piece of skin right under. She presses herself against him, nails digging into the roughness on his back. His tail brushes her thigh, and their bodies melt together. And Virginia admits, there was never magic in Kissingtown- she's wanted him, simple as that.When their escapade ends, Virginia wiggles back into her clothes and Wolf lazily sits into his pants. He's kept the shirt on, having never taken it off."You saw my scars," Virginia tells him, waiting for his excited response."And they're beautiful, just like the rest of your creamy, dreamy self.""Hm, what if I wasn't so dreamy? What if I had no head- what would you do?"He nuzzles her neck. "Then I'd make sweet wolfie love to my darling headless Virginia. Huff puff, you'll always be dreamy to me."Virginia doesn't tease him about the practicality of mating with a headless person. Instead, she touches the scar on her shoulder. "You have one just like this." She expects to hear the grin in his voice, to hear sweeping romantic gestures about how they're meant to be.Instead, he frowns, brow creasing, and quietly, asks, "Do you still want me, Virginia?"She touches his face, confused. "What? Of course I do. I just meant, that, well- we have the same scars. What do you think that means?"He scratches his temple, which completely ruins the moment's sensuality. Virginia stops his hand."It means we're soulmates," she says.His mouth shapes a surprised "Oh" and it dawns on her like a slap to the face- he doesn't know. Nobody knows. No one in Kissingtown had even advertised it. And if he had known, of course Wolf wouldn't have stayed silent about it. Then the ridiculousness of what she's about to say really sets in. Suddenly, she feels like she's the one from a fairytale book."Back home," she says, "in the tenth kingdom, um, we have this thing. Not everyone goes through it, but some people- like me- do. When you're soulmates with someone, you can feel their pain. So say, if I cut my finger, you'd feel that. And I guess it depends on what happens, but sometimes your scars stay with your soulmate too. It's a little hard to get used to, but it helps you know if you have someone you're really, really meant to be with."And probably thinking back to all those moments from her (his?) past, Wolf gives a horrified whimper, bordering on howl. "Oh cripes! I'm so sorry! I'd never hurt you, Virginia, never ever, not in a million-"She shushes him with a kiss. "I don't want to talk about that now. Just- just know you're mine." And I'm yours.Now the sweeping romantic gestures come.And just when the pieces of Virginia's life come together, they fall apart again. She's accepted the nine kingdoms, accepted that her mother is the evil queen, accepted that Wolf is her soulmate- and it's still not enough. She doesn't quite have time to register Wolf's betrayal the second time around, and just as she's wrapped her head around it, it turns out he's never betrayed her anyway. Christine takes front and center in Virginia's life, all those years coming to a head, and then the queen dies by her hand. Her mother is dead.Virginia wakes a hero, but all she feels is a dull ache. Wolf sits by her side, muttering sweet somethings and trying to warm her with his nearness. There's something tired in his eyes, a touch of pain that Virginia's sure has come from herself- then, at least, she knows he understands her grief. She squeezes his hand and the morning passes.Later, Tony tells her he felt nothing. Christine is dead. And Tony feels nothing, no pain at all save a feeling of what-could-have-been. If nothing else, it's proof that they were never meant to be. He doesn't cry because he's cried enough. But as Virginia breaks down in her father's arms, he says, "And you know what, it's bullshit. Because we had you. And that's enough to tell me it's meant to be.""I love you," she tells him.And she says "I love you" to Wolf in the evening, and this time, it means something very different. And finally, finally, she puts the past behind. If Wolf's to be believed, there's a cub inside her, and it's not as upsetting as she thought it'd be. It's not like they have condoms in the nine kingdoms. And Virginia knows she can handle it, knows that she has her father and her husband and her (step) brother right behind her. It's as happy as a happily ever after can be for her.Then, on a lazy Sunday morning back in Manhattan, Wolf tells her everything.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Wolf doesn't remember being a careful child. He recalls falling from trees and climbing through rocks, earning all the bumps and scrapes a cub can get. He does not recall hitting his head so often, but bruises form on his temple anyway, little dents in the shape of a table corner. His parents believe it came from all his rough housing, but Wolf has always known otherwise- and now he knows he's right. And decades later, as he lies in bed, holding Virginia while the sun streams in, he says so into her ear. The word "soulmate" still sends tingles down his spine, fills him with the joy of wholly being someone else's and having their love in turn.
