A winter chill kissed Bowen’s cheek as his vacant gaze wavered on the woman in the red cloak. Her eyes were dark, almost black, and shimmered like ocean waters in the dead of night. Seeing them, Bowen found himself imagining the eyes of a shark in those inky depths; a shark that stared right back at him, clad in a cloud of blood. The woman blinked as her cloak snapped behind her in a frigid gust, and she turned away from him—a shark circling for its prey—and turned her attentions to Nelle. A growl crashed from Bowen’s broad chest, a sound like a landslide of rocks and bones and promises of death rolling down the jagged edges of a cliff.
The woman ignored the inhuman warning and took a long, eager step towards Nelle, a bare alabaster thigh slipping free of the hem of her dress and defying the cold.
“THE LASS IS OF NO CONCERN FOR YE!” his growl carried the words as he shouted after her, feeling the beginning of his transformation turning the last half of his warning into something that barely sounded like words.
“No!” she hissed, whirling on her heels and jabbing an accusatory finger in his direction. “Ye will no’ transform!” Her words already had an unnatural weight to them; an unspoken inflection that stilled the air around the three of them. Her index finger unwavering, she leered back in Nelle’s direction. “Ye’ll no’ transform,” she repeated, “No’ now; no’ ever,” she grinned, sacrificing her extended finger to open her hand and reveal a palm that was covered in black tribal ink.
The air grew almost too thin to breathe.
“…doona mess with me, witch!” he threatened, surprised to find the words coming out easier than they should.
The transformation always seized his kind’s ability to speak, and though he continued to will his body through the process it was taking longer than it ever had before; was demanding more focus and effort than he’d ever had to invest. The pain was there—aye, the familiar blissful agony of it—and this he accepted, even welcomed, with a sense of pride and honor. But it was taking too long! And it was taking too much of him; exhausting him well before the act had even been completed!
What is she doing to me? the words roared on the outskirts of his mind, threatening the process with an unacceptable new emotion:
Doubt.
“Ye’re right to feel afraid,” the witch’s voice was neither heard nor felt, but somehow experienced as both while, at the same time, not at all.
Bowen found himself instantly doubting she’d said anything at all.
“NO’ NOW,” the words echoed and screamed around him, sounding as though they were within a deep cavern and not standing upon the vast rolling hills. “NO’ EVER!”
His lungs halted, refusing to draw breath, and the familiar blissful agony became something unfamiliar and unrewarding. But still Bowen fought. Clenching his fists, he watched as a plume of blue smoke began to emerge from the witch’s hand. His temples throbbed and his vision blurred. Shaking his head, he resisted the encroaching darkness. More smoke swirled free from the marked palm, forcing him to double his efforts. And still more and more smoke surrounded them, saturating and perverting the air. Finally, when the entire world seemed to have been stained by the witch’s smoke, Bowen felt its weight surround him. Beyond the veil of sickly blue mist, he saw, as though the air itself had come to life, it wrap around Nelle, shining brightest around her pregnant belly.
“NO!”
His eyes widened in terror and he forfeited his struggle to transform and fight so that he might join his lover at her side. The sacrifice came too easy, but the effort to join Nelle proved just as futile. The witch! She’d robbed from him the choice to fight and now… now she was stealing from him the ability to stand by his love while they were assaulted by her unholy spell. The rage he felt at that moment should have been enough to spur the change on its own—so many of his kind before him had gone feral from this breed of hate and scorn—but nothing came of it.
Nothing…
Nay, no magic should be able to do this.
He snarled, willing his mind and body to do whatever it could—however monstrous he might become as a result—to transform; to fight. All that came of it was pain. A new, terrible sort of pain. Not the pain of his body breaking and twisting and reshaping; not the pain of strength and freedom. Nay, it was an all new sort of suffering. It was the pain of an animal confined to a cage; the pain of a wolf robbed of his fangs; the pain of weakness. Then… then he felt the greatest pain of all:
Fear.
“D-doona do this…” he pleaded.
The witch’s smile at that was unforgiving. “And how did ye respond when I asked the same of ye?” she demanded.
He had no answer to give, none that could make things right. He’d believed that whatever magic she could attempt to wield against him he’d be able to fight. He was nature after all; a wolf in sheep’s clothing. But the witch… she possessed a power he could not fight, no matter how hard he tried.
“What did ye do?” Bowen’s words were breathy and raspy, suffering from his starved lungs. He turned, seeing Nelle holding her belly and whimpering. “WHAT DID YE DO T’US?”
“Nothing ye didn’t deserve,” her voice echoed.
“Why couldn’t ye just let go? I didna love ye!” he sobbed, beginning to crawl across the frost-licked grass to join Nelle.
“That was yer first mistake, Bowen. And now ye will see exactly what yer decision has brought ye and yer family,” she said, her voice wavering somewhere between pride and sorrow. Though he could hear regret in her words, when he looked upon her he saw her painted lips curl into an expression he would never forget. “But I am no’ without mercy, Bowen—my sweet, sweet Bowen—and I am no’ heartless, and so I’ll leave ye with hope and the faith that ye might come to reverse what’s been done tonight.”
“Hope?” he growled. “Why help us? Why help when ye could just undo this?”
“A LESSON MUST BE LEARNED!” her face blanched and her hair and cloak whipped about as her own magic stirred up an uncomfortably warm current. Then, as sudden as her fury had revealed itself, it was gone, and she knelt over him, hand outstretched as though she might caress his cheek. She did not. “Your child are unharmed,” she informed him, “and they will remain unharmed until such time that the truest harm can befall them—the sort of harm ye’ve brought upon me.”
“I…” Bowen stammered, trying to make sense of her words, “I doona understa—”
“Hush, darling. Hush now and listen:” her outstretched hand wavered, as though the act of simply reaching for him pained her. “The solution rests with yer sons…”
Bowen trembled, repeating the word “sons” with all the confusion of a child. He and Nelle were expecting their first, still unaware of whether they’d be welcoming a son or a daughter to the world, and here the witch was already telling him there’d be more than just the one… and all boys?
The witch ignored him. “With yer sons,” she repeated. “With them and them finding what ye robbed from me: love.” She stood then and turned away, disappearing into the oncoming haze of an incoming storm that she’d no doubt conjured for that effect.
“But until they do—until they all do—” her voice lingered around him, “they will suffer just as ye suffer now.”
“DAMMIT! WE ARE NO’ DONE HERE, WITCH!” Bowen roared, fighting to put his feet beneath him and pursue her.
But his body wouldn’t cooperate.
And he knew then that it never would again; not how he’d want it to most.
He thought he’d have the strength to fight any magic the witch wielded against him. He was nature after all; a wolf in sheep’s clothing. But the witch… she possessed a power he could not fight, no matter how hard he tried.
The power to trap the wolf within the wool.
“BOWE!” Nelle cried, reaching for him with one hand while the other clutched her belly.
“Sweet… what troubles ye?” he turned, rushing to his wife’s side. “Is it… is it the spell? Did that witch harm ye?”
“N-nay…” she panted around the word, looking up at him, “It… it’s time!”
“Time? O-oh! At a time like this? Och!” Bowen willed his body to stand, relieved to find the crippling effects of the witch’s spell lifted with her absence, and scooped up his wife, moving to rush her back to their cave.
Though he said nothing then, not wanting to worry her any more than she already had been, he realized with grim horror that he could not call upon his bestial speed.
And just like that, he fought to keep the new pain from showing on his face, the wolf has become a sheep.
And if the witch’s words held any promise, the child Nelle was about to birth and every child she’d birth from then on was doomed to the same fate.
None of them would be able to transform, to enjoy the freedom that was the gift of their kind, and all because Bowen had dared to defy the witch. For that, she’d cursed them all to live out their lives as half of what they were meant to be. At that moment, however, looking down at the love of his life and the swollen, waiting belly that held his child—the first of many sons, he reminded himself—he wondered if such a life would truly be so terrible.