1 Chapter 1: Not Yet Mine

*Brynn*

The gravelly sound of stone scraping against stone reached Brynn’s ears a mere fraction of a second before she felt her feet start to slip. She flailed, waving her arms wildly to try and regain her balance as her body slid down the outcrop of stone toward the ice-cold stream babbling peacefully below.

She yelped, and even amidst her struggle, she was instantly annoyed at herself for it. Better to stay silent and suffer the scrapes and cold water than to let loose such a silly, feminine noise.

Arms still waggling ridiculously around her, she suddenly felt a large hand grab her unceremoniously by her left armpit, yanking her back and upward.

“Careful, girl,” Cormac said, his voice as gravelly as the pebbles she had slipped on. He didn’t let go until she had gotten her feet firmly underneath her.

“Thank you,” she said, looking at him. His face was lined with age and strife, and the hair on his head and face had dulled from its original brown. Still, he was strong both in body and mind, and his gray eyes were severe as they surveyed her.

“You can’t be careless here,” he said. “The Gap is a beautiful place and a deadly one. Look there.” He pointed down the slip of rock and Brynn saw a dark slice crossing the path down which she had been falling. Leaning over, she saw that it was wider than it first appeared - a break in the rock large enough that her body could have easily slipped through. She wondered how deep it was.

“Crevices like that one mark the landscape throughout this area, and there are more of them in the forest,” he continued. “There are huge cave systems spanning the entire Dagrun Forest. Most of the entrances are visible on the sides of cliff faces and whatnot, but not all. You wouldn’t want to fall down a break like that. No telling how deep it goes. Or what might dwell inside.”

Brynn nodded to show she understood. She would be more careful.

“Watch it, now,” Garan called from several yards behind where he pulled a small wooden cart, a jovial smile in his words. “Your father will have me skinned alive if I come back without you.”

Brynn caught Cormac’s eye roll before he turned away, and she grimaced inwardly.

The older man surely thought of her and Maeve, who was currently scrabbling across the rocks ahead of them with Trevor and Vesta, as nothing more than silly burdens he’d been made to look after for reasons he found nonsensical at best and dangerous at worst. This hunting party was one leg of an important mission, and its success or lack thereof could spell salvation or doom for the entire village of Ingram.

Their group was one of several sent out in all directions from Ingram with one goal in mind: find meat for the fast-coming winter. Ingram’s stores were perilously low - lower even than their pessimistic forecasts had guessed. One disease had ripped through their livestock while several had torn through their crops.

Many believed that the Gods had forsaken Ingram altogether, but this effort was meant to find favor again in the form of wild game. All parties were meant to travel further than their normal ranges, well past established boundaries, to find whatever the Gods might offer.

Brynn, of course, was not named to this group initially. As a 20-year-old girl, still unmarried and by all accounts a burden to her father and the greater village, she had not been named to any group despite her clear skill as a hunter. Though she was never permitted far beyond the boundaries of the village, she had hunted all the prairie lands and gentle hillsides surrounding Ingram with much success.

Still, it was Garan that got her the spot along with Maeve, her best friend, and hunting partner. Cormac, the party’s leader, hadn’t been pleased. Yet in the end, with Garan’s insistence, the two girls had been permitted to go. And here she was, proving to Cormac that she was a stupid, clumsy, yelping thing who needed him to hold her up by her literal armpits.

She sighed. Her annoyance didn’t last long, however. How could it? Here she stood in the actual Egun Gap. For as long as she could remember, she’d felt some invisible force pulling her here, to this mountain range and the mysterious Dagrun Forest beyond. Lately, that force had been so tangible she thought she might slip toward the mountains in her sleep if she weren’t careful.

Something called her here, and while she knew the life she was expected to lead was catching quickly up to her, this opportunity was far too convenient to pass by.

Brynn took in the sheer cliff faces pockmarked with belligerent, determined trees and shrubs with a pang of intense hunger. Each new view felt like a gift, and the further through the Gap they traveled, the harder her heart pounded in anticipation.

It took an entire day to clear the Gap, and it felt as though they passed over an invisible line between two worlds. The Gap itself was a land of stone speckled with a few obstinate trees determined to live no matter the circumstance. Just outside it, though, the land was dominated by enormous evergreens with sprawling roots all densely roofed in twining branches. Brynn’s anticipation grew with the sudden change.

A warmth spread through her belly despite the cold mountain air. Her blood felt like it was softly humming, both excited and soothed by her progress into the woods.

For two more days, they traveled deeper into the forest, not daring to go much further than that.

“When winter finally falls,” Cormac had warned in that ominous tone the group had grown to expect from him, “it will fall fast and hard. The Gap will fill quickly with snow and ice, and if we are not careful, we’ll find ourselves sealed into the forest until Spring.”