And because he loves her, he tells her.
Wolf is eleven when his home catches fire. He has five other siblings, two little sisters and three older brothers, and two parents. They live in a tiny wooden cottage off in the corners of the forest, far to the north of the Second Kingdom. The fire comes at night, burning all their belongings- pelts and food and furniture, and their sleeping sister. Wolf manages to drag the other sister out, his brothers howling as the smoke fills their lungs. The flames touch his back, and it's a pain unlike anything he's known before, a thousand times worse than every bad fall he's had from a tree.But as he rolls and howls on the ground, he's drowned out by the mob outside, a crowd of peasants from the village down. They drag his father out first, then his mother- his red-haired mother- and- Virginia knows the rest. "You told me once," she says quietly. Wolf sees his parents flayed and tied to twin stakes, a bonfire at their screaming feet. And he lies on the ground, clothes burnt off and backside charred, too dumbfounded to do anything but watch.When dawn comes, the rest of his family is gone. He knows one sister is dead, maybe one brother too. Wolf learns from the local watchman that the rest of his siblings have been sold off, taken to be target practice for the royal hunting party. And he's told that he'll meet the same fate if he dares stay. So Wolf wanders off, covered in soot and hacking up dust, his feet torn with thistle, and his back marked with blistering burns. Some children come to throw stones as he leaves, and everyone else just looks away. The pain doesn't fade until many months later, and even with the years that come, it still aches before the rain."Nobody cared," is all Wolf can tell Virginia. He should sound hurt, but he doesn't- all he hears is a dull acceptance. The village folk had wiped out his whole family overnight and left him to die, but in the morning, they'd gone back to herding their sheep and singing merry songs. The Second Kingdom lived on.And happy ever afters continue all around. But not for a little half-wolf with nowhere to turn.He spends the next two years living, or rather starving, off the land. With the exception of bunnies and the like, everything's too big for Wolf to hunt and he's too scared to risk stealing from the farmers nearby. And when Wolf's almost fourteen, his moon cycle begins. He doesn't know what to do, and the first time it happens, he spends it howling and sobbing until the fevered cramps blessedly pass. He remembers Mother soothing his brothers with lullabies. He remembers his father charging into the woods. And always, the whole family would sit and howl.But he's alone now. And all he can do is howl and scream and wish nobody hears. And he doesn't know if he's imagining things or what, because he feels worse with each cycle, as if every feeling he's locked away comes out with the rounded moon.Then, maybe a year or so later, he wakes up choking in the middle of the night. He thrashes against branches and bushes and thinks, cripes, I'm going to die! Except he doesn't. The feeling passes and he's left coughing under the moonless sky. Shaking, he runs to the river and washes his face. That's when he notices the marks on his neck. Finger marks. But nobody had been with him, not even an invisible nobody. He'd know because he sniffed nothing.
"I thought I'd lost my marbles, well more marbles anyway," he tells Virginia. Then, very quiet, "but now I know-" She squeezes his hand. "It's okay." And guilty, he says, "Sorry, sorry, sorry-I shouldn't bring it up-" "It's okay." Because now they know it didn't happen because Wolf went crazy. It happened because Christine did.
