Her Wolf King

{les histoires}

Lenore couldn't sleep.

Since coming to the castle, that had been a frequent occurrence for her. But after all the excitement and exhaustion of the Court of Curses, she would've thought that slumber would come easier to her, if not a completely peaceful rest.

But after her argument with Everett—and his complete dismissal of her suggestions—she wasn't so sure she would ever sleep again. Her mind raced, her anger peaked to a fever pitch, and she could only try to shut her eyes and remember more peaceful days of old.

Searching the castle at this hour did not seem like a welcome idea. No, it was far easier and more appealing to lie back on her four-poster bed and stare up at the fireflies that flickered and danced in the leafy canopy above her head.

The sight of them reminded her of the dream she used to have every night. The one that had haunted her with its elusiveness as she raced across the meadow, night after night. Since coming to the castle, she had had no such dreams at all. She missed the vision, almost, despite its dissatisfying ending. Missed the familiarity of it all, of knowing what to expect when she lay her head on the pillow.

Now, she had no idea what she would see when she woke—or which version of her husband she would receive.

The thought irritated her. She shut her eyes against the warm, faint glow of the fireflies and cast her mind to her childhood. To the fairy stories her mother had told her.

Interestingly enough, despite the great fear of wolves in their sleepy village, her mother had always told an altered version of Little Red Riding Hood, claiming it was a story she'd heard from her own mother and her grandmother's mother before her.

"Once upon a time..." she would say. "There was a little girl who went off in the woods to visit her grandmother. During that time, the leaves were falling, and the air was changing. The little girl knew it was autumn, but she didn't care. She enjoyed dawdling along the path, even though her mother told her to hurry. She stopped to leap into every pile of leaves, to dance with the swaying trees, and to twirl around, showing off her new red dress.

By the time she reached her grandmother's cottage, the woods were covered in snow, and she couldn't see which house belonged to her grandmother. She wandered through the small village, but she became hopelessly lost. The little girl grew scared, and began to cry. As she was crying, her tears turned to ice. One of them struck the ground at her feet, and out of her frozen tears sprang a path.

The path was covered in roses, and the roses led her through the village. She thought perhaps they were her grandmother's roses, and that her grandmother had sent a sign to show her which house belonged to her. But as she followed the roses, she didn't make it to her grandmother's house. Instead, she made it to a cave, and in that cave, was a wolf.

The little girl was very scared, because she thought she had been lured into the wolf's cave and that he was going to eat her. So she fainted dead away. But when she woke up, the wolf had brought her something to eat."

Then, Lenore had always interrupted her mother. "But how did the wolf cook the food?"

Her mother had always smiled, that tender, amused expression lighting her face in a golden glow. "Oh, Lenna, why, he brought her some potatoes he had dug up from someone's cellar."

"She ate raw potatoes?" Lenore made a face. "Blech!"

Her mother chuckled. "May I continue the story, Lenore>?"

"Yes, please!"

"Well, the wolf brought her something to eat, and he covered her with the skin of one of the animals he had killed, a deer. So, she wore that deer skin and stayed all warm and cozy in the cave with the wolf. He would hunt for them or bring her food, and she would share with him the lovely red apples she had brought with her to give to her grandmother."