“Or until we freeze to death,” Trevor had offered with a shrug.

“Or starve,” Vesta added.

So they had pressed on vigorously for two days, but no more. Their base camp was a simple thing. They built a fire ring of piled stones and erected two large canvas tents on either side of it, one for the men and one for the women. Their food wares were hung from a tree in a small clearing nearby to avoid attracting bears or the like to their camp.

But, truth be told, the idea of encountering predators wasn’t so concerning as what they had not encountered so far on their journey.

They had hoped the forest, largely untouched by human hunters, would be fit to burst with game, but so far, the opposite seemed true. Still, Brynn was thrilled just to be there, and she felt as though the wild was seeping into her soul through her skin.

On their second night in camp, the group sat around their small fire. Trevor, Cormac’s closest friend and second in command, entertained them all by recounting ghost stories.

“There he saw out of the corner of his eyes, the fluttering of a silk nightgown, white as the moon, wafting between the trees. There was a gentle song on the wind,” he said dramatically, eyes glowing in the firelight. Maeve was perched on the edge of a fallen log, leaning toward Trevor fully invested in the story.

“It’s his dead wife, isn’t it?” she said.

“Now don’t ruin the story,” Trevor scolded in exasperation. “But, aye, it was the wife.” The rest of the group chuckled as Trevor tried to get back into the flow of the story.

Brynn sighed in contentment and looked up at the sky, bright dots visible beyond the mural of swaying branches and pine needles. The moon, fat but not quite full, glowed happily there among its starry friends.

When she looked back at the group, she found Garan staring at her. He raised one eyebrow and nodded his head to the side toward the trees. She nodded back, and the two quietly stood. She followed him out of the circle and into the forest.

After a short walk, he stopped and turned to her.

“You are made of opposites; did you know that?” he asked her cryptically.

“I’m sorry?” she smirked. He stepped forward, closing the small gap between them.

“Your hair is as dark as midnight,” he said. “But your skin is as pale and bright as the moon.”

“I didn’t take you for a poet,” she teased. He ignored her.

“You yearn for the wild, begging for adventure.” He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, letting his fingers trail down her neck. She felt her skin erupt in tiny goosebumps, pleasantly tingling. He smiled softly and continued, “But when I look at you, I see only home.”

She looked into his eyes. They were Ingram’s signature gray, she knew, but in what little light the night offered, they looked dark and deep. Garan was a good man, and in moments like this, she felt a marriage to him might not be so bad. He was handsome enough, for sure, and his body was strong and enticing. The way he looked at her, eyes drinking her in, made her heart race.

Still, something deeper within her resisted. By all the standards of Ingram, Garan was more than she could have hoped for in a husband. But marriage in Ingram still felt like a trap, somehow.

“I don’t think I thanked you,” she said. “Not enough, anyway.”

“For allowing you to come, you mean?” he asked, his thumb gently stroking the soft skin behind her ear. Brynn nodded.

“Think nothing of it. This time together is as precious to me as it is to you. And it wasn’t a hard thing. You may not yet be mine in the eyes of the Gods, but all of Ingram knows it anyway. And I do what I see fit with what is mine.” His grip tightened on the back of her neck, and suddenly the tenderness she had felt for him evaporated from inside her. Still, she smiled sweetly at him.

“You are so strong of spirit,” he continued his earlier revelations, “and yet so fragile.”

She pressed her body closer to his and felt him tense against her.

“And tell me,” she said, eyes sparkling at him in the moonlight, “when we are married and I am truly yours, which pasture will you graze me in? If I am your property, I should like to at least have the sweetest grass of all the livestock.” She shoved him off her and whirled around, stomping back in the direction of the camp.

Fuming, she flew through the darkness toward the sound of Trevor’s storytelling, but something stopped her in her tracks. She froze. Her senses had suddenly sharpened, her body responding to the presence of something she could not see.

There was something in the dark with her. Something large. Something wild. A warmth bloomed in her abdomen, swirling outwardly to reach her toes and fingertips. She turned slowly to the side, anticipation and a delicious sort of fear she had never known before gripping her throat.

As she stared into the darkness, she slowed her breathing. There, several yards away, two large glowing eyes stared silently at her, the moon reflected brightly in them. Without thinking, she took a step forward. And then another. That pull she had felt all her life now tugged harder than ever before.

A hand grabbed her arm from behind.

“Are you two lovebirds done making merriment in the forest?” Maeve asked, laughing. “Tell me everything.” Maeve hooked an arm through Brynn’s and led her back toward camp.

When Brynn looked back, the eyes were gone.