Wolf's on edge for the next few years, always looking over his shoulder for his invisible attacker. He's gotten better at hunting and foraging, and sometimes robbing. But he still has no home and nobody around. He doesn't dare seek out other wolves and the humans aren't so interested in a sick little beggar boy. They call him sick because he talks to himself and doesn't know he is. He fights with himself and cries to himself, and snaps at anyone who asks him why. And around that time, he starts clawing up his skin.It feels good, obscenely so to watch the blood run out. It distracts him from everything else at hand. From the hunger, from the moon, from the rest of the world that wants him dead. He thinks then, that he must have tried to strangle himself back then. Maybe he doesn't want to live after all. Because if not for him and his litter, his parents would still be alive. And his mother, especially, would still be the kingdom's darling.When Wolf's eighteen, he realizes it was all his fault. So he goes straight into a farmer's barn and gets himself caught. He eats a lamb, swallows it whole, before the farmer finds him and knocks him down. The farmer only has a spade, so he tries his hardest to get rid of the wolf with it. He breaks Wolf's arm, breaks it hard, and breaks it again, and keeps breaking until someone puts him out from behind."Get up," the other man says. And Wolf does, even though he really can't.The man takes him in, washes him up, cuts his hair, and feeds him until he's not just skin and bones. And the rags he's called clothes get tossed away."Name's Warren. What's yours?" the man asks."I don't remember. I just say Wolf, makes it easier to remember." To remember what? To remember he doesn't deserve a name.Warren tells him to keep that to himself, to keep his tail bound tight under his belt, to walk like a man. Warren explains the moon cycle to him. And Warren does all this because Warren's a half-wolf too. It's not a good way to live but they have no other choice. And then, after three years of almost fatherly bonding, Warren tells Wolf he's ready to have his tail chopped off."It's the only way," Warren insists. "It'll hurt, but you'll live. Dont'cha' see, Wolfie? It's the only way!""Huff puff!" Wolf cries, "you're insane!"Then Wolf runs from Warren, and Warren tells him he's sure to die. But Wolf keeps running and running until his shoes burn off. And he still keeps running until he sees a boar hanging by a thread. Wolf lunges and falls into the trap. He later learns that there's a wolf problem in this town, a real big problem with chicken-stealing and sheep worrying. But he doesn't learn that until after the villagers pull him out, until after they crush his leg with a wooden wheel, until after they kick him black and blue and dent a few ribs. And this time, no Warren saves him.But he manages to get away, because he sets that big wooden wheel on fire, and he crawls away even if it burns his hands. And he keeps crawling, despite the pain in chest and that wretched leg, until he lands face-first in a little creek. And he probably would have died this time if not for who finds him next: a pack of wolves."Well, what have we here," their leader says.And they laugh, harsh wolfish cackles that make his ears perk up."They didn't give his royal highness the royal treatment?" the leader taunts, a sneer on his lips.Virginia asks him what that means, and Wolf has to come clean. Red Riding Hood was his grandmother, and her scent's still there. Virginia almost falls off the bed. The leader's name is Roman, and he's every bit as big and bad as a wolfie comes, right down to the harsh stubble and the scar across his eye. Roman and his pack take, or rather force, Wolf in. They treat him a bit like a chew toy, quite literally, and every frustration they've had with the Hoods comes down on him. Roman has a red cloak fashioned just for him and Wolf is forced into that too.They send him running and hunt him down for laughs. And of course they'd catch him because Wolf can't really run. His leg's still too offset and all he can do is limp as fast as he can. But Roman doesn't just keep him around to torture. He does need Wolf. He needs him because "you're more human than us." Wolf pretends he's a man and goes into the village, whether it's to steal or buy whatever Roman needs. In the village, they call him "Beggar" and in the pack, they call him, "Little Red."But Wolf has enough to feed and Roman makes sure he's cared for, even if he's not allowed to sleep with the pack. And Roman always turns a blind eye whenever he's pounced by a wolf. As long as the beating's not too bad, Roman's convinced a black eye or two won't kill Little Red. And Wolf is grateful-
"Grateful for what!?" Virginia shouts, punching the headboard so hard Wolf's own knuckle sting. "My succulent sweet, I-" "Don't sweet talk me. What the hell is even happening here? Wendell has his whole kingdom serving him hand and foot, and you're telling me your kingdom let you go door to door getting tortured by whatever sicko you found? This story is sick!" "Virginia-" And she rants on, and to have someone care so much about what happened to him? Wolf doesn't know what to say.
