Red as Blood || A Snow White Retelling

Chapter Four - Do You Know What Hides In The Night?

I'm feeling a bit down since one of my favorite books on wattpad has officially ended. Once Upon a Curse by the amazing MayTijssen is completed and totally worth the heartbreak!! Go give it a shot!

Also, I apologize ahead of time for this horrible chapter. It is necessary but it definitely isn't my best.

I was usually in an emotional fray whenever I came into Thayer's workshop, but this night was different. There was a knot in my gut that simply refused to unravel and I couldn't get Snow's cold eyes out of my head. I shivered a bit in the dim hallway, suddenly longing for more than just my gown to keep me warm.

Why had I felt so weak and insignificant next to her? Like a mouse staring down a cat?

"She's dangerous!"

I batted Frewin's words out of my head. Snow wasn't dangerous. She couldn't even kill a chicken if her life depended on it. Too sweet, too kind.

But I couldn't deny that some primal part of me ached for her to have been the one that hurt Tristan. I didn't know why, nor did I try to fight that feeling. Some animal feelings were meant to be pushed down and hidden, others were meant to be embraced.

"How is he?" I asked, wiping my bloody hands on the statin of my dress. I was ruining it, I knew, but I was too worried to care.

Thayer was bent over Tristan's barely breathing body, which was laid out on a wooden table in the middle of the room. His brow was creased with concentration, mouth set in a firm like. His eyes never left the wound on Tristan's neck, even when speaking to me.

"He'll live, I believe."

I sighed in relief. My childhood friend, my brother, would live. But as one worry went, another came. Who had hurt him?

"What hurt him?" I asked, knowing it was a more logical question than asking 'who'.

"Not any weapon that I'm familiar with." Thayer sniffed, dabbing away blood with a surprisingly gentle hand. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was teeth."

"Teeth?" I mused, my frown mirroring Thayer's. "That has to be a mistake."

"Probably," The physician muttered, taking a needle and tying a thin thread to it. As he passed the shining point through a candle's flame, he met my eyes. "But when have I ever made a mistake?"

Never, that was the answer. Young as he was, Thayer had never been wrong in his diagnosis of illnesses and wounds. The only one that had stumped him was Frewin's.

I stepped around the table, walking closer to his side as he skillfully stitched together the jagged edges of Tristan's neck wound. While I wrinkled my nose at the sight of blood leaking from the cut, I couldn't help but be fascinated with Thayer's progress.

"But he'll be alright?" I asked softly.

"Yes, if I can help it."

Even with my faith in Thayer, I found myself doubting. Tristan was a pale as a course, his shallow breathing barely forcing his chest to rise and fall. It was hard to believe that the man who nearly killed himself to save a family from a storm was the same laying on the table. Too fragile, like a butterfly.