BEATRICE

“Is that so?” Riaghaire almost purred. Beatrice knew he must have a smirk on his face from the tone of his voice.

As funny as she found herself, someone else thinking the same was a rare occurrence. “That is so,” she nodded.

“I am now… curious,” he continued, using the same amused tone as before, “how you managed to stumble into their territory and survive?”

Beatrice let out a laugh. “Stumble? I don’t stumble anywhere, thank you very much. They, in fact, brought me here against my will.”

“Oh?” The way he enunciated that one word brought a frown to her face. He made it sound like that sort of thing rarely happened. Great. That meant this was about Beatrice herself, and not some random bad luck on her part.

Fucking. Great.

“And why would they do that?” He was edging closer to the front of his cell as he spoke and Beatrice could almost make out his face now. Glittering eyes peered at her from the shadows, making her heart stutter before she managed to look away.

“Why are you so interested?” She asked in rebuttal, not wanting him to be the only one asking questions. If he wanted answers, he would need to give some in return. “How does someone who kills werewolves end up being captured by them? And why haven’t they killed you, anyway?” That should even them out in the number of questions asked.

Riaghaire leaned back into the shadows again, as though her questions had made him lose interest in the conversation. Well, fine. She hadn’t wanted to be interesting to some stranger, anyway. “Does it matter?” He said after a while. “I am here now.”

From his voice, Beatrice could tell he’d long since resigned himself to his fate. How long had he been a prisoner, to have already given up? Should she ask, or was that too personal, as they’d only just met? “How long have you been here?” Yep, she couldn’t stop herself from asking and there was no regret to be found. She knew too little about what was going on. This man was the only one she could ask and something in her gut told her to take advantage of his willingness to talk.

“I am… unsure,” he murmured.

That was fair. Beatrice had already noted the lack of windows, meaning there would be no keeping track of time, other than through the arrival of meals — did they even bring food? Riaghaire’s state made her think otherwise, but he could tear the heads off werewolves, so maybe his metabolism was different than a normal person. “So, like… a few months? A year?,” she offered, hoping he would at least take the initiative and make a guess.

A harsh laugh came out of him. “A few months,” he echoed, still laughing. Though the intent behind her words wasn’t to be funny, it didn’t bother her than he found them as such. “You are amusing… for a human.”

Oh. Lovely. He wasn’t human. She didn’t know how to feel about this new information. On the surface, it didn’t change anything. It wasn’t like he could reach over and tear her head off; and she wasn’t a werewolf, so would he even bother? It did beg the question of what that made him. And if it even mattered.

“So I’ve been told,” Beatrice nodded. Not a lie, exactly. She found herself hilarious, after all; it was everyone else who had an issue with her sense of humour.

“I know not how long I have been a prisoner, only that it has been… a very long time.”

Great. He was leaving it for her to estimate. That wasn’t fair but whatever. Without knowing what he was, she had no way of guessing. What if he was something immortal? Did that kind of thing even exist? What about one of the supposed long lived species, like the fae? Did they exist?

“Why did they bring you into their territory?,” he inquired, interrupting Beatrice’s train of thought as it derailed down a rabbit hole.

Back to reality, she let out a heavy sigh. “Good question,” she conceded, reaching up to massage her shoulder. A bruise had formed where the guy riding shotgun had grabbed it; coupled with the tenderness from the site of the injection, Beatrice was feeling a bit beat up.

Looking over, she was surprised to find Riaghaire had moved. He was almost pressed up against the bars now, as if wanting to get a good look at his neighbour. This allowed Beatrice to see him more clearly.

His hair was long and so dark it blended into the shadows. Sunken eyes peered out between the strands, glittering in a way that made her feel uneasy. Looking into them for more than a few seconds left her feeling disconcerted. Riaghaire’s pale skin was pulled taunt over his bones, giving him hollow cheeks and a neck so thin a strong breeze might snap it in two. Sickly was the best way to describe how he looked. On the verge of death. There was still a feeling of energy coming from him, mainly in those damn eyes of his — the ones that stared at Beatrice like they would devour her whole the moment an opportunity presented itself. “You did not know of their existence?”

Shaking her head, she kept her eyes focused on his forehead. It would be rude not to look at him while they talked, but she couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze. “You’re all… You’re suppose to be stories. Myths. Not real.”

“I see now,” he whispered, more to himself than Beatrice. Riaghaire settled down more comfortably, eyes never leaving hers. “You truly know nothing of us — any of us.”

In response, she tapped the tip of her nose with a finger.

Silence fell between them as he continued to stare, one of his bony fingers idly tapping his chin as he thought about something. Then there was Beatrice, who watched him while wondering what sort of preternatural thing he might be.

She wasn’t a scholar, not by any stretch of the imagination. She enjoyed fantastical stories as much as the next person, but her interests in this sort of thing were more in the realm of mages and dragons, not werewolves.

Wait. If werewolves existed, did that mean mages and dragons might also be real? What if she could meet an actual dragon? Or a phoenix.

As her brain dove down this new rabbit hole, Riaghaire leaned forward and said, “I would like to propose a deal.”