Then Roman's pack is caught by the village they're always terrorizing. The village uses unattended sheep as bait, and when the pack comes feeding, the net comes down. The men tie the wolves to stakes and take their sweet time killing the beasts. Fire licks at their feet by night and fresh meat dangles just out of reach from their noses by day. Wolf remembers pure agony. Sometimes the men let him down because Beggar can't run away. They crush him with their kicks and fists, but the beating's nothing compared to his need for that sweet sweet meat.And they string him back up. But Roman gets it the worst of all. They beat him with clubs and pierce him with knives, but Roman's an alpha to the core and he doesn't even grunt. Until they let Roman down and tell him to eat Beggar. It's only fitting, they say, for all the boys and girls their pack's eaten. Wolf lies at Roman's feet, wrists and ankles bound tight with rope, a knife lodged under his ribs. As he bleeds out, he thinks, Cripes, I'm gonna die and I didn't even get to eat any meat.Roman crawls close to him, salivating as he whispers, "Listen to me, little red. I'm going to beat the crap out of ya. When they stop me, run, get up and run and don't look back.""Roman, wait-"Wolf doesn't really understand what happens next. Because Roman smashes Wolf's nose and roars, "You think I'm a joke!? This half-breed's no wolf! You think I care if I eat another human, huh!?"Roman kicks him in the head, then the face, then the eye, and dragging him up by the hair, hits him again and again in the chest and nose. He throws Wolf down and howls, ignoring the half-wolf's cries as he pounds away at his helpless form. Wolf hears (and feels) cracks in his bones and by the time Roman's pulled away, he's choking on his own blood. Dizzy, he sees Roman thrashing against the villagers, come to save Beggar because Roman called him one of them.It makes Wolf sick. He sees the rest of the pack- his pack- howling and dying on their stakes. If this is what it means to be human, then huff puff, he wants no part. He remembers what Roman said, and blinking back tears, forces himself up. In the scuffle, Roman's cut the ropes around his limbs. Wolf pulls the knife out and lets it drop.Roman had saved him because? A dagger goes through the alpha's heart. Wolf turns and leaves, limping and stumbling until he's far gone from the fire. He's too weak to go farther than that, so he lies by a river bank and prepares to die. And somewhere between all the blood and pain, he comes to the strange realization that Roman liked him. Roman's always liked him. Maybe he'd just been too tough to show it. And Wolf laughs because if Roman had said so, Wolf would have told him he liked him too. If he had just said so...And that's how a little pig in a straw hat finds him.Wolf wakes up in a bed within a straw house. He's bandaged from head to toe, and too tired to think, but when that pig walks in, he growls out, "Huff puff, why didn't you mind your business and let me die?""You ought to show some gratitude, pal," the pig says, "most pigs don't save wolves.""Then little pig, why don't you hope into wolfie's mouth?" Sneering, Wolf gets up, fueled by hunger and tries to snap his jaws over the pig's head. All he does is fall on his face. He later learns that the pig's name is Heinz.Heinz is more or less a friend to him after that, or as close to a friend as a talking pig can be. Talking animals don't get much in the way of rights, and a talking pig's always worth less than a talking bird. So Wolf gets Heinz's plight and in some ways, Heinz gets his. When he says it's not easy being a half wolf, Heinz believes him. But the real reason Heinz keeps him around and feeds him fried fish (not as good as mutton or pork, but Wolf will make do) is because other wolves and huntsmen and what have yous stalk the woods. Heinz needs a bodyguard until his brother finishes his brick home- then the three little pigs will move in together and Wolf can be on his merry way.("You're kidding," Virginia says in disbelief, "the three little pigs? Those three pigs? You knew them?" Wolf scratches his head and says, "Who doesn't?" "But didn't they... um... oh no, Wolf you didn't-" "No, my sweet! No, no, I didn't do it!")Heinz has two brothers, Hans who lives in the stick house across the river, and Hugh who's still building the brick house yonder. Wolf doesn't really get along with either of them, but he's perfectly content sleeping outside Heinz's door and stealing chickens from the farmers nearby. Thanks to Heinz, his leg's much better and he can walk like any other wolfie again. And he assures the pigs that he has no intention of joining another pack. He's not sure if he can go through Roman's death again.And then a bigger, badder wolf does come along. He blows down Hans' perfect stick house and swallows him in one gulp. He comes for Heinz next, and Wolf is there when he says, "Let me in or I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down!""Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin!" And shoving Wolf out, Heinz says, "Wolf, do something!"The other wolf is pretty big, and full-blooded at that. Sizing him up, Wolf wonders if it'd be easier to just take Heinz and run, but Heinz promises him a flock of sheep to munch on later. Wolf doesn't ask where that flock would come from. He tackles the other wolf immediately and soon, they're snapping and snarling at each other. The fight's pretty even until Wolf gets his shoulder half torn off. As he falls, the other wolf munching on his flesh, he hears Heinz run off.The wolf tries to take chase, but Wolf sinks his teeth into his arm. The fight goes on and one way or another, Wolf wins. He has the other wolf pinned to the ground, both of them covered in blood and scratches when Heinz returns, Hugh in tow with a young hunter not far behind. When the hunter tries to break up their fight, the wolf scampers off, and dizzy with blood loss, it doesn't occur to Wolf that he's been arrested in the other's stead until he hears Heinz protest."Listen, I have to take one of these beasts in," the man says, "doesn't matter who. They're all trouble anyway.""Heinz, be quiet, we can't do anything about it," Hugh says, a little too quickly in Wolf's opinion.That's the last time he sees the two of three little pigs, but as the hunter leads him away, Wolf does see a flock of sheep. And he dives straight into that fluffy heaven before he's dragged out and charged with sheep worrying. He passes out soon after, and when Wolf wakes up, his shoulder's bandaged and he's in the Snow White Memorial prison. The guards aren't kind to him there, nor is anyone really. But Wolf finds he doesn't care. He doesn't care how many times they whip or beat him for his outbursts. He's had worse anyway.All that really drives him is the need for precious meat and the chance of seeing those fluffy white sheep again. He's an animal to the core, he's learned this by now, and he has nothing left to offer but fangs and snarls. And then, one day a wicked queen offers to set him free...
"Wolf, I'm so sorry," Virginia says in horror.
Wolf doesn't really know what she's so terrified of, but it does feel good to be in her protective embrace. Now that he's laid it out so plain, he wonders why she isn't judging him. Surely she'll think he's worse than a common beast now. But she's looked at his scars and loved him regardless, forgave him for things he knew unforgivable, and even proclaimed that they were soulmates.
Why though? He doesn't know. He wants to whine. He doesn't deserve her. She's the one good part of his existence, and lost in the euphoria of her scent, he nestles closer as she fondles his hair.
"Are you ashamed of me?" he says, "I've changed, Virginia, I swear!"
"No, not- not of the things you said," she tells him, "but I'm not happy that you had to go through all that. I'm angry- no, I am beyond upset that all these people hurt you like this. Next time we visit Wendell, I'm going to tell him. I'm going to ask for an audience with Queen Riding Hood and I'm chewing her out."
"No no! No need for that, my dear! Don't waste your sweet breath!"
"But it sucks! I can't just sit by and say nothing."
He opens his mouth and she shushes him. "Hey! Your scars are literally on my skin. I have every right to be mad."
He can't argue with that. Seeing her so enraged on his behalf twists him with guilt, but he can't deny that she's even more gorgeous than usual in such a fuming state and he can't deny that he's bursting with happiness over this show of affection from the love of his life. He might as well tell her so. Wolf pulls Virginia into his embrace, and nuzzling her says, "I'm not done with the story. Because I got to follow a dog into the tenth kingdom afterwards."
He smiles. "And this pathetic half wolf met a girl, a real perfect gift of a girl, and he without a doubt, fell in love. So in love that he decided he didn't want to be the villain of the story anymore."
"You left out the part where you tried to eat my grandmother." But she's smiling back at him, and Wolf doesn't think he can possibly be more in love with her than he is now. Except he's wrong.
"I love you," he whispers.
She kisses him, their lips meeting for a perfect kiss. She's his soulmate, he knows, the one and only reason he was ever born.