The man releases my hand, and before I can bolt, he leans down and slips one arm under my legs, taking my feet out from under me. He lifts me up, and I let out a yelp as I swing off the ground.
“Hold on now,” he says as I wriggle in his arms, trying to escape. “I’m carrying you so you don’t have to walk. Maybe you could be a little more cooperative?”
There’s a surprising humor in his voice, and I stop moving.
“There we go. That’s easier.”
I look up into my captor’s face and there’s a hint of a smile on one side of his mouth as he heads on through the trees. There’s an inexplicable gentleness there, and though I hear Father’s warnings in my mind, the longer he carries me I also sense… compassion, I suppose I’d call it. He has a humanity to him.
Maybe he’s not going to rape me.
Eventually, the woods give way to the main road, where we pivot toward town. I remember the town square vaguely from my childhood, when Father would take me with him to market to sell his wares.
I’m shocked that the big man is still able to carry me after all this time, and his breath is just as even as it was before. He’s barely sweating.
“Will you object if I take you to my home?” he asks. “I promise, I won’t do anything untoward.”
He wants to take me to hishouse?
“Do you have a wife?”
His brow quirks. “No, I do not. But it’s clean and warm, and I have food there I can share with you.” His gaze travels down my body and then back up again, and I cover myself with my hands, not having realized after years of wearing the same few items of clothing that they didn’t fit me anymore. “You look like you haven’t had a good meal in a long, long time.”
“Father fed me.”
I don’t know why I’m defending him, but I must insist on that. He did bring me food twice a day.
“Father?” the man asks, frowning. “You say he fed you as if you were unable to feed yourself.”
My lips stick together. I wasn’t, but I don’t know if I should be telling this stranger that.
“It’s complicated,” I say instead.
He must sense that I’m not interested in talking about it, because he changes the subject.
“What is your name, then, wild woman running around the woods at night?”
I peer up into his face, where his friendly smile is still visible despite his bushy beard.
“Selene. I’m Selene.”
He nods. “I’m Harold. But you can call me Harry.”
I think that over.
“Harry,” I say, testing it. His smile gets wider.
When we reach town, Harry diverges from the road, taking us along a quaint lane with a few homes behindhedges, spread apart to allow for their own small plots. When he turns down one of the paths, I cling to him tighter as the door grows nearer.
This is a mistake. I’m going into a strange man’s house. He could lock me up, too, when he realizes what I am. Perhaps he is an alpha in disguise, and he will do what he is supposed to do. Violate me. Hurt me.
I writhe in his grasp, overwhelmed by the sudden need to escape. To get away from that door.
“Whoa, whoa,” Harry says, trying to keep me from falling. “Let me set you down.”
He lowers me to the ground, gently putting me on the front step of the house. The cold stone sends pinpricks of pain up through the wounds in my feet. While I’m trying to stay upright, he pulls a key from his pocket and puts it in the knob, then turns it and pushes the door open.
“It’s not much,” he says as he steps over the threshold, “but it’s home